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I've always had the best results with Sony video equipment. A camera labeled as a "Megapixel" camera is a good thing, and one labeled as "3-chip" or "3-CCD" is even better -- of course, you pay for that and it's not really necessary, especially if the camera is primarily for short little video clips for web streaming.
Now, if you're talking about the Canon XL1 range, which are NOT camcorders, then you're getting closer to the professional range. I think you might be able to get one for $1500. They have much higher quality lenses, I believe they're 3-CCD (one light detector each for Red, Green, and Blue), and are generally respected as being very good.
So, if you're going for pricey, get the Canon XL1, XL1-S, or similar. If you're going for handheld and not so pricey, go for the Sony. You can get a VERY good Megapixel camera for under $1000 from Sony (it might be an older model number, but the Sony TRV-27 is an excellent model).
I have used the small Canons and I personally think the quality is lacking -- they're so small that the teensy little lens is just not enough. Now, camcorders on the whole have small lenses, but those Canon Z-series ones are TINY. I always, even using several different cameras, get a kind of cloudy and hazy image. You may be compressing these images, but compression can only work with what you've got, so it's better to start out with a nicer, clearer image.
Another note: the stills a video camera can take a dreadful. Absolutely horrid. Most cameras have the option nowadays, but I certainly wouldn't pay extra for the feature. The quality of a video camera's image is nothing compared to a full-fledged digicam or (gasp!) a film camera. You probably won't be happy with the images, especially if their for publicity.
I'm not positive about MPEG compression sizes, but I know that a heavily compressed (and scaled down) Windows Media video (which is some of the better compression, in terms of size) of approximately 1 min 45 sec is 9 megabytes -- you might be able to compress it more, especially if you use some specialty compressors like DivX, but then you risk putting files on your website that no one can open because they don't have the right decompressor codec.
Tim B.
89 900S 5spd HB 170k (healthy again with new spark plugs)
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