I'm shopping for a video camera---want a hard drive and simple features, & operation. To be used for family and home---nothing fancy. Anyone have experience with any lemons or have recommendations? Thank you
A simple one (though no hard drive) is the "Flip"... picture quality is excellent... stores about 1 hour of video on memory card, then can easily download to your computer. About $120.
To take the opposite end of the spectrum: I can't comment on the "nothing fancy" requirement, but if you have an HD television, or are going to get one you should definitely go with an HD video camera. I have a Sony (they have hard drive HD ones now) and when I plug the camera into the Plasma via HDMI the picture is unbelievably good compared to a regular video camera. Everything is going the HD route so you may want to think of your kids watching these videos decades from now.
I have always been a fan of Canon products something like this should serve you well: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HG10-Camcorder-Review-33146.htm