I'm looking at getting a video camera, and I'm lost as to what to look for. It's main use will be for out ATVing. I know I want something with image stabilization (that might be a common thing now).

I seen some take tapes, others use DVD / mini disc's, some use memory. What's the recommended route here?

Any help is appreciated.

I have a Sony with a hard drive. I can either download to a computer or directly to a DVD burner. I bought the larger of the hard drive models and I think I can put up to 14 hrs on it. I paid a little more though, I think about $700 last year. The smaller hard drive (7 hrs of time) was about $100 less. With the way prices come down you should be able to find one close to $500.

I would recommend Canon.
For the price and feature for feature they are a great camera.

Mini DV would be my suggestion.

One thing you want to look at especially if you think you may want a HELMET CAM in the future is make sure they will accept one and have a "LAN" port for the remote. It will be a small round hole hole with blue around it.

I made mistake of buying a Canon great camera and duz great job. But had to buy a SONY that had the "LAN" so I can use helmet cam and remote.

True, forgot about that.
Thanks COB.

Kenny, you indicate you want to use it for atving. Please give us some idea of when atving. Some of the new still cameras will shoot some video - the length depending on the memory. If you only need some short video lengths you might consider something like this.

Well after months of pondering the thought, I ordered a Canon DC330 DVD camcorder. My Canon Powershot A710 does take movies, but the quality isn't really there when you zoom out. I have 3 months to learn how to work it.

A friend of mine just bought the V HOLDER vid cam and seems to like it a lot easy to use , 2 hours on a single charge,about $350 has a 2GB card, has laser stablization, its a helmet cam.