Camcorder advise please...

[Chaka of the Pakuni]

I want to buy a camcorder. A small simple one that I could take out backpacking and such. I know absolutely nothing about video equipment. Nothing.

My tv is a 19" 20+ year old JVC CRT type tv. I don't watch much tv...

Any way..... Looking at Newegg, I see different resolutions are available. 1080 (is this wide-screen?), 720, etc. Which do I want? Then I see there are high definition models as well, but they look like more than I want to spend (I'd like to keep this around $300-350). I'm also confused about the memory type. They all seem to have an internal HDD, and then you can add an SD card? Is that right?

Totally confused. I guess I should stop by Frys tomorrow and talk to the sales peeps in the video department.

[Flaming Cheese Wheel]

1080 is the number of horizontal lines of resolution. 1080 and 720 are both "High Definition." Both are more than your TV will handle.

Some have internal hard drive, most of the others will have at least a little bit of flash memory. Virtually all have an SD card slot.

[stujitsu]

Just get a flip cam, they are cheap and easy.

[Boss Llama]

Just get a flip cam, they are cheap and easy.

...and discontinued :-/

[Flaming Cheese Wheel]

The Flip, in the hands of Cisco, wasn't really doing so well with the times versus camera phones though. [Edit: A slightly different take on the matter.]

How long do you plan on keeping this thing, Chaka? Or, for that matter, the TV? If the TV isn't an issue you might as well get something nicer and feed it into your computer.

[stujitsu]

Just get a flip cam, they are cheap and easy.

...and discontinued :-/

I'm sure Amazon will have some extras

[dredfox]

Just get a flip cam, they are cheap and easy.

...and discontinued :-/

I came here to say this.

[Chaka of the Pakuni]

I'm more concerned with recording stuff and posting it online for people to view (youtube, etc) than I am watching on my tv (I just posted my tv specs to show how out of touch I am with video equipment).

After stopping by Frys today, I may get one of these:

http://camcorder.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL028901

SD memory only (two slots), so I would need to buy a card also.

[Flaming Cheese Wheel]

Fair enough.