• 340,000 effective pixels should be your dead minimum resolution. Always look at the effective pixel count versus the actual pixel count. The effective pixel count is how many pixels make up the image, rather than the pixels present on the CCD (charge-coupled device).
• If you really want to spend some money, get a camcorder with 3 CCDs. The CCD converts images into electronic signals, which are transferred to the tape. Multiple CCDs break the image into the component colors and process each one separately, which improves picture quality.
• Media: miniDV is the industry standard. The cassettes are small, which keeps the chassis size and weight down, and the video quality is reasonably high.
• Do not expect quality footage of a football game with an entry-level budget-model camcorder. Not gonna happen.

(*) For example, If you have a choice today you most likely choose Flash memory rather than DV tape. A 16GB Flash memory cost €70