Help me shop for a video camera? Recommendations?

Hello Friends,
I have been lurking in the forum and decided to ask for help. Thank you in advance for your thoughts, opinions.
My (old) current video camera is a Panasonic AG-EZ20 (1998?) which uses mini-dv tapes and firewire (1.1 megapixel). My old laptop died and I had to buy a new one with Windows Vista. Now I HAVE to upgrade to PPro (I was happy with Premiere.old).
My new Toshiba laptop has AMD64x2 chip (2.2 ghz) with 3 gb ram, 250gb hard drive has 125gb free, and I have an external 250gb storage drive. Is it sufficient?
My video projects are not professional. However, striving for quality at the prosumer level is a fun hobby worth spending time and money on. I will be shooting events, vacations, you-tube stuff about car repair hobby, NOT cinema epic or high definition type stuff.
I like the idea of a 3-ccd camera. Is there something about capture via firewire using mini-dv tape that is bad or troublesome compared to the new hard drive cameras and 3-CCD quality?
I have been looking at video cameras on Ebay and B&H photo. The AG-DVX100B seems like champagne compared to my old camera. Another thought was a PV-GS350 or PV-GS500 camera which would probably be an improvement that is reasonable priced. If you are happy with your camera, PPro software and computer please tell me about your kit? Is there a web site you found useful in your search for pre-sale information? I was hoping to spend less than $1,000 on the camera, but I would spend more if the ease of capture/edit and quality of output helped me justify it.
I look forward to reading your responses!

Although E-bay can be attractive, I agree with Harm on this (not so much on HDV though). I also agree with his recommendation RE; B&H. I purchased my VX2000 and XH-A1 from them and most of the accessories as well as still cameras. Are you aware that B&H sells used equipment? This could be an option if $$$ is issue.
To emphasize on the others--by all means mini-DV transport. Yeah, its inconvenient to lug around a few extra mini-Dv tapes--they take up so much room in a jacket pocket. So, save the inconvenience of tapes and get a cam with HDD--then you can either stop shooting when the disk is full or drag around a laptop to take an hour from shooting to download so you can continue shooting--much more convenient!! (wink wink).

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Sorry that no one replied to your original query. We're users here - just as you are - and questions sometimes just slip through the cracks when we're not looking.
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Mac OS X (10.4.1)
Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Standard Definition (the format which the DVX100 shoots in) has a relatively straightforward editing workflow, tried and tested in recent years and easy to work with, particularly if you are working on a budget and are restricted to using an iMac, which has less options for expandability i.e adding a second firewire bus (not firewire port - sometimes you can get problems capturing video via firewire if you have your transfer deck or camera hooked up to your computer on the same firewire bus, despite being on separate ports - not always and you may never experience the problem, but if you're editing in more than a casual user environment you don't want to take the risk)
You can't add e-sata drives (alternative to fW drives) via an e-sata card on an iMac whereas you can with a macpro which can also add internal storage whereas an imac can't.
HDV which the XA-H1 shoots in, is at the lower end of the Hi Def formats, looks great when shot well and displayed on a large screen hi-def tv, but is highly compressed and causes problems in the editing workflow.
Ideally, you want to have a monitor or at least a portable tv hooked up to your computer for external monitoring of your video - to check whether titles are correctly displayed within the title-safe areas and more importantly for colour correction as computer displays and tvs don't display video the same and whereas this may not be important if you're videoing your great aunt's birthday or the kids playing in the park, if you're doing serious stuff, such as commercials or short films you need to be able to monitor externally.
Performing this is simple if you're editing standard def but if you're editing HDV you can't do this using the method described.
You either have to use a combination of HD monitor such the Apple 23" Cinema display coupled with the Matrox MXO card or use a compatible capture card to convert to a more edit friendly format such as dvchpro to avoid long render times - both options will cost more than the price of the imac on it's own and is why it's recommended to get a macpro tower when using a Proapp such as FCP if you're hoping to edit for a living or if you're a serious and regular user.
That's not to say you cant edit HDV using a imac and external FW hard drive set-up - I'm sure many contributors to this forum do - just to illuminate the possible difficulties.
Also, when shooting in any hi-def format, your technical camera skills need to be more proficient - focus in an image that is blown up to higher sizes if much more critical and you're going to show every blemish and wrinkle of a character's skin.
Yeah, the XA-H1 is a fine camera for shooting with from a camera and image perspective - much more difficult to deal with the footage as an FCP editor and potentially a lot more expensive if you want/need to do it properly.
Yes, as large hi-def tv's become more widespread, Hd is going to become the format of the future - as I've no doubt, will tapeless cameras.
Many Prosumer HDV cameras offer the option of downconverting in-camera to standard def, meaning you can shoot in the HDV format, then downconvert to standard def for editing, retaining the HDV master for future re-editing if you don't currently have the setup capable of editing HDV natively or if, in future, the HdV editing workflow becomes easier to deal with.
This may be your best option, but you'll need to check if the XA-H1 has this facility - I'm not familiar with this camera but know that the Sony Z1 or v1 both offer this facility.
Don't forget, there's not yet an inexpensive way of burning HD/HDV material to DVD that'll play in the majority of HDDVD/Blu-ray players yet - that's coming in the near(ish) future, so if you are outputting to DVD, you'll have to do this in SD anyway.
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Search the forum for HDV to check out the current thinking on editing HDV - there's masses of opinion out there.
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Help me shop for a video camera? Recommendations?

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