Shopping for a camcorder has never been an easy experience, but there has been constant improvement in the quality of video that can be obtained. Before you buy a camera, know what your final destination for your video is. Is it YouTube? Then you won’t need the highest quality camera because this is low resolution video. However, having said that, YouTube does offer HD quality video on their site, so high resolution video is now an option. Will you be making a DVD? Then you’ll want to get a high quality camera. Will you just re-watch it on your TV? Make sure you’ve got the right cables to make the connection. If you’ve got an HDTV, you might want to consider and HD camera. If you’re ready to shop you can start with Cnet’s camcorder reviews. Otherwise, here’s what to look for in a video camera (also known as camcorders):

• HD – Determine if you want to do HD video or not. The advantages are that you have the high resolution to output to an HDTV. The disadvantage is that HD is a new format with somewhat limited support, and it’s more time consuming to edit.
• Automation – Decide whether you want a camera that you just set on automatic and it does everything for you, or if you want to control exposure, focus, audio, etc. It is strongly recommended that you get a camera that at least gives you manual focus control. Auto-focus is nice, but there will be times when the camcorder won’t know what you are trying to focus on. You can fix bad exposure in a video editing program. You can’t fix focus after the fact.
• Media Types – The ways in which you can store video are constantly evolving. DV Tape, mini-DVD, hard disk, and SD memory cards are all used to store your recorded video. So which one should you choose? Whichever format you decide to go with, make sure you know what you need to transfer your video from the camera to the computer. The new AVCHD format is somewhat problematic because there is still limited support for editing it. Also, you need a very fast machine to edit AVCHD in real-time. Here’s a video round-up of AVCHD editors.
• Audio – Most people don’t think about audio when they look for video cameras, but it is at least equally important. Imagine these two scenarios. Scenario one, you recorded a lecture, but you forgot to take off the lens cap and you only got the audio. Well, that’s a big problem, but you can at least post the audio somewhere and people can listen. Scenario two, you get great video images from your camcorder, but you were far enough away from the speaker that the audio is inaudible. Unless you were going for the silent movie effect, your video is pretty useless. That’s why good audio is so important to good video. Bad audio is very noticeable. Good audio isn’t noticed at all. Look for a camera that has an external microphone input, so you have the option to add a quality microphone. Also look for a camera that has a headphone jack so you can monitor the audio that is being recorded. There’s a good reason why you see professional videographers wearing a set of headphones. They don’t want the surprise of unwanted sounds being captured. A good directional, lapel, or handheld microphone will do better than a camera’s on-board microphone almost every time.
• Image Quality – How important is video image quality to you? Cameras with multiple video sensors will give a better image (generally) than single sensor cameras, but they cost more.
• Photos – Do you want your camcorder to have the ability to take photos too? Keep in mind that you won’t get the resolution (generally) that you get from your digital still camera.
• Image stabilization – There are also cameras with image stabilizers that reduce the shakiness of handheld video, so you may want one with that feature. They’re handy if you are zooming way into the action and you need a steadier shot. They have a limit to how steady the video will appear. Tripods are better tools to use to get steady video.
• Firewire – While firewire connections generally only come on cameras that use the DV format, there is another advantage of having a camera with firewire. You can record live video directly to the hard drive of a computer, or use the camera as a high quality web cam by using the firewire connection.

Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t seen this site already, drop what you’re doing and go to makeinternettv.org. This is a fantastic site with soup to nuts coverage on what it takes, well, to make Internet TV. The site is broken into chapters that are titled, Equipment, Shoot Video, Edit, License, Publish, and Promote. There are videos and screencasts of equipment and software that can be used in the creation process. It is certainly the most complete and well organized resource on the subject I have seen so far, and the wiki will only further the value of this material. Superb!