[Mr Punch]

Hi - I'm looking to purchase a couple of decent camcorders for the school in which I work. Can anyone recommend a good standard def HDD camera, preferably not one that outputs .MOD files?

It needs to have a 3.5mm mic in socket and a memory card slot would be useful.

Because of the limitations I'm working with it needs to be a HDD model.

Do any of the HD camcorders have a SD recording option? There seems to be a world of choice in terms of HD camcorders these days, but any machine that produces footage that requires downscaling would be out of the question because of the restrictions on our network. Quite simply we need a HDD camera that produces standard .mpg footage out of the box.

Many thanks in anticipation of your replies.