[HeadlessNorseman]

So, my expensive waterproof camera ended up getting stepped on, and said person offered to buy me a new camera. Ive wanted a digital video camera for sometime now, because thats mostly what i did with the photo camera anyways. So im just looking on input for some positives and negatives of brands and options, looking in the 300-400$ range. Are the cheaper internal hard drive models any good? or the ones that take mini DVDs? ive never owned a video camera so some help would be appreciated. And what am i looking out for features wise? Im also looking for something with a mic input...not sure if thats a pretty standard feature or not. Thanks everyone!