I need a basic video recorder to shoot short clips to load up to my web site to show products working and short interviews. They will need to be stream-able, so the files will be relatively small.

Are these solid state little camera's from Maplins up to the job:

Cheapy

Or would I be better with something like this:

Not so cheap

Or just a regular Mini-DV camera

The main problem you'll have with either of those cheaper ones (and cheapo's in general) is that they have CMOS sensors instead of CCD which you will get on a DV camcorder.

The problem you get with CMOS is that they "scan" the frame rather than display it all at once. What this means is that when panning the camera you get a noticable "skew" effect. If you're not planning on using the camera for fast panning (like in-car footage etc) then it'll no doubt be fine.

Take a 25fps video for example. With a CCD, it will take a picture every 1/25th of a second and display it as one. With a CMOS, it will be scanning down the frame over the period of 1/25th of a second displaying as it goes. Basically every frame you see isn't a point-in-time, but a scan over 1/25th of a second - so when you pan the camera, the bottom will be skewed in relation to the top.

This website can probably explain it better than I can: -

http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

Maplin do a CMOS bullet camera which a few guys on here use for in-car footage, including paul fishers here: -

http://www.youtube.com/paulfisher478

If you watch the recent videos, you will see the kindof wobble and skew you can get. You need to decide whether that's an "artefact" you are happy with for your productions. They're perfectly acceptable for youtube type productions etc and web streaming as you say, but if you ever plan to put anything to DVD or display on a full size TV I'd err towards the DV.

Of course CCD's have their own artefacts as the link shows.

I use one of these:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=222512&C=Newsletter&U=08P05_6&T=-11222767

But with a bullet cam rather than the one that comes with it (I bought an earlier version before they bundled it with a cam so not sure how good that small cam is)