Doug,
After ROAR 2 I decided we needed a camcorder to go with the dslr. I bought the canon hg21. It has a 120g hard drive and a slot for an sd card. I added an 8g sd card. With the 120g hard drive I can take 11 hours of hd video. The only thing I might have done different is to not pay up for the 120g hard drive and go with the 60g drive. I would suggest looking at the info on this one. I bought from B&H which is low price. As you are in NY it might not save you as much. I have used B&H for a lot of photo stuff over the years and always been happy. From my research Canon was a leader in the camcorder area. As you might remember my dslr is a Nikon. The video I have taken so far are quite excellent in quality. My only complaint is my computer is old and it takes for ever to create a high format dvd.

I bought the extra battery with more capacity and the 8g sd card when I bought the camcorder. I would recommend doing this. The battery that comes with the hg21 is not a high capacity one. B&H also included a carry case which works very well.

Hope this helps if you have any other questions let me know. Looking forward to seeing you and Andi on NILE and ROAR 3.