[OT] Digital camcorder recommendations?

[amalventano1 at tds.net (Allyn)]

For that price point I'd comb ebay for a sony DCR-TRV27. I have one and couldn't
be happier. Sony DV cams in particular have the ability to pass normal video
(vcr, etc), through the camera, and out the firewire port to a pc, which saves
having to buy a converter if you ever want to archive all of those old videos.
The models newer than the TRV27 seem to have pushed everything to the touch
screen and made it a pain to just grab the thing and shoot, which is what I need
to do for those occasional kid shots, which is likely to be the same as your
purpose.

HTH
Al