Mini DV Video Cameras

[koiman]

I'm looking to buy a digital video camera, I want to know what spec decides the quality of playback on the TV.

Some people quote 500 lines, is that good?

[khana]

I'm no expert but I believe that the higer the resolution (lines) then the better the quality. Of course the lens will also have a bearing on quality and I understand that some of the newer camcorders use 3 separate chips (ccd's) to capture each of the red,green and blue colours separately which also improves things.
The last thing I would say is that the new hard drive camcorders from JVC look quite cool and while expensive would save on the purchasing of digital tapes.