"..to shoot good indoor & outdoor video of my family and children.." as Christopher Zimmerman wants to do, in a similar thread, you'd really want to be sure of good
low light shooting, for indoor use.
As Lizette says (above) a TRV900, or other 3-chip camera, is great, but may be too pricey for you. Some Digital-8 (..same thing as miniDV, but larger tapes..) camcorders shoot well in low light (..e.g; TRV330..) but you'd really have to try things out in a shop, and point the camera somewhere dark, and check what options you have in the camera's menus ..such things as 'LOW LUX' or 'Candle Light' or similar.
iMovie - as has been said before, mainly by Lennart - is compatible with miniDV or Digital-8 (..or more professional DVCAM..) shooting, but is NOT compatible with hard disc recorders, solid-state chip recorders, 'microMV' camcorders, DVD camcorders or other non-standard cameras, so avoid those! ..or you'll have to use all sorts of complex workarounds to feed those cams' video into iMovie. So don't even think about it for now!
For shooting indoors you'll also probably need a wide-angle adaptor lens, so that you can fit several people into the shot. Camcorders do not shoot wide enough, normally, to show more than one or two people in a normal room at about 8 or 9 feet away. (..The TRV900 has a particularly wide view - another reason why it is ..or was.. a great camcorder..)
If you think you might want to shoot more than 'moving snapshots' ..e.g; anything related to work, which ought to be of a decent quality.. look for a cam with a socket for an external microphone, and a headphone socket, so that you can record better audio than with just the built-in mic, some of which pick up camera noise in quiet surroundings indoors. [..The headphone socket is for checking that the audio sounds OK while recording, if you might not be able to reshoot later..]
Some European [PAL system] cameras may not have FireWire DV IN connections, but only DV OUT. That means that without DV IN you won't be able to send your edited movies back to a tape in the camcorder, but may only export to iDVD, or to QuickTime for replay on a computer.
If you have older format tapes, or might want to record from some other source such as a VCR or a TiVo or Sky+ Box or some such device, try to get a camcorder which has a 'pass through' facility: this lets you feed in any other video & audio source, such as VHS cassette in a VCR, and pass that out down the FireWire cable and into iMovie, without having to re-record the source onto a miniDV tape in the camera first.
Oh, and there probably won't be the necessary FireWire/DV/'i.Link' 4-pin-to-6-pin cable in the box (..only a fairly useless USB cable, for transferring stills, or for using it as a webcam..) so you'll need to buy a separate cable, too!
