I don't have much of an opinion - I don't keep up with this stuff as much as I used to and certainly don't get to try or play with a bunch of different camcorders like I could when I worked at a Best Buy :)

That said... well it's a Canon so if it's not good I'd be surprised - I have a Canon Optura Xi which I don't think they sell/make anymore but they still have a product page for it http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&amp;fcategoryid=174&amp;modelid=9371
Other than the way my specific camera loads tapes from the bottom (makes it impossible to load a tape while it's mounted to a tripod) I have no major complaints I can think of.  The Optura Xi cost around $1000+ so comparing it to one of their cheaper camera might not be fair... but I hope the lens in yours is just as good as mine because I think the image quality from mine is outstanding.  If I were going to buy a camera today I think I'd look for one with a hard drive instead of tapes but I'm not totally sure about that... having a library of tapes as a backup is a good thing.  Shoot the tape, dump the video to hard drive or DVD and put the original tape in a box or on a shelf somewhere.  All you need now is  DVD recorder with firewire input :)

I haven't done a lot of recording to MiniDV but I use Sony tapes when I do and I've never experienced problems with the tape jamming, breaking or anything like that... don't even know for sure if there are other MiniDV tape brands readily available other than Panasonic.  As for the memory card, the bigger the better especially if you're going to record video to the card :)  I think 2GB cards are running around $40 to $50 in stores lately but not sure.

The imaging sensor in the camera is less than 1 megapixel according to this: http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-zr830-minidv-camcorder/4505-6500_7-32172623.html  so if you already have a better digital still camera I'd stick to that for still pictures.

videosean@hotmail.com - you can add me to msnim with that address if you want.