basically your looking at buying a dvd camera now so you would preferrably have a dvd recorder or computer you can upload the footage to. You normally receive the software to upload to the computer with the camera but don't get any fancy editing footage, although it may have basic editing software as in cutting it short deleting parts of what you shoot etc.

We have a Sony Cybershot one which has a 60gb harddrive and 60x zoom (I think cant remember) .

You can either get a hardrive in the camera or a memory stick that you can take in and out, the more memory you can get the more hours of footage you can take. Just like a normal digital camera the more megapixels the better and the zoom is always something to look for. http://http://www.priceme.co.nz/Sony-DCR-SR47E/p-882617416.aspx - http://http://www.priceme.co.nz/Sony-DCR-SR47E/p-882617416.aspx  this is the one we have so high storage on the hard drive but also able to be used with a memory stick takes still photos as well as videos. Found the editing software easy from memory. The screen is touch screen. You turn it on point and shoot zoom is on the top, a feature that I like is the steady shot although it doesn't make it perfectly still its a lot better then the shaky hand syndrome you get otherwise. We got ours on sale and mum is paying it off monthly haha.

HTH and doesn't confuse you