Christmas Present (to self)

[Matthew Urban]

Good evening all!

I am planning to make a purchase of some stuff for my kids (and me) to
make home DV movies.  My budget is a $1000.

Presently I have an Summer 2000 iMac DV 400hz, with a 9gig hard drive
and 576 mb RAM running 9.2.   iMovie 2 is installed I plan on buying the
following:

A Canon ZR45MC @ $500 (through buying over the internet) 'out the door';
an external LaCie Hard Drive @ $240; a tripod, carrying bag and several
mini-DV tapes @ $100; and since I have budget, Jaguar at $130.

My questions for the group are- is there another low-end DV camera that
would be a good buy at $500 or less; would an internal hard drive be
better (and what would be compatible as I heard there imay be an ATA 
controller speed issue) is 576mb RAM enough? are there
any Jaguar compatibiltiy issues.

Thanks in advance!

Matthew