Last week I went to use my Canon ZR85 video camera to record our dog doing something wacky. When I turned it on, instead of an image on the screen, I saw lines. After futzing around with it, I came to the conclusion that the CCD was busted as playback worked fine. We’re going on vacation soon and I know that my wife will want video of it, so I started research into a new camera. I don’t use the video camera all that much, so I didn’t want anything real fancy and didn’t want the bottom of the barrel. I went to Circuit City to look around, looked online, and settled on a Panasonic PV-GS36 that I bought at Costco for $279 (there was a coupon this week). For the price, I don’t think I could beat it. It has similar specs to the Canon I’m replacing, but I must say that the user interface (via a joystick) is far superior to anything else I’ve seen. It seems to have everything I want and we’ll see how well it does. I hate that we’re a disposable society, but getting my Canon repaired would probably be a minimum of $100 to look at it and then the cost of parts. Then I’d only get a 30 or 90 day warranty on the repairs.