So I’ve figured out that Lady Chance wants a Digital Camcorder for her gift. But I don’t really know enough to puzzle it out. I think these make sense:
Both look likely. But I don’t really sling the lingo.
Cri de coeur: Can anyone help me?
Tha panasonic has a better CCD, higher resolution, and it is miniDV, which is much more of a standard.
The sony has a better built in video light, it looks like, but it’s hard to tell from the web.
Ignore the Digital Zoom, you will never use this.
Between these two, I would definitely go for the Panasonic. (I’ve owned Sony and Canon digital camcorders). The features are mostly the same, the only concern I have is that I found no reference to the LCD screen on the Panasonic swivelling. This a very handy feature, especially for camera shy kids, it makes it easier to film covertly.
Thanks!
Can you define MiniDV and CCD for me? The explanations online aren’t much help.
MiniDV is the type of tape it records to. It was designed to be small and to hold an hour of DV compressed video (the DV codec is a software algorythm that compresses the video data so that it can be stored more efficiently). The Digital8 tape format is an extension of the the Hi8 format, with better quality tape, but IIRC is limited to Sony, is bigger, and is not really adopted across the board as a standard. If you decide you hate Sony for whatever reason, you can’t switch to another manufacturer, and still view all of your old tapes.
CCD is a Charged Couple Device, a sensor array that converts red, green, and blue light into an electrical signal.
Mmm. So there’s an actual tape media involved and not just a disk or some equivalent?
The Panasonic says it comes with a video light.
Yeah, the Panasonic doesn’t come with a flash card slot so you can’t record to one. Very few people would want to record directly to a flash card though, since getting one that could hold more than a few minutes of video would be super expensive.
The sony uses memory stick which you could use to record to. But the prices for memory stick (at least in the several-gig range you’d need to record 10-30 minutes) would cost probably more than the digi-cam 
I’d personally go with the Panasonic as well. The CCD is better so you’ll get a better picture than the Sony.
(This thread indirectly answers a little nagging question I’ve been meaning to email the OP about.)
PC Magazine recently reviewed digital camcorders.
This Article explains the basic features.
In the article there’s a link to a sidebar explaining the pros and cons of DV vs DVD. I usually see DV referred to as MiniDV in advertisements. This is a small tape casette that holds 60 min of video (I also saw 80 min extended casettes) that a quick search showed selling for $7 to $15 apiece. The mini DVDs are 3" disks that hold about 30 min of video (possibly 60 min discs are available). A quick search showed 3" DVD-RWs (reusable) from $5 to $12.
Click Next at the bottom of the article for the editor’s choices for $500 and under, $501 - $800, and $801 - $1000.
What, was it bugging you?
Nah, not bugging me, just idle curiosity 
If you never plan on editing your videos, then the ones that record to DVD are fine, but since they record using an MPEG codec, the video quality will degrade as soon as you start running it through and editing process.