We buy the absolute cheapest DV camcorder that Wal-Mart sells that has a firewire out. I think it was $175.

The first one lasted a bit over a year and then the heads crapped out. The second one is still going strong at over 2 years. I think it's a JVC. Our editor said that when he was in film school, they had a bunch of capture stations set up with the same camcorder and that's how they did all their capture as well.

Since the data being captured is digital, there's no difference whatsoever in capturing from a $175 piece of crap or a $5000 high end DV camcorder. From my perspective, it's cheaper to throw away a crappy camcorder every couple years than to pay to have a quality deck repaired every couple years, and as of yet, I haven't found any downside to our workflow

Of course... for dvcam, this won't work, and I don't really have any suggestions, except maybe to buy a very used machine and then pay to have the head assembly replaced with a brand new one.