Canon Optura 40 MiniDV Camcorder w/14x Optical Zoom. For 600 is that a good price?

VC GZ-MG555 Hybrid Camera with 30GB HDD, 5MP CCD, 10x Opt Zoom and Dock.
What is the difference between HDD, and MiniDV? Or do they not relate to one another? Would I need a firewire for this type of camera?

You'd need firewire for that too. Although tapeless sounds great, it's a waste of time in terms of recording to HDD. 5MP shouldn't matter because it's a camcorder, not a camera. I mean hybrids shouldn't be used for filmmaking, if you're going to buy a camcorder. HDD cameras record in MPEG-2. This means that it's compressing the quality right away and then when you edit, you'll have to re-compress again. It's just a big decrease in quality, from start to finish.

-Kegan

MiniDV is tape, and HDD is Hard drive...

And it depends on what your doing with it...For miniDV I'm pretty sure that you need a firewire to import onto computers, but for Hard Drive I don't think you do...

As far as the camera price it's pretty average...You can find handycams that cost anywhere from $200ish to $1500 depending on the features and brand...I'm biased to sony myself but I don't really have that much experience with Canon's camcorders...the digital camera we have has been giving us a lot of grieve...

Ooops...correcting my message from above I guess you do need a firewire for HDD...I didn't see Kegan's message until after I posted mine so it looks like I'm correcting him...so go with his answer

When I use a shotgun mic is the sound just improved and recorded on the minidv tape or do I need something else to record it on?
Thanks gdot

It records on the same minidv tape, but it's not just about quality increase. It's the type of sound recording. Buying a shotgun mic will increase your sound quality yes, but is more used outdoors because of its spatter like sound pickup.

-Kegan