“I want to record some videos for my website what’s the best way to go about this”
The best video format to put into a website is definitely flash, flash is playable on almost all computers and just about everyone has flash installed so the user doesn’t need to do anything. The video should just work without any extra steps for the visitor.
And if you do choose to use flash, you don’t really need a hi-def camera unless you really want your video to be hi-def or maybe offer the hi-def version as a downloadable option. You could also use HD video as archives, so it’s not a bad ideal to shoot in hi-def. But that’s not necessary for flash videos on the web.
I really like the Canon VIXIA HV30 which will capture high-definition video to MiniDV at a very affordable price, 600 bucks. When you do find the right camera, use the camera to shoot the video then import it to some editing software like Adobe Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio or Sony Vegas. Mac users can use Final cut or Final cut express or even iMovie will do for simple editing tasks.
If the software that you’re using allows you to output the video to flash that’s great but most software will not output the video directly to flash, if that’s the case choose a good quality output like H.264 which is a very good quality format. Now all you need to do is convert the h.264 video and convert the video to flash using something like Adobe Flash Encoder which will convert it into a FLV file which you can then put on your website.