Camera for sending in to professionals?

This is not a question for me but someone I know, there on a pretty low budget but I know there just gonna have to find more money :), they want a camera for making short films to send in to producers this person doesn't really care about hd more of internet quality so standard should be fine but since it is going to be sent in to people what do you recomend as the best cheapest video camera for this? It'll be pretty random so a good all around camera should be good.

mini dv cameras are cheaper than dvd hdd etc and are better quality, so that would be my starting point. manual control of shutterspeed and iris (aperture) would be nice, microphone input (good audio can make our break a film) is better and a 3 ccd camera will give you much better colour control and calibration. you should be able to get most of that for under $1000 without to much trouble. moving up, to the "pro" models, you tend to get physically stronger (and larger) cameras with easier to manipulate manual controls and the option to add things like a normal microphone input rather than one of the mini stereo plugs. have a look at our reviews section for specific models.