The larger the pixel count on a CCD of the same size, the more still picture resolution and the poorer low light video quality. Get a video camera for video and a cheap digital camera for still. Just about any of the cheapest digital cameras will blow away the better "still" capable camcorders.

I believe the answer to your question really depends on the purpose to which you wish to put your camera(s). Here is my 2 cents worth. I got sick of 35mm prints that sat in shoe boxes unsorted and uncatalogued for years. I decided that I simply wanted to show my pics on a PC/TV, use a PC to catelogue them and use VV to make slide shows. No more prints. I find that my Sony TRV 27E is more than adequate for this purpose. It has a 1 megapixel single shot capability that outputs to a memory stick. The pics come out 640X480 at 72dpi (screen resolution). I believe the quality is excellent given my purpose (after all the Sony has a Carl Zeiss lens with I think 10 time optical zoom). I find composition really easy on the camcorder's excellent screen and the backlight and exposure features are instantly visible on that screen. On top of that you have excellent battery life so you can manipulate stills in-camera without getting too neurotic about the battery dying out on you. I use Photoshop Elements to manipulate the pics and its Save for Web feature reduces the file size from 900K down to 165k (max quality setting)or 52k for a medium but still acceptible quality pic which is ideal for use on the web or for emailing. Incidentally I have tried to print them and the results are quite acceptible. I just took my memory stick into a Kodak Photo shop and 80 Australian cents later I had a 6x4 print to add to my shoe box collection!
Incidentally I used to own a separate camcorder and a Sony 1.3 Megapixel camera. I found that I never used the still camera because of the .75 megapixel facility on the camcorder. Both got stolen last month and I used the insurance money to buy my present camcorder plus other peripherals. Best decision I have made.

Of course if you want prints then that is a different story! In my view you are better off buying a good qualty 35mm SLR, a good scanner and lots of shoe boxes.
HTH
Zbig

Canon GL2 has a built in SD card function capable of 1.7 megapixels. I find this more than adequate resolution when incorporating these shots into a video application. You can get about 8 1.7-megapixels on the 8 meg SD card included, but if you get a larger capacity card, e.g. 256 meg, that's a lot of medium res stills....

Jake:

like zbig said - it "really depends on the purpose to which you wish to put your camera" and pictures, I may add. If you are planning on printing 8x10's for mounting and framing, get a multi-mega-pixel digital cam. If you are putting a few stills in your video productions, and are not zooming (pan/crop) in more than 2x, then stills with your video cam will be more than adequate for viewing on *most* tv's (I can't speak for big-sreen however - don't have one). Vegas does a great job with these, and I've been happy with the stills I've either taken with or grabbed from video taken with my 4 year old Sony TRV340, used in this way, but I do very few enlargements from these stills. My two cents.

Frenchy

If/when you need to grab a still from video, there are some apps that will average several frames of the same scene & can boost the apparent quality of the still.

Ok Thx for the imput, now what might these apps be called. I would like to check them out.