The best thing would be to check with the broadcasters first and make sure you can meet their requirements: I believe the BBC, for example, requires footage to be shot in 16:9 now rather than 4:3, which means a proper 16:9 camera (not digital scaling) or an anamorphic lens.

Otherwise, yeah, a lot of documentary footage is shot on DV these days... if it's a kind of 'run and gun' documentary you can probably get away with something like a PD150, which are getting cheap now that HDV is taking over. Provided you know what you're doing, a camera like that can produce a pretty good picture.

Also, frankly, with a documentary good sound is often as or more important than a good picture.

V Helpful. Thanks