The wife and I got a Sony Handycam (don't know exact model) that is small and compact. It shoots onto Mini-DV tapes, which are digital. Before I wound up where I am I was planning on using it this coming season to try and video some stands. There are also camcorders that save to DVD, but you will still need to edit the raw footage.
One thing I started to like about the sony we have is that is has a "nightshot" mode where it has basic night vision. Also, it can record in 16:9 format which is great for when playing back on a widescreen TV. For professional purposes you'll want a camera that has a very high quality resolution. When playing back on large TVs, the quality of the average handycam is very apparent. But those high resolution cameras are very expensive, and your best option might be to rent one, or find a film student from a local college that can check one out for filming a "documentary."
As for outputting the video to DVD it is pretty simple. The camera has a firewire port (or iLink as Sony calls it) for downloading the video to your computer. Once it is in the computer you can use your editing software (I use Pinnacle Studio) to edit the scenes and storyboard everything together. From there the software will then burn a DVD disk of the final movie.
One thing about creating the DVDs though, is the more horsepower your computer has the better. It can take a couple hours or more to render 60 minutes of footage.
Also, when downloading the footage to the computer from the camera, the playback from the camera is in real-time so if you have a full 60 minute tape in the camera to download, go ahead and start it up and go to lunch.
Don't bother with using the USB download unless it is a USB 2.0 connection. USB 1.1 will download, but the maximum speed of USB 1.1 is far less than 2.0 or firewire and you will wind up with dropped frames. Firewire cards are cheap, you can usually get them and some basic video editing software for less than $50. Some cards (like the Pinnacle AV/DV) or standard video capture cards allow you to connect a VCR to convert existing tapes to digital. Simply connecting everything up, start capturing the stream in your software, and press play on the VCR. From there you edit the scenes as you normally would.
Finally, be very conservative with the use of scene transitions. The clock wipes, shuffling blocks, turning pages, or paper airplane transitions are nice for home videos, but I think they look rather cheesy when doing something for professional results. Stick with simple fades or just do a transition, the same way the TV and Hollywood producers do it.
The whole digital format and production is pretty simple, but the rabbit hole runs as deep as you want to go.
Hope that helps,
Glenn