JVC DR-M10 and DR-M100 are both at
ecost and are hands down the best recorders ever made, in terms of video encoding quality (cleans up pretty much anything). These are about $50-150, refurbs (good as new).
Next in line would be the Toshiba XS-series. This would also have to be gotten used. I know of some places if you're interested. These had hard drives and run about $225.