Help me spend some money

Mountain grill wrote:

At present I am using a Panasonic camcorder on a tripod with a shotgun mic. The camera is old and is having focus issues so I need to replace it.

Precisely what Panasonic camcorder model do you have?  Precisely what are the "focus issues"?  If you mean that the autofocus "hunts" or wobbles in zoom shots, or is sluggish and flawed in low light, you will find the same problem in later models, particularly if they rely on contrast detect autofocus.

On the other hand, contrast detect autofocus should work fine if your video is shot at wide angle in good light.  Another way to prevent focus issues is to use manual focus and calibrate it to get best results at the median distance of your subjects.  The depth of field will be greatest at wide angle.  So place the camera relatively close to your subject, and use wide angle.  Auto-focus may work fine if the light is good.  If the lighting is dim, use manual focus, but don't expect good video quality in such circumstances anyway.

If you are recording lectures or classroom presentations, audio quality may be a primary concern.  Test use of your existing gear in the actual or likely setting of a real presentation.  If the shotgun mic works OK, fine.  If not, you may want to employ a wired or wireless lavalier mic.

Do NOT expect that quality will improve automatically by getting a new camera.  You should probably steer away from cameras with sensor or lens configurations that promise "cinematic" shallow depth-of-field, which would only aggravate focus challenges and not be relevant to your specific needs.

I have 175,000yen ( I am in Japan) roughly equivalent to a little over a 1,000 dollars.

Maybe you need not spend a single yen.  But it should not cost you more than $600 to get an HD device that will substitute or complement what you already have.

If you do buy another camera at all, may I suggest that it be a lightly used budget device that can be used to provide a view of the presentations from an alternative angle, perhaps from a greater distance or giving a view of the audience.  Single camera "talking head" videos can become tedious and lose viewers, unless the speaker is quite dynamic.

If your supervisors will admire and reward you for thrift, and spend less than the grant, then do so.  If that is not the case, something is wrong.  But if there is really no incentive to be thrifty, spend any surplus on microphones or audio tools to optimize the sound quality of your output.  I presume you already have adequate hardware and software for editing.  You may need to invest in graphics or animation tools to enhance your presentations.

Are you an ESL teacher?  In that case, audio quality is king, and the speaker must be charismatic, entertaining, instructive, and lucid.  If your presentations involve other matters, then graphics and animations become greater concerns.