Adam, many of the new camcorders can record both to tape or memory cards. Some use XD cards, others use SD cards, and of course, there's Sony. There are also some mfg's making memory card only camcorders that are extremely small in size, not much bigger than a flip phone. I looked at a couple of these last year, but it was so long ago, the models have all probably changed.

There is also another alternative - buy a digital camera. Almost all new digicams have video capabilities, limited to the size of the memory card.

The only benefit of tape is the recording time and the relatively cheap cost of tape. It's very easy to exhaust the storage of a high capacity memory card (i.e. 4GB) with video capture. The cards are expensive and worst of all, easy to lose.

The best thing to do is go to Fry's and head over to the magazine section. Find some of the magazine review guides to camcorders and digicams, read through some of the articles looking for the editors picks, then take the magazines over to the camera section for a hands on look. Whatever you do, don't listen to the Fry's sales people - they are clueless.