I have to confess it’s been a long time since I looked at camcorders. I always preferred still to video footage for some reason. This cought my eye though - JVC now have a camcorder with a built in hard drive instead of a tape / optical storage system.

There are two models, with 20gb and 30gb discs giving 7 and 10.5 hours recording at DVD quality and considerably more if you up the compression. My first thought was that 10.5 hours isn’t a lot and would be pretty limiting, but in the real world I don’t think it will be a problem. Once you’ve sat through some “my first home movie” experiences you realise that any take over about 10 seconds needs to have lots going on to avoid being seriously boring, and 10.5 hours is a *lot* of 10 second takes!

More information from the JVC Everio G website