DV tape camera - will give you endless pain, capture till you die.
DVD video camera - will give you endless error. read/write you name it.
HDD video camera - quite fragile, one knock you loss everything, the best among these 3.

but i'd buy this:


canon tx1, good video quality, pocketable, very small, can take still picture, use sd card, wait for 8gb sdhc price to drop.