When the first consumer-grade portable video recording systems were introduced they were humongous and had extremely poor battery life. In addition to that they were heavy and gave you "camcorder shoulder" in short order.
As camcorders progressed in technology they started to become smaller but suffered from the same fate as their predecessors – they were stuck using linear recording mediums (VHS, Hi8, VHS-C, miniDV, etc.)
Further down the line, optical media was introduced in the form of direct-to-disc DVD both full-sized and 8cm-size.
For professional videographers, you still can’t escape tape. Not cost effectively anyway.
For everyone else, you can ditch your tapes and discs now by using a camcorder with built-in flash memory. No tapes. No discs.
Most people have seen the Pure Digital Flip camcorder. I have used one of these myself and can honestly say that yes, you will instantly love this thing compared to a traditional tape or optical media camcorder. First of all, it’s cheap (just over 100 bucks). Second, it’s stupidly easy to use. There is zero learning curve with one of these things. Third, everyone has USB and fourth (the best part), it runs on just 2 AA batteries. No need to hunt around for expensive proprietary camcorder battery nonsense.
For those interested it records up to 1 hour of video and yes it does have a zoom feature.
I know what you’re saying.
"I want HD in the palm of my hand!"
Ask and ye shall receive:
Above is the Sony Xacti HDTV tapeless camcorder. And yes it’s true-blue HD. The cost of this unit was last known to be $468. Yes, it’s a good coin for this but it is HD in the palm of your hand. Rock on, flash memory. 
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