The choice I had was between HDD based and Tape based handycams (I had ruled out the DVD variety a while back) For those who wish to go down the same path, a few pointers

Fear Sony World

For one reason alone. There is a 20% markup. Additionally, they will probably end up selling you a bag and accessories at 50% markup anyway. If you do not want to go the grey market route, try other retailers.

Do not buy it to preserve memories

Those among us who have digital cameras have probably learnt it the hard way anyhow. You will end up with hours and hours of footage you'll never see. The only reason you should own a handycam is if you want to make movies. What this means is familiarizing yourself with movie editing software. I have been an Adobe Premier fan since my InsIghT editor days. Though I hear that ULead is pretty cool as well

Be prepared to deal with video conversion

The camera stores all video in an mpeg-2 video codec that most movie editors cannot read. You will have to use conversion software (I recommend Magic Video Converter) to encode it into raw mpeg and then edit it. For those who are looking to embed swf/flv files. Do not waste your life away. Please download and use the awesome player available on http://www.jeroenwijering.com/ its free!