First camcorder!!

Hi,

I'm having a baby in about a month and would like to buy a camcorder to annoy my family for the rest of their lives (aka capture the precious moments). WHAT SHOULD I BUY!!!???

My budget(USD) minimum is at around $350 and my max is $750, but am willing to go upto ~$1000 if its really justifiable.

I'm leaning towards buying a 1080p camcorder because of the future of televisions I'm likely to own, but have no idea what is good.

I don't know which is better: DVD vs memcard vs internal memory(HD). I'm leaning towards memcard because of portability and battery life. As opposed to the dvd recorder I think would drain the battery that much quicker. And the hardrives moving parts make me nervous. Again, I'm ignorant of all this.

I'm a fan of canon products, but not a fanboy.......and I don't buy sony just because its sony. I realize a good panasonic or other might very well kicka$$