I also bought a refurbished hv20 and love it. I agree with tapes you cannot record but for so long, but I always reuse my tapes and really my camera is not running at all times so it hasn't been an issue for me. I have a wide angle lens and a rode video mic that have produced some awesome footage that I think competes with cameras that cost much much more. With a little searching you can find stuff pretty cheap. Google has a search engine called froogle (froogle.com) where you can search for any product and find the cheapest price.