#disk-based

Forget about those monstrosities with 2-Unlimited on Side A and Michael Jackson on Side B you probably have under the backseat of your car. Those have been dead for years. And proclaimed dead for even longer.

The poor dying breed we are talking about now fits into your camcorder (we aren't even talking about home video tape. That's dead since 1974). And is nothing short of awesome. You can fit an hour of more or less mundane footage on DV tape, put it on a shelf and forget about it. Chances are you will still be able to view your uncle's questionable antics many years from now. You cannot do that with memory-based BS of today. Hard drives die young.

In all seriousness though, even though memory-based camcorders are much easier to deal with, video tapes are still being used in high-end productions for their quality, endurance and lasting archive-ability. Memory-based storage is very fragile and not very cost-effective. For long-term archival, you need tape anyway.

So, is tape dead? 

It definitely is in a consumer market. Fiddling with linear tape is just too cumbersome for general user. And consumer NLEs are slowly phasing out tape support altogether. Let's put that spinning insanity down and leave the worries to the lab nerd.