Canon
Canon recently introduced a new camcorder in their Optura line, the top-of-the-heap Optura 600, which proved to be one of the best cams this year. It joins the Optura 50 and 60 as some of our best performers. Canon also took their first leap into the DVD market with the DC10 and DC20. We have a review of the DC10, and you may be surprised with the results.

JVC
JVC’s big doings this year occurred in the solid state camcorder market. The Everio series, which records without tapes or DVDs, produced some mixed results. The fabulous, but pricey, GZ-MC500 uses a removable 4GB Microdrive, and offered some amazing results with its still performance. The Everio G-series uses internal hard disk drives. Performance varied widely between models, but the prices have been dropping, making these cams an affordable experiment in a new medium. Check out our reviews of the GZ-MG30 and GZ-MG70.

Panasonic
Panasonic, leader among affordable cams with a professional feel and manual controls, put its best foot forward into the ultra compact market with the SDR-S100. This super-slim camcorder has all of the best Panasonic features you might expect, though the size limited some port access and battery life.

Sony
Sony continues to dominate the DVD market with several models ranging from the fantastic to the unfortunate. Our favorite was the DCR-DVD403, which simply blew away any DVD camcorder to date with brilliant video, still, and low light performance. They have also brought high definition (HD) to the masses with the HDR-HC1, the first HD cam available for under $2000. Expect big things in the world of HD come 2006.