Sony HDR-CX7
$1,200 - www.sonystyle.com
Sony's HDR-CX7 stands out as one of the first HD memory card camcorders, but it got a lot of things right the first time. Now the pool of memory card camcorders is significantly deeper than it was at the dawn of 2008. We are looking forward to seeing the next crop of memory card camcorders - this is an area that we believe is going to grow fast. (Ed. Note: The CX7 has been replaced with the HDR-CX12 [$900], which has a slightly better lens, a new control knob, a larger sensor and a slight increase in the bit rate of the camcorder itself. From everything we've seen about the CX12, we have every reason to believe that it's a worthy successor to the CX7.)

Read Videomaker's review of the Sony HDR-CX7.

Canon HV30
$899 - www.usa.canon.com
It's increasingly easy to make a case that tape is on its way out, but we would be really surprised if tape were to completely disappear in the next decade or so. The reason? Just about everyone who deals with video deals with tape from time to time, even if they use a different primary acquisition format. Canon has a winner with the HV30 - it's an inexpensive HDV camcorder that is a great performer, and it's also well-designed.

Read Videomaker's review of the Canon HV30.

HP xw4600
$3,374 - www.hp.com
There's a lot to think about when you're putting together an editing workstation. While we saw some really amazing iron this year, we thought the HP xw4600 struck the best balance of price and performance. But once you get into this stratum of machines, there's hardly a way to go wrong; most any computer marketed as workstation-class is generally highly configurable and comes with a good warranty behind it. HP's icing was its suite of custom tools to get the best performance possible from its workstations.

Read Videomaker's review of the HP xw4600.

Ugrip Diamond
$1,324 - www.ugrip.dk
This is the coolest and most versatile camcorder support we've seen in quite a while. It is designed to handle a camcorder and as many accessories (e.g., mics, lights, hard drives, etc.) as you might want to throw at it. It's not the cheapest support out there, granted, but the design is so good that we couldn't pass it up for recognition.

Read Videomaker's review of the Ugrip Diamond .

RØDE NTG-3
$699 - www.rodemic.com
Some great mics came through our doors this year, but the RØDE NTG-3 took the cake. It has great sound, relatively flat frequency response and a very nice carry case. The mic also has the impressive signal-to-noise ratio spec of 81dB, which is an excellent figure for a mic in this price range.

Read Videomaker's review of the RØDE NTG-3.