My Favorites For The Year

My Favorites For The Year

Best VCR For The MoneyThe VCR is as common as the light bulb in many households these days, but with the advent of Satellite and HDTV, the need for an affordable VCR to record a higher quality image is needed. JVC has answered the call with the HRS 3600U.

As well as being a full featured HIFI Stereo VCR, this unit has the ability to record at SVHS Quality (400lines) on regular VHS tape. Not only that, but with a street price of around $250 ($319.95 MSRP), this unit is quite affordable.

If you need to upgrade your VCR to meet the demands of your Home Theater System, this is one unit to seriously consider. Although all MiniDV camcorders can take digital still photos, the resolution is fairly limited to 640x480.

SONY addresses the issue by introducing the PC 100, the first Megapixel Camcorder. As a result, this unit can not only shoot excellent 500 line video, but can capture a still image (using SONY's Memory Stick Technology) with a resoluion of 1152x864, bringing it in line with many mid range digital still cameras.

Although the price seems a little steep at $1999, its better than having to buy and carry around two separate cameras. This unit is well worth checking out. If you are at all interested in a MiniDV Camcorder, I would give this unit serious consideration.

Best Home Theater Audio ProductHome Theater is becoming very popular these days and the number of households taking advantage of this experience is quite extensive, but not all of us have the budget or the room for a bunch of large speakers and expensive amplifiers to obtain the "true" Home Theater experience.

As a result a whole new audio product category has taken foothold in the marketplace to bring the Home Theater experience to those on a budget The Home Theater In A Box.

As with all electronic products however, there are cheap units that don't perform and expensive units that perform, but may not be a good value. Some offer both modest cost and both good performance and value. In my opinion, the Kenwood HTB 502 fills the bill. This system consists of a fairly powerful Dolby Digital/DTS Receiver and Speakers for around $600. Even though the speakers supplied are not "audiophile" quality, they hold up well in a modest Home Theater setup and thus, provide a good value.

For an excellent review of this product, check out the following review by Home Theater Magazine.

Best Digital CameraFor the past two years SONY has dominated the digtial camera market with its Mavica floppy disk cameras. the floppy disk is very convenient for many users because of its simplicity, however, this strength is also a big weakness, because Floppy disks cannot hold high resolution images.

Panasonic to the Rescue! Not only has Panasonic released its own Floppy Disk Digital camera to go head to head with SONY, but has added the capacity to accept the 120MB Superdisk as well, thus enabling the camera to take a large quantity of High Resolution pictures without having to carry a large number of disks.

If you don't have a Superdisk drive in your computer, don't worry, this unit also has USB support. This unit also features both PC and MAC compatability.

Yes, there are better Digital Cameras available in terms of resolution and optics, but since Panasonic was able to take SONY's concept of convenience one step further, they get my vote for the best value in a Digital Still Camera this year.