Shoulder Panasonic's new prosumer camcorder

Slipping not quite so neatly into Panasonic's prosumer three-CCD camcorder models, the Proline AG-DVC20 offers a trio of larger 1/3-inch, 460,000-pixel CCDs compared to the 1/4-inch, 410,000-pixel versions in the more expensive AG-DVC30 and AG-DVC60. One might be tempted to think of it as a shoulder-mounted version of the DVC30, but other aspects of its feature set don't match that model's, such as a 10X zoom compared to the DCV30's 16X and the use of electronic image stabilization vs. the optical image stabilization incorporated into most of the company's other cameras and camcorders.

Still, when it ships in June for a relatively modest price of $1,850, I'm betting it will be just as good a value as the rest of Panasonic's three-CCD models.

Plus, the press release contains a lovely bit of spin: "Weighing just 4.4 pounds in full operating condition, the camcorder is lightweight but a size that is not easily misplaced or hidden." My Panasonic Toughbook weighs only 2.8 pounds, but I've never lost it because it was too small. And this is the same company that provides tiny, where-the-hell-did-I-put-them SD cards!