Camcorder makes to avoide/choose?

I am posting in this forum as there does not seem to be any general equipment camcorder forums, only ones for specific makes.

I sometimes get asked to recommend which DV Camcorder to get. I generally tell people they need to research it on the internet as things change a lot .I don't have the time to do this for everyone who asks me and don't want to get blamed if people get the wrong camcorder :-).

It would however be useful if I could say which manufacturers tend to make good Camcorders and who to avoid. On the 2nd point I generally recommend people avoid Canon as they use a non standard DV format (people sometimes give me tapes they have shot) but don't know if other manufacturers use a format that cant be played on standard Sony DV decks. So what I am asking is what manufacturers to avoided/recommend and who writes DV tapes in a non standard format?

Secondly can anyone recommend any good review websites. As well as general reviews does anyone provide tables saying which camcorders have 16:9, mike inputs, manual volume controls etc.

Any help would be appreciated and I will bu publishing the results on the web for all to use/discuss or ignore at will :o).

Thanks for your time reading this,
Ben