It’s not a lunch meeting at Spago that’s exciting indy directors. It’s a camera–the DCR-VX2000 from Sony (800/222-7669, https://www.sel.sony.com ). This $3,000 mini-DV camcorder packs plenty of wallop for aspiring filmmakers with visions of Ben Hur but budgets more like The Blair Witch Project’s. The VX2000 boasts a redesigned 3-CCD pickup chip set–the signal-processing chips that bolster camera resolution–and a 58mm aspherical lens, which sharpens focus. When you consider its 200,000-color pixel LCD display and FireWire connectivity, the VX2000 seems to do everything–except maybe write your script.