B&H now has it listed at $ 6,699.00

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/520761-REG

Can't wait to see where they are at on price with the SxS cards.

Any thoughts on the price drop? Will it get any lower before they ship?

Well I'm in.
Myself and coworker just ordered for the same price including the BP-U60 battery.

I can't believe the price is that low. If I had money I would be all in....after buying lights.

I just made this call.

If you placed a pre-order for the EX1 with B&H at $6999 just call the customer service number on your order and they will lower the price to $6699.

Does the fact that it is 100% solid state mean that it will be less expensive to manufacture than a tape or disk-based camera?

I think that's part of the reason why they were able to add other features. No tape mechanism = more stuff in other areas.

I hope/believe the savings will be in maintenance. No tape path or head issues. That's a HUGE chunck of a user's maintenance costs.

They are using a fan inside though to cool the chips. That concerns me. If the fan goes is it going to take the CMOS chips with it? That'll be EXPENSIVE!

If the fan throws a warning and shuts down to save the chips that would be good. I asked Sony reps about this but it was too geeky a maintenance question for them to answer.

Does the fact that it is 100% solid state mean that it will be less expensive to manufacture than a tape or disk-based camera?

If the fan throws a warning and shuts down to save the chips that would be good. I asked Sony reps about this but it was too geeky a maintenance question for them to answer.

That's certainly true of the full size XDCAM HD cameras. They will shut down in an overheat condition.

-gb-

Fan replacement should be only a minor pain compared to chips of course and certainly should be less frequent than tap path mechanisms.

Sony rep did say it should be very hard for dust to get in there and affect fan.

I wonder how frequent are there laser or "spin" issue on disc models.

In general one of the factors in actual cost is maintenance costs. I think in general card based systems should be very good in that area.

I wonder how frequent are there laser or "spin" issue on disc models.

Not often. In fact, their broadcast cameras have traditionally had a 1 year warranty. However, the XDCAM disc cameras have a 5 year warranty. Due in part to the video disc unit's higher reliability than tape mechanisms. It's also less expensive to replace the VDU than the heads on Betacam stuff.

I had to research the warranty issue last year when I had a failure on the shutter control board.

-gb-

Impressive Greg.

When people think of price they should factor in long term maintenance. Assuming EX1 is as reliable as the 350 (and 355?) that's a long term savings.

Impressive Greg.

When people think of price they should factor in long term maintenance. Assuming EX1 is as reliable as the 350 (and 355?) that's a long term savings.

True, with the EX1 really has no moving parts short of the fan, it should hold up well.

For me the cost of the EX over the Z1 is not even a factor anymore. The more peace of mind I have that less can go wrong inside the camera the better. Event shooters like us can't go back and say sorry the heads went out and we don't have any footage of your ceremony. I really can't wait to get my hands on one of these things.

Mike

Out of curiosity how many of you in your careers have had tapes ( excluding betacam) jammed, ripped, chewed and drop outs that caused you to loose work and banished as a cameraman because of this terrible mishap ?

"The more peace of mind I have that less can go wrong inside the camera the better. Event shooters like us can't go back and say sorry the heads went out and we don't have any footage of your ceremony. I really can't wait to get my hands on one of these things."
Mike Williams

Heads don't go out like light bulbs or electronics they give some kind of tell tale signs unlike solid state memory.

If hard drive/ solid state technology is better than tape based so to speak,then why do data centre still backup on tape- apart from the fact its cheaper per GB ?

There is an element of failure in every device no matter how big, small or expensive.

I would trust Convergent Designs more than Sonys SxS recording media, reasons i wont get into now...

As someone who has been a video engineer, part of that job has included mangled tape, dealing with tape when the camera was mistracking, tape drop outs. For acquisition I'd MUCH RATHER be dealing with solid state media.

Stil, your talking about Archive, NOT aquisition. Archive to a tape drive is secure. A tape record mechanism in a camera, it's tape path, it's tape eject mechanism, the mechanism that feeds the tape around such heads, is NOT secure and cannot be compared to a tape drive backup system.

Solid state any day man over mechanical movement. Tape head, tape path mechanics, eject system, load system... enough said!

The answers to the post seem to be stated in a way as if i am saying tape is better than solid state, which i am not saying - so ppl saying what they prefer is neither here or there, my point is from reading the above posts, is tape so much less reliable than solid state ? Is tape - Hell and solid state heaven ? this is how the whole solid state technology comes across, which in my opinion is over inflated.

Is tape - Hell and solid state heaven ? this is how the whole solid state technology comes across, which in my opinion is over inflated.

IMO, YES is is!

Tape has its benefits due to record lengths and long term existence in the market.
Tape is no doubt OK for archiving, but I've had my share of dropouts and loss data, FAR more than hard drive issues.

Actually, I'm really talking about solidstate, not hard drives.
With the price of memory growing cheaper, it's only going to get better.
Also, archiving to media such as Blu-ray should work well.