We've all been waiting, so let's raise our glasses to Sony!

http://www.sony-europe.com/PageView.do?site=odw_en_EU&page=PressReleaseDetail&section=en_EU_Press&pressrelease=1079021485605

http://www.sony-europe.com/content/attachment/HDV_G1_hisres.JPG

http://www.sony-europe.com/content/attachment/HDV%20camcorderPR.pdf

Murph

http://www.sony-europe.com/PageView.do?site=odw_en_EU&page=PressReleaseDetail&section=en_EU_Press&pressrelease=1079021485605

Will it have everything we want? It's Sony, so probably not.
Doh! Christopher beat me to it!

Is that a mechanical focus ring with actual numbers on it I see in the picture!

Sony HDV Handycam DSR 0000 (from the photo)


Here is what I can tell so far from looking at the photo:

1) 3CCD!!!

2) Iris out front - manual

3) Focus wheel has a "thingie" to move it, with markings!

4) Gain and White balence on the outside left - lower

5) Shutter speed button on the left side - lower

6) 1, 2, 3 buttons near the "Auto, Manual and Infinity" switch

7) It definately takes Mini-DV because of the logo on the back

8) Looks like a wheel on back for adjusting audio/menu- sans the PD170

9) Some sort of weird on-top thing above the mic - another LED? is it moveable?

10) Looks like it says "DSR 0000" on the side

11) Has a "HDV" logo on blue on top

Anyone else see anything worth while? It's got 3CCD's!! My station just bought two PD170's.....damn it!!!!!!!

Murph

Sh*t! Yes, looks like it!

Any mention of price?

Other specs:

There is a two steps ND Filter.

But it is a prototype. "Sony will demonstrate its prototype HDV format camcorder with a 1080i specification at the Sony booth at CeBIT 2004"

It is not an official release, and some of these specs will almost surely change.

Any links to this camera?

heath

Murph posted links in this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23080

D'oh! I saw that AFTER I posted...I've learned my lesson...

heath

Is there anyone, anywhere, still waiting for a Canon XL2? I bet there is much cursing over at Canon right now.

If this thing comes through the way it looks like it will, Sony will hit an out-of-the-park home run here. Looks like a PD170 with HDV chips, but also some additional manual controls.

Given the nine months between our first glimpse of the HD1 and its coming on the market (which was considered fast), what would you speculate the Buy date on this baby to be?

Probably not until the fall. Didn't even look like they picked the glass they're going use yet.

It would really rock if it had 24P! But, knowing Sony's track record... "Progressive? We don't need no stinkin' progressive (unless it's on our $100,000 cameras.)"

Wow! Things are starting to get veeeeery interesting :-)

I wonder why it's listed on Sony Europe's site...

heath

Wow nice links. Thanks. Good HiRes image there to. :)

Does anyone think it'd be feasable to have a mode thats similar to SP and LP but instead of lowering teh quality to get more minutes, lowering the minutes to get more quality?

I'd like to have the option to do say 30 or 45mins and get a higher bitrate for example.

<<<-- Originally posted by Heath McKnight : I wonder why it's listed on Sony Europe's site...

heath -->>>

Yeah i was pondering this to. Does this mean us PAL people will get it first? :P

9) Some sort of weird on-top thing above the mic - another LED? is it moveable?

Doesn't appear to have a sidel LCD so my guess its the primary LCD. Wouldn't it be great if it was a 16:9 LCD. :)

I wonder why it's listed on Sony Europe's site...

CeBIT 2004 is in Hanover Germany. That's probably why it's listed there first.

This is very exciting news indeed! I can't wait to buy my NEXT HDV camcorder! :)

Also, I'm sure the '0000' in the naming scheme will definitely change. That nomenclature was probably used for the beta hardware.

This camera also looks good physically as welll! A little sleeker than the JVC.

Knowing Sony this camcorder will probably start out at $5000 (or more). They seem to charge more of a premium for their products than any other manufacturer.

Troy

Yeah, I'm selling my HD10u right now!

I want to buy the next camera on the market because it's most likely it'll have full manual controls. I'm definately not happy with JVC support too... They could have listened to us and recalled these things and tweaked them...we all would have paid extra for a few tweaks. Therefore, I am going to avoid JVC like the plauge from now on. I've used Sony for years and the Pd150 is a solid unit...the PD170 is even better.

I'm betting my money on Sony because of the PD170 - this new camera must compare.

Murph
(contact me if you wanna buy a crippled hdv camera!)

The HD10 has a 16:9 LCD!

heath

I'll hold off til I see some working footage. I still can't get to grips with people using mpeg2 and expecting to make quality indie movies with it. I really hope I'm shown I'm wrong!

Aaron

The HD10 has a 16:9 LCD!

Do you mean CCD?

The HD10 has a 3.5" LCD with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The CCD is also 4:3, if I'm not mistaken. It takes stills at 1280 x 960, which implies that the full chip is 1280 x 960, and it samples video off a smaller 1280 x 720 section.

Of course, nobody knows for certain, and won't know until they crack one open and look at the chip(!)

The HD10 shoots in true 16:9 and 4:3; the LCD squeezes the 16:9 image into a letterboxed picture.

heath

This camera seems too good to be true...

3CCDs - Fixes Color/ Chorma noise issues of the HD10

1080i - Fixes the fast motion issues of the HD10

Full Iris controls.

AND for under $5k

WOW!.. I'm speechless, and ready to sell my HD1.


I agree with the other posters that JVC could have done a better job adjusting the minor issues (color, EE, manual control) and made their cameras much better. Now it looks like JVC will be playing catch-up to Sony.

The HD10 shoots in true 16:9 and 4:3; the LCD squeezes the 16:9 image into a letterboxed picture.

Similar to the PDX10 but I would prefer a true 16:9 LCD for a cam that's claim to fame is its high resolution widescreen mode. Of course I've never seen a 16:9 LCD that small and I'm sure the 4:3 LCDs are a dime a dozen.

Ten bucks says that the mysterious 1, 2 & 3 buttons are for

1080i

540/480p

480i

I have been assured that editing software will support HDV by NAB.
Maybe not realeased, but announced. Sony has been clear that they will not ship an HDV product until it is supported by the major editing manufacturers.
FWIW

Brian

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Gordon : Ten bucks says that the mysterious 1, 2 & 3 buttons are for

1080i

540/480p

480i -->>>

5c says the 1/2/3 buttons are for 1, 2, or 3 CCDs ..... :P



NB: for those without any sense of humour.. this is a joke

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy :

3) Focus wheel has a "thingie" to move it, with markings!>>>

Actually it looks like that may be the zoom ring - with the focus ring right behind the lens...

Pretty interesting though,
Clayton

Yeah, I'm selling my HD10u right now!If you do that, what are you going to use in the mean time? That could mean a year or more. :-))

I guess with a hardware solution I can imagine it being OK, but software only solutions would be awful I'd imagine. I'll hold judgement though...

Aaron

Daymon-

Sony would never agree to fewer minutes and better quality. Who needs better quality and more editing lattitude when you can get a few more minutes per tape? I mean, don't 16mm cans run for at least an hour?

In other words, I was trying to be funny, you are right, and I agree with you completely. I just don't think we're gonna see it happen.

one of the links isnt working!!!!!

i only get the pic and pdf

what am i missing?

whats the price <range>?!!!

Funny, I don't get the pic.

Sony has done it before. Look at what they did with the Beta format. You could put 2 hours of Betamax video on a Beta tape OR 30 minutes of pro Betacam footage on that same tape.

There's no reason to suggest that they couldn't do it again. Maybe they'll call it HDVCAM or HDV Pro.



-Chris Gordon
Promo Producer
KABC-TV Los Angeles

Maybe we saw something we weren't suppose to see? Otherwise, we were suppose to see it and make some noise..

I think we need to contact Sony stock holders and YELL really loud that HDV can make them money.

What do you guys think??

Murph

Kenn, let's call it a tie...we both win!

:)

Clearly this Sony will blow the current JVC out of the water and into obsolescence. Their only response--assuming they want to remain in the game (a big assumption!)--should be to take their DV5000 camera and convert it to HDV. Price it under $10,000. With the option of a nice lens on the front as well as two channels of balanced audio, suddenly the Sony camera looks like kid's stuff again.

I think we won't have to yell really loud, but we might have to wait until sometime between april 15th and the 22nd. (probably closer to the earlier date) I'm curious as to what 1080i looks like compressed into mpeg2

what about 720p? i mean isnt a big part of the filmlook progressive?, or will u be able to post 1080i to 1080p.

In my experience in DV shotting pregressive vs deinterlacing has no comparison.

-heres some food for thought, think about in 15 years time when your kid or grandkid comes in from being in the backyard making a film with their friends and theve got this little SHDV3 camera and it look like bloody imax.- im keeping my svhsc cam to show my kids what i had to use!

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

Guys, I know this is exciting news, but don't think we are going to see this camera anytime soon. I think 2005 best case. They are talking about "announcing a prototype at CeBit". I assume if they already had the prototype ready to demo they would have actually shown that prototype at CeBit (or at least a physical mockup of it).

Basically this is confirmation of what everyone already knew; that Sony and all of JVC's competitors are planning on releasing their HDV cameras sometime in 2005. That is a pretty safe bet. I just hope people don't get their hopes up about the camera being available for purchse this year.

Hopefully they will prove me wrong and announce something at NAB.

Also, notice they have removed the picture, probably because they know if they mis-represent the cameras ability with that mockup then people will be disappointed when the camera comes out. Someone already correctly pointed out that Sony would not have "DSRxxxx" and "Handycam" on the same camera.

Notice that the press release was VERY careful not to mention specs (they do not mention 3 chips anywhere, for example), although they did make a vague marketing-type reference to 1080i.

This is basically a common strategy (and a good one) to keep people from buying the JVC until Sony can get their camera released. The more they hint at this the more people will be hesitant to buy the JVC. Thus, I think the best thing about this short-term is that hopefully the prices on the JVC cameras will tumble.

Finally, I don't think there is any question that the Sony offering will be "better", but I also think you can bet on it being substantially more expensive.

Anyway, don't sell your JVC's just yet; unless you want to sell it to us for cheap :)

Now I see how important Brand recognition is. Aside from this camera having 3CCDs, it seems like it is getting a lot of thumbs up already just because it is Sony. When the JVC cam came out, people were quick to trash it, even before they found out it had 1CCD (or even before they saw the image!) Anyway, I’m excited by the camera myself, so maybe I have a little bit of a Sony-Fan Boy in me :)

Again, what about the fact that the camera was listed on sony Europe's site?

heath

Has anyone saved the Hi rez pic of the camera? It's gone from the site.

<<<-- Originally posted by Glenn Gipson : Now I see how important Brand recognition is. Aside from this camera having 3CCDs, it seems like it is getting a lot of thumbs up already just because it is Sony. -->>>

I don't agree. I mean, yes, there are brand bigots out there, but I think the reason this is getting so much attention is because (at least from the picture) it looks like it will be a truly professional camera design. JVC announced the HD1 as being for home consumers. Sony's mockup of the DSR-0000 (or whatever it's called) is clearly not aimed at home consumers: it's showing a true manual zoom ring, flip switches for gain and white balance, a manual iris knob, manual audio controls... plus three CCD's... with a year to think about what JVC has done (and which parts have been most complained about) there's clearly much optimism that Sony will address and fix those complaints in their release.

I think Lynne said it best though -- if JVC introduces an HDV-5000U, the Sony goes back on the "also-ran" pile.

(don't you love the Internet age... the announcement's not even 24 hours old yet, the camera doesn't even EXIST yet, and already there are some of us relegating it to "also-ran" status!) ;)

I don't care for Sony's "you love us because we are Sony, you will buy our product and pay more for it simply because we are Sony" attitude... but I will say that the picture of the new HDV camera looks like Sony "gets it" and will deliver a very, very interesting product.

Good point Barry. Of course, if it only does interlace, I don't think I'll be too interested. Magic Bullet HD cost 2k!

I was unable to see either of the pictures of the unit. Did anyone get a sense of what kind of price we're talking about? Under $5k maybe.