does anyone know if you'll be able to PURCHASE either from sony, instead of having to rent from panavision?

ie sony sells the hdw900, but panavision rents out there own version

Why, got a couple of hundred thousand lying around???!

No, anything with the Panavision name is rental only. I imagine that eventually Sony will do their own 35mm image-sized sensor camera, but not right away.

I read a lot of discussions about the Panavision Genesis camera, but have not known they were working on another digital camera as well. I found out about this other camera at:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/hd_notebook/one.php?id=8

On the NASA Research Partnership Center site they have a pdf file with some more detailed info about the camera:

http://voyager.ee.fau.edu/Document/Panavision%20HDMAX%20Camera.3.30%20pamphlet.pdf

The camera has a Bayer color filtered 3840x2160 33mm diagonal CMOS sensor that was designed by Panavision affiliate, Panavision SVI. It can record progressive images with a variable frame rate up to 30 frames per second.

The number of ultra high definition cameras is increasing steadily (though none of them is on the market now).