When I first heard about putting an HD signal onto a DV cassette, I thought to myself why didn’t JVC developed a format in which the tape has to run faster just like DVCAM? There would be no chances of having dropouts and the picture quality would be as smooth as DV. So what do you all think of the chances of Sony releasing an AlU, Z1U, replacement where it would be recorded at 35 megabits per second just like the HD XD-CAM standard? Hopefully by next year Sony will take this idea. That’s if they don’t decide to offer a camcorder such as the A1U, Z1U with a Blue Ray disc drive.

They may not take away the sales of the HVX 200 but it would blow Canon and JVC out of the water.

I think that if they were going to do it they would have already done it. If you look at their lineup Sony is pretty well set. They're the only company with a handful of HD cameras for under $5000. Panasonic and Canon for instance don't have a single one under that price. Then they have their XDCAM series just slightly up the line.

If you look at their lineup Sony is pretty well set. They're the only company with a handful of HD cameras for under $5000. Panasonic and Canon for instance don't have a single one under that price.True, but Sony doesn't have anything (with lens) below $20,000 that supports a true 24-fps mode. Panasonic, JVC, and Canon have 24-fps offerings at $10,000 and below.

I was wondering if it would be possible to record an XDCAM-HD signal to DV tape. Sure, I understand that would defeat one of the primary advantages of XDCAM -- the random access file format.

But wouldn't it be nice to record XDCAM's superior video signal, along with 4 channels of 24-bit, uncompressed audio to a $3 medium, instead of $30 XDCAM disks?

You might only get 30 minutes out of a 60-minute tape, but it would still be worth it.