Canon A1 vs Sony V1

[Jim Martin]

1/4 chips,1/4 chips,1/4 chips......oh....and 1/4 chips

[Bill Pryor]

I forgot to mention the FF of the A1. The Fondle Factor. It does feel good. I believe I might give the Z1 a very slight FF edge, but not much.

[Dirk Bouwen]

Considering a new cam for several purposes, I'm very interested in both A1 and FX7/V1. In Europe, nothing's available yet, except maybe 'backstage' - but what i don't see is in previous threads:

Sony = 1MP, Canon = 1,6MP (I know at the end the output resolution is all the same, but...?)

Sony = native 4:3, Canon = native widescreen 16:9 (enjoyable in Europe). I suffered a lot of not having a solid widescreen in my present VX.

CCD has a lot better intrinsic noise behavior with low light then CMOS, while CMOS doesn't have smear, is more power efficient (but if you have to choose?).

A1 has an LCD display that doesn't look very solid for manipulation. This is not a cam that get's out of the box once a year, and this design almost looks like 'low budget', is it maybe the A1's weakest point?

FX7 is stripped down to an ordinary HANDYCAM, lost almost everything interesting for a semi-pro user. Good for vacation movies: no progressive scan, no XLR, no advanced image settings, ... - in this outfit, it will very soon lose it's interest versus newer Sony HD models.

V1 is far more expensive then FX7, difference between FX7 and A1 is 'only' about 400 Euro (still enough Canon, can't you really do something extra?)

Sony didn't ever allow firmware updates (i assume also not for the new cam's), what about the Canon A1 (not unimportant with such an advanced device, why should they make everything from the first time right)?

Carl Zeiss versus Canon... I'm convinced Carl Zeiss is nothing more then a marketing label, in other Sony camera's it could never convince me. The VX/PD series never had a Carl Zeiss lens, but were used by a lot of (semi-)pro's.

Sony is the market standard for anything serious in video. Canon is known as a picture camera, printer & copier manufacturer and in general, their lower end videocam's don't get that spectacular through magazine tests.

Also I want to mention that Sony after-sales service is from what I experienced myself in the past almost not existing (even this is a eufemism).

Did we also forget that NEARLY EVERY CCD Sony manifactured since 2004 can/will sooner or later become 'desintegrated' by the glue that was used? Did we also forget the Sony batteries in laptops?

And last but not least: be honest: for HDV, the sky is not the limit, nor in resolution (no real full HD), nor in compression (still MPEG 2). AVCHD can now look very much consumer, but who can predict what will happen?

Also... I cannot imagine that Panasonic will remain standing on the sideline, in the coming months, a new HD ''100" doesn't seem unlogic to me.

Does anyone have experience with capturing from A1 yet, in PP1.5 or is an upgrade to 2.0 inevitable? Only settings for 2.0 seems to be available from Adobe

A very hard choice, at this moment, and I'm really not out of it yet. Most of all, since I didn't read or see any real professional, credible low light test (at least enough convincing) between the FX7/V1 and A1.

And ofcourse, my budget is that astronomical that I will be turning in this cam for a new one next year. Because, yes guys another shame: in Europe all this stuff is more expensive then in the US - and don't think that ordering in the US will help you in this case.

[Chris Barcellos]

"Sony = native 4:3, Canon = native widescreen 16:9 (enjoyable in Europe). I suffered a lot of not having a solid widescreen in my present VX."

I don't think this is true.

And glue issues-- where did that come from. I have a VX2000, when can I expect it to fall apart ? What are the glue issues..

Wow. Sony is a complete disaster, and all those out there who have relied on Sony for all these years, well, you are just fooling yourselves..... it didn't really happen...

[Peter Ferling]

The sony's are falling, the sony's are falling... everyone, run!