XL3 HD by July???

[Mike Rinkunas]

IMO, if Canon was to sit out this year, i think it would deal large blow to their 'professional' video area....from a busniess stand point, most of the users of 3CCD cameras haven't made the jump to HD Due to the high cost....but the HVX2000 presents an option to change that! Now, granted that Canon has the history of sitting back and watching everyone else duke it out has worked in the past, but it seems like there is a lot of pressure from our community in general to try to get a product that has a longer life span - ie a single camera that could survive the transition from SD to HD - atleast i do, i want something that will not only earn me money now, but be an solid investment for the next 3-4 years and continue earning money then. I won't be able to afford upgrading sets of cameras every 2 years - it just doesn't make financial sense from my busniess stand point. I am an avid canon supporter, and i love my XL-1s's, however i want to upgrade in the next 6-8 mths and if canon's production record stands - anew GL camera before an XL version - i'll have alreay leaped to the HVX2000 before any XL3 info is released.

So if you think about everyone out there who is in the same boat as i am, canon stands to loose a large part of the market share to others (Panny, sony, etc) by their inaction. For every HVX2000 or Z1 sold, that's one less sale canon could of had. Its alright from a business point to say "opps, we made a mistake with that product" - anyone remember coke 2? Coke recognized they made a mistake, corrected it and came out still on top of things. If Canon doesn't wake up, they might not be so fortunate in this section of their market.....

just my 2 cents
~Mike

[Paul Doherty]

I think that's a good summing up Mike. I'm one of those who was disappointed with the XL2 and got an FX1 instead. However if they bring out an XL3 then I'll still be interested (I figure I'll have had two years use of my FX1 by then and in pro terms it's a cheap camera).

My worry is that I spoke to one Canon rep who was very disparaging of sales of the XL1. So maybe Canon will only bother with relatively cheap consumer HDV camcorders; it might make more business sense for them.

[Pete Bauer]

There have been hints that a new Canon HD(V?) camera isn't too far away, as evidenced by the starting post of this whole thread, by Dave Eanton, which had this link:

http://www.digitalproducer.com/artic...e.jsp?id=32066

The prosumer market has FINALLY accelerated into HD territory after waiting at the border for too long, and continues to pick up speed. Canon HAS to respond to that. I don't believe they'll abandon the "prosumer" market just as new technology is poised to energize it. My bet is in agreement with those who speculate that around the time the Panasonic is ready to ship, Canon will have a WunderKam to announce and promptly ship, as is their style (hopefully an XL form factor, and with better than plain-ol' HDV data rates!). I'd like to see a Canon in July, but I'm guessing more like September/October.

[Radek Svoboda]

Canon has to come with something better than competition. It be either 1080p or combination 1080i and 720p. JVC is sticking with 720p, Sony with 1080i. Canon would very smart to offer both. If they added 1080p, they could have:

720p24-60
1080i50-60
1080p24-30

They would have winner and it would probably be not hard to do, if they can get somewhere CCD's for it. They make CMOS but will take them couple years to develop CMOS for this. Their CMOS great for digital SLRs but not for this.

Sony makes 1/2 inch 16x9 combination progressive and interlaced 1080i/p chips that would cover all this. If they would sell to Canon at reasonable price, Canon could go develop super 1/2 inch camera that is reasonably priced.

Radek

[Philip Williams]

I've been following this fun and almost completely baseless thread for some time and thought I'd throw my own completely hypothetical 2 cents in. If my theory below has been posted already, I apologize but I must have missed it.

I highly suspect that in addition to a very likely GL3 HDV cam, Canon is going to release an Optura HDV. I realized this after looking at Canon's overall product line, direction and current lineup - combined with what the competition is up to.

Really makes sense, since Canon has really been pushing the envelope with the Optura series. Even the non-canon video fans have to admit that no one can touch the features of an Optura 50/60 at anything near the price. I mean manual audio control, focus ring, 16x9, Primary RGB filter, 1/30th shutter speed, etc.. You're looking at about $1300 for a GS400 or who knows how much for a Sony with all those features.
AND, the Xi (flagship for the Opturas of course) is due for replacement. With Sony releasing an HDV cam for $2000 and knowing fully well that JVC will probably release an even lower cost version, throwing a $1500 Xi2 out there with SD DV might not be the best way to go...

So there it is. Optura HDV. Coming soon for $1799 MSRP, no 24P but with extensive manual controls. I'd say 60% chance of 1080i, 40% chance of 720P.

Philip Williams
www.philipwilliams.com

[Jos Svendsen]

I have just recieved interesting news from my top secret Canon source. I wish that it would have been something like a blurry pic from a cameraphone and a hastily copied spec sheet. But no.
Instead the info is that there will be two major video announcements this year. One in July and one in September, and that these announcements will be related to HDV. The insider also expressed that Sonys HDV cams was the target. The person stated that "now they (Sony, JVC) are gonne get competetion!"

For all it's worth - but it sure looks like Canon has been active, and not sitting on their hands.

[Pete Bauer]

Interesting top secret intelligence report; hope no spies met with an untimely demise in pursuit of this info!

If we are talking the next TWO major announcements, I'll expand my guess to a July announcement for a "GL3" or Optura HDV camera, with the September announcement being an XL form factor. Although I'd be happier with the reverse! Only time will tell, eh?

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

Why not a GL3 in july and an Optura in september? The XL2 is only one year old...

[Pete Bauer]

Of course, none of us knows what Canon's business strategy is.

But as I mentioned earlier, I find it most unlikely that they would cede this market space ("low cost" professional) to the competition just when HD technologies are beginning to drive an big upturn in sales volume. After all, even if they don't want it TODAY, everyone reading here will want an HD camera soon; none of us wants to be TOO far behind everyone else, eh?

Once there is a crop of HD cameras to compete directly against the XL2 for new camera sales -- which appears to be starting to happen already -- the used XL2 market is going to steal away sales of new XL2's. With a glut of almost-new XL2's for sale, the few who still want an XL2 instead of an HD camera may well buy "hardly-used," rather than a new one at retail. I suspect that new XL2 sales will be at a trickle by this autumn, even if they do cut the price.

If Canon wants to sell very many cameras in that market space beyond this autumn, they must compete. And that means a new camera that previous XL owners will want to buy more than they want to buy a competitor's. Using a company's history of new product releases (in Canon's case, last to the dance but always notably well-dressed) can be useful in a fairly static market, but Darwin comes into play here; Canon doesn't want to get TOO far behind everyone else. This will be a tremendously dynamic time -- LOTS of people are going to buy their first HD cameras in the next year or two. If I've already bought my Pansonic HVX200, Canon won't be selling me an "XL3"...all the companies are perfectly aware of these market forces.

Then again, some have predicted that this is the end of the line for the XL series. Maybe Canon will go in another direction entirely. Only time will tell.

[Dave Eanton]

Just to add my thoughts on the last two comments, if the new canon HDV is going to compete with Sony, it will most likely start with a consumer camera rather than the prosumer. That's where most of the HDV sales will come from. Sony's push for their various consumer HDV cameras will also help sell their new HD TV's and players to the same customers. The consumer HD market will be very hot over the next couple of years.

A September announcement from Canon will most likely be a GL3 - an easy to handhold HD camera. If Canon does produce an XL3, I think they will stay with the XL form factor as it has worked well for Canon in the past.

[Bob Zimmerman]

But who really wants HDV?

[Michael Struthers]

How do they beat Sony with an HDV cam? Sony is already going sub2k with their new consumer hdv cams. Just another 1080i hdv isn't going to win any hearts.

It will have to be 1080/24p or 720/24p.

And the XL3 had better skip HDV altogether.

[Patrick Jenkins]

Any XL3 is fine with me if it lowers the price of the XL2 :)

[Philip Williams]

Originally Posted by Michael Struthers

How do they beat Sony with an HDV cam? <snip>

Probably the same way they do it with regular DV cams. Better/more/reachable manual controls for a couple bucks less than the equivalent Sony. That's why I'm sticking to my $1799 Optura XiHDV theory. 10% off the new Sony HDV cam and somewhat better manual control (though I have to admit Sony actually put some decent controls on the new model).

Probably no rocket science stuff, just a solid product with good economics. And it'll keep Optura and Elura owners wanting to upgrade to HD from jumping to Sony.

As for stuff like 1080P or 24P, etc.. I think if we see that in a $2000 cam it'll almost certainly be Panasonic. I could imagine them engineering a GS400 replacement that at least shoots 720P/24 in that price range. Even JVC might replace the HD1 with something like that.

I suppose all the guessing will end as the year progresses. And then it'll start all over when everyone's 2nd generation HD products hit the rumor mills next year :)

Philip Williams
www.philipwilliams.com

[Lawrence Bansbach]

Originally Posted by Michael Struthers

How do they beat Sony with an HDV cam? Sony is already going sub2k with their new consumer hdv cams. Just another 1080i hdv isn't going to win any hearts.

It will have to be 1080/24p or 720/24p.

And the XL3 had better skip HDV altogether.

Canon could outdo Panasonic:

1. License DVCPro (50 and HD) and HDV encoding
2. Push HDV to 50 Mbps
3. Include both 720p and 1080i HDV
4. Support 24p under all formats
5. Record DV and HDV 19/25 Mbps to tape, and DVCPro and 50-Mbps HDV-compatible streams to hard-disk or solid-state media
6. Include all the logic circuitry so that recording to nontape media means simply plugging in a cheap hard drive or a Samsung Flash-based drive
7. Include multiple frame rates for DVCPro HD 720p
8. Figure out how to encode DVCPro HD 1080p24 at 1,440 x 1,080 instead of 1,280 x 1,080
9. Three half-inch, 1,440 x 1,080 CMOS imaging chips that have excellent low-light capability
10. Usable uncompressed 4:4:4 HD-SDI output for masochists and those needing to do optimal blue- or greenscreen work
11. Of course, a removable lens
12. Replace the "bent" XL form factor with something sleeker
13. Price, with lens, well under $10,000 (preferably under $7,000)