Chris, you sound a bit like my old boss, who used to work 100 hours a week and always looked at me crooked when I said I was off climbing for a weekend. Just because the gear used to cost a lot in the past doesn't mean it still has to. First of all if you compare HM100 to RED1 it's like comparing a formula one car to Toyota Tercel. Maybe there would be a comparison between say PDW700 and RED, or something along these lines, but in no way you can do that with HM100 or even 700.

Also notice, that unlike in other industries the payments for content or the wages for workers actually are down from the early to mid 90's. I used to work on movies as a grip way back when and the day rate was usually 500. Now you are lucky if you get 400, but mostly I saw 350 range.(of course I am talking non-union). Also in the past buyers like Discovery Channel would purchase 3 one hour episodes (I mean 44 minutes) for roughly 100K. Try to get it now- good luck, unless you have something on par with Deadliest Catch. The strength is in numbers, so people try to generate as much programming as they can, hence it's a big part of having so much garbage on TV. But also we have to keep a keen eye on equipment cost.

Back to the topic: is HM100 a good cam? It is OK, but not great. It could be much, much better. I strongly believe the technology is already there, but like a lot of users here think, it's just trickling down. Maybe corporations like JVC want to get as much $$$, but as a consumer I want to get in return as much value as I can. Things change, beta cams are gone, analog is no longer a broadcast standard. And it is no longer seller market, it's buyers market. I vote with my dollars, my right. Since I know JVC and other companies visit this site, this is my way telling them: I want more value for my $$$.

I've been quoted in a post on DVInfo :-))) Is it okay to say that I had a glass of Kool Aid to celebrate? Well, it would have been back in the 1970s when I was growing up in Cupertino CA. That's a long time ago and now I'm back home in England where we don't say Kool Aid very much, but we do say fart quite a lot. I hope Chris doesn't cut me adrift for this!!

Regarding the HM-100 as 'the one'....noooooo. Keep the cigar in the box just yet. But it's pretty close as a B cam. To be honest, it's a real joy to use - so novel after having Sony ballast on my shoulder for years (BVW-600, DNW-xxx - forget the model - Beta SX, and now a DSR-450 with radio mic and Anton Bauer Hytron 140's - *that's* heavy!) and so much fun to use. You can get shots physically impossible with a larger camera and 1/2 inch or 2/3 inch lens. I keep the wide angle adapter on it all the time. I take off the handle and use it on a pole. I strap it to anything and everything. Okay, it won't do manual like a big camera, but that's not what it's good at. Manual can be fudged with it, so that's cool for me. The bonus is that it can do loads of things a big camera can't. So in that sense it's a perfect camera. I can even give it to a child who has never held a camera before, and get usable footage! I work alongside VJ's shooting Z-5's and they **love** the size of the HM-100.

It might not be 'the one' but it's certainly one of 'the few' :-)

*hic*

Cotty

Thanks for taking the hit, Rick!
 

Remember that "the one" should be lightweight--like under 3 pounds. The RED isn't and I doubt if Scarlet will be. I agree the prosumer/professional division has become artificial and the high end serves to funnel profits to the companies.

I had an MRI done last week and it revealed 2 herniated discs in my lower back and 3 buldging discs in the cervical (neck) area. I can place the blame squarely on the RCA TK-76 (30 pounds) I used to tote around. That is the reason why I need a lightweight camera if I'm to continue in the profession. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard.

Come to think of it, is there ANY company out there that makes a great product at an affordable price and keeps putting it out year after year with few changes?

I've been hankering after one of these for years :-)

I suspect exactly the opposite is true: the consumer/prosumer markets probably foster the finances and the high end fosters the technological innovation that trickles down into the consumer/prosumer.

Just like Honda's racing involvement probably doesn't make them a ton of cash but the lessons they learn and the innovations they develop are probably what makes for a bulletproof Honda Accord that sells millions every year.

Again, I could EASILY be wrong but I don't buy into the suggestion that companies are raking in the cash from sales of a handful of high end tech devices that they will never sell more than a virtual "handful" of.

A final wish...
 

Very funny, Steve!!!

Shaun, I don't have any background in economics. You may be right.
I find myself prefacing most of my comments here with "I wish...I wish..."

1-Well, I wish someone from the manufacturer's side would comment on pricing and profits.
2-I wish someone from the government would look into planned obsolescence issues or the suggestion that electronic cartels conspire to dribble technological improvements like water torture over agonizingly long time interval.
3-I wish the video expos would hold a seminar on "the one" that meets the criteria aforementioned.

That might be true for some companies but for JVC it's the opposite, at least in recent memory. The professional division was the profitable one and the consumer division was losing money. R & D is part of both divisions but each division has different goals for their direct market.

Why is difficult to use AVCHD the format of choice now in the consumer market? It's great for clips but terrible for editing. That's because the consumer division feels that their market is not that interested in editing but really interested in uploading to YouTube or going straight to DVD. That's also the same executive reasoning in why you can hardly find a consumer camera with an external mike input. The manufacturers found that such a small percentage used it that you could easily save money by not including it and the result was, maybe, a few thousand inconvenienced people who either stepped up to a more expensive possibly prosumer model, switched to a competitor's model (if there is one) or just not buy anything. The money lost in sales is way less then the savings of removing the external mike input from the manufacturing process.

The RCA TK-76?!?!?!? That was a heavy camera! Used it twice, fortunately the place I worked at used an Ikegami HL79 for most shoots.