Could be that person involved in reporting this was worried about losing that 12 stops range and jumped to a conclusion. I expect any visual quality differences will be revealed once people test the new camera.

That actually sounds "reasonable" - relatively-speaking! BUT, it's still tape, so it still has a dinosaur-like feel, and of course you need expensive machines to play it.
I think it'll be a fairly short-lived thing (isn't everything these days?), and that a good 1080/60P solid state machine can't be too far off.
Steve

We must not forget that tape is still the only feasible archive method, and to have your original footage on tape is not such a bad thing at all.
Nevertheless if the camera block is the same in all Sony Hi End cameras
(CAN SOMEONE CONFIRM THIS PLEASE),
then the combination of a 700/800 camera and a Digital Recorder (wafian, XDR, Kipro, etc) has an outstanding value compared to the to the 9000 or F23+recorder.

The original reference mentioned only to the optical block itself, not the camera head. The person who made the comment on CML thought he'd prefer to use the F23 camera head into a S two uncompressed recorder rather than the new camera, but again I suppose that could depend on the new camera basically only having a F900 camera head rather than a F23 camera head.

The in value terms the combination the those recorders would make sense, although you wouldn't be getting the extra visual information from the F23's cine mode menus.

Except with the 9000 you get 1080/60P 4:4:4 which is as good as anyone will need!

Steve

I believe the PDW-700, PDW-F800, HDC-1500 all share the same optical block and sensors while the F23 uses the same sensors but with a prism designed to give a wider gamut. The exotic glass used in the prisms makes up a substantial part of the cameras cost as in many cases the glass is actually grown as a crystal in a vacuum at high temperatures.

I believe this was why the reference to the prism was made because it was a means of reducing the cost of the SRW900 compared to the F23.

A basic SRW-9000 is missing much of the stuff thats standard on the F23. Stock 9000 is 4:2:2 not 4:4:4 for a start and has no over or undercrank. When you add all the options to bring it up to F23 spec I think the price will be much closer.