Good Bye Sony at DVinfo.net

Jim Post · February 5th, 2004, 09:50 AM

Sony developed Beta, then Super Beta, then ED Beta; they were always before JVC and Panasonic. Sony developed 8 mm, Hi8, DV. They were always the first, and better. Now JVC already introduced 2 HDV camcorders, Panasonic the second progressive DVX, and it introduced a micro camcorder that records on SD cards. What really new prosumer camcorders did Sony introduce? None. For a long time.

Finacial trouble, hardly any profits, staff reductions, new sound problems on new camera upgrades. They keep on releasing new Palm organizers, improve on their dead mini disc format, upgrade consumer camcorders, developed Micro MV and now they will be droping the format.

Their new 8 MP still camera that was to have revolutionary color fidelity is a flop because of poor color; they repackaged Aiwa as Aiva. I just saw that thing at a local store. The logo is so bad, it looks like cheapest no brand to me; you have no clue that it is even Aiwa.

Panasonic is releasing low cost 24p models. Panasonic cornered the DVD recorder market. Sony buys flat screen TV's from Samsung, and will make new ones in Korea with Samsung. They joined with Erickson and claimed how they'll gain big market share. It did not happen. Their CEO sits on the board of Nestle. Maybe the next one will sit on the board of Yugo. Canon is stealing from them their digital camera business. They make crummy movies that hardly even get nominated for Oscars.

Does Columbia Pictures use more CineAlta cameras than other studios? I bet the answer is no.

Hello Panasonic, and thanks for listening to us.

Jim

Wayne Orr · February 5th, 2004, 11:55 AM

Wow, Jim. I guess Sony really screwed you over to be so angry with them. As a matter of fact, Sony CineAlta cameras are pretty much the standard of Hi def 24P production at all the major studios, including Sony/Columbia. Sure, there are a couple shows using the Panasonic Varicams, but Sony CineAlta's are way out front.

And one reason Sony has not come out with any exciting new product, is there present line just keeps selling. Indeed, they passed on 24P for "prosumer" cameras, but probably because they did not want competition for their professional cameras with 24P. You can bet there are a lot of Sony pro cameras that went begging when Sony sold so many PD150's to embedded journalists and virtually every broadcast entity.

So yes, when you curl up with your DVX100 under your pillow at night, you can sleep reasonably secure in the knowledge that Sony will most likely not enter into competition with Panasonic in this market segment.

Just like any other major corporation, Sony is free to make mistakes. By the way Jim, did you buy any MII products from Panasonic? That was going to be Panasonic's trump card to knock off Sony's Beta line. You remember MII, don't you Jim?

None of these companies are your friend.

Wayne Orr

Frank Granovski · February 5th, 2004, 06:25 PM

Quote:

None of these companies are your friend.

Now ain't that the truth. For example, Panasonic never introduced their flagship consumer handhelds, the MX3000 and the MX350 into the North American Market, and I doubt Pana will bring in their great GS100. With their MX1000, well, they did bring it in but is was all stripped down. Then there's Sony's stripped down PC300 for the North American Market called the PC330. What about Canon, you ask? Sure, they'd rather have the black version of the GL2 as a Japanese Domestic only. (I like black.) Did I miss anything? Oh yeah. All the cam makers seem to inflate prices for the North American Market, compared with what they sell for in Japan. So, are the cam makers your friend? I think not. :-))

John Gaspain · February 5th, 2004, 07:46 PM

Ya, I was just thinking about this also.

About how much I like Panasonic recently, My DV953 kinda go me going, then I realized I have a Pana TV for 7 years with no problems, a Pana Cordless Phone for 12 Yrs with no problems, and hell I was looking at some cams at Circuit city and was eyeing an awsome super small Pana GS70 3ccd miniDV beauty for ONLY $699, the sony TRV38 1chipper was the closest thing to it at $899!!! I about crapped! This ultra small 3CCD cam is cheaper than this old large(relative) TRV38 and costs LESS, WTF!...

And its not like they have made any leaps or bounds lately, Like the VX2100...Damn near the same as a VX2000(dont get mad VX owners, just accept it), PD170 same thing. You can get a Pana GS100 that will blow a PD away in color and sharpness AND its half the price AND size.

Do I need to mention the DVX100a, DVC80 or DVC30?

Cmon Sony, catch up.
[I do like Vegas tho, oh wait...they bought that from Sonicfoundry. Good Move!]

Joe Carney · February 5th, 2004, 07:50 PM

Frank, not to belabor the point, he lives in England. And it's winter, and the English get irritable and moody in winter. Cut him some slack.:)

And video equipment is generally more expensive in England than North America.

wah wah wah wah wahhhhhhhh.

Frank Granovski · February 6th, 2004, 01:52 AM

I was actually strengthening and expanding his argument. :-))

Ken Tanaka · February 6th, 2004, 02:38 AM

I think most of us develop affinities and disdains for certain companies generally based on delights or disappointments with their products and services.

Multi-faceted publicly financed companies like Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon, et.al. must continuously pursue growth. To do so they must continuously attempt to create new markets with experimental products, and they must also decide when it's time to curtail investments in other markets. The gravity of succcess forces the ante of each bet to be larger; a modest 3% sales growth for a smallish $100 million company is a far cry from that of a $100 billion company. Like turning a mega cruise ship, these decisions must often be made years in advance with the foresight of Nostradamus.

Sony is certainly not dead by any stretch of imagination. To be sure, it has not shone as brightly during recent years as it has in its past. All organizations must endure such periods. Sony's sheer size and its still deeply embedded Japanese management culture will continue to make change and response sluggish. They still plan in seeemingly geological time frames. But it still has an overwhelming base of innovative technological development capabilities, manufacturing firepower, and marketing acumen from which it can pull rabbits from hats.

I've never owned a Sony video camera (although all of my televisions, production monitors, VHS decks and stereo gear is Sony). But I sure would not discount them in the future, regardless of their current lineup of products.

Jim Post · February 6th, 2004, 04:05 AM

Just went through some older magazines; every time Sony put their name on something, it followed with "Sony, no Baloney". Haven't seen one of these slogans in recent ads. Does that mean that they changed their opinion of themselves?

Go see their new Aiwa stereo in some store. On the front it says Aiva, if you can even decipher it. On the back it says Sony Corporation. No baloney mentioned either. I guess times are changing. Canon has been having something like 100x larger profits than Sony for some time now. And that's no baloney, because Canon is no Sony.

Heard that after the Aiva marketing stunt, they are going to a new "Sony, no Balls" slogan, which they were planning to introduce since DVX came out, but so far had no balls to do it. I'd vote for "Sony no Balls Baloney". Lets bring some truth to advertising!

Shawn Mielke · February 6th, 2004, 12:29 PM

Hmm, are we choosing sides? If I had to, I think I'm in the Tenaka camp, and will continue to shoot great stuff with my PDX10s. And, Ken, thanks. Your balance of judgement, fact, and general openmindedness is a model to some of us.

Chris Hurd · February 6th, 2004, 12:37 PM

Ken should be a model to *all* of us.

Guys, this is strictly a Ford vs. Chevy argument. It accomplishes nothing except to anger the advocates of opposing camps, which has only one single effect: to split this community. Please don't do that. Thanks,

Boyd Ostroff · February 6th, 2004, 12:40 PM

Yeah, methinks Jim doth protest too much. He doesn't like Sony, OK I get it. So what? Don't buy their stuff and have a happy life. The marketplace will sort out all the rest

Personally I'm completely happy with all my Sony gear: PDX-10, VX-2000, RDR-GX-7 DVD recorder, LCD screen, 2 WEGA tube TV's, cassette deck, tuner and CD changer. The VX-2100 and PD-170 seem lackluster to me, so guess what... I'm not gonna buy one!

Jim Post · February 6th, 2004, 12:47 PM

not choosing sides, just teasing a little; Sony is fine. I use their products all the time. They had a CEO that was a musician after Akio Morita had a stroke and eventually died. The musician messed up Sony pretty badly. They are pulling out of the problems now. They award on performance now, not on length of employment. The Playstation #3 platform has a potencial of becoming a home computer platform. Sony is the only company that Microsoft is affraid of and is causing them headaches. They were so confident that the XBOX will sell better than PS2. That did not and will not happen.

Michel Brewer · February 6th, 2004, 02:20 PM

The biggest thing to realize is prosumer sales are a very small section of the market....in broadcast cameras to broadcasters they are the king and there is no one knocking them off that. Which is also a small but very expensive market....but in terms of camcorder to consumer sales well go to any large chain and the brand that has the most product is the sony.

As for the JVC HD I havent heard anything that great about them, but Id love to have a gy-dv5000

and panasonic well the dvcpro line has kinda gone away...but I would like the dvx :)

Ted Springer · February 6th, 2004, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Christopher wrote:
Guys, this is strictly a Ford vs. Chevy argument

Well, I think it's more like a Honda vs Toyota argument.

Rick Bravo · February 7th, 2004, 10:55 PM

Boys, please...just kick back and have another Bass Ale or Kirin!

Can't we all just get along?

February 5th, 2004, 09:50 AM	#1
Jim Post New Boot Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: London, England Posts: 13	Good Bye Sony Sony developed Beta, then Super Beta, then ED Beta; they were always before JVC and Panasonic. Sony developed 8 mm, Hi8, DV. They were always the first, and better. Now JVC already introduced 2 HDV camcorders, Panasonic the second progressive DVX, and it introduced a micro camcorder that records on SD cards. What really new prosumer camcorders did Sony introduce? None. For a long time. Finacial trouble, hardly any profits, staff reductions, new sound problems on new camera upgrades. They keep on releasing new Palm organizers, improve on their dead mini disc format, upgrade consumer camcorders, developed Micro MV and now they will be droping the format. Their new 8 MP still camera that was to have revolutionary color fidelity is a flop because of poor color; they repackaged Aiwa as Aiva. I just saw that thing at a local store. The logo is so bad, it looks like cheapest no brand to me; you have no clue that it is even Aiwa. Panasonic is releasing low cost 24p models. Panasonic cornered the DVD recorder market. Sony buys flat screen TV's from Samsung, and will make new ones in Korea with Samsung. They joined with Erickson and claimed how they'll gain big market share. It did not happen. Their CEO sits on the board of Nestle. Maybe the next one will sit on the board of Yugo. Canon is stealing from them their digital camera business. They make crummy movies that hardly even get nominated for Oscars. Does Columbia Pictures use more CineAlta cameras than other studios? I bet the answer is no. Hello Panasonic, and thanks for listening to us. Jim

February 5th, 2004, 07:46 PM	#4
John Gaspain Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: WA-USA Posts: 371	Ya, I was just thinking about this also. About how much I like Panasonic recently, My DV953 kinda go me going, then I realized I have a Pana TV for 7 years with no problems, a Pana Cordless Phone for 12 Yrs with no problems, and hell I was looking at some cams at Circuit city and was eyeing an awsome super small Pana GS70 3ccd miniDV beauty for ONLY $699, the sony TRV38 1chipper was the closest thing to it at $899!!! I about crapped! This ultra small 3CCD cam is cheaper than this old large(relative) TRV38 and costs LESS, WTF!... And its not like they have made any leaps or bounds lately, Like the VX2100...Damn near the same as a VX2000(dont get mad VX owners, just accept it), PD170 same thing. You can get a Pana GS100 that will blow a PD away in color and sharpness AND its half the price AND size. Do I need to mention the DVX100a, DVC80 or DVC30? Cmon Sony, catch up. [I do like Vegas tho, oh wait...they bought that from Sonicfoundry. Good Move!] __________________ The glory of the World passes by.

February 6th, 2004, 02:38 AM	#7
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	I think most of us develop affinities and disdains for certain companies generally based on delights or disappointments with their products and services. Multi-faceted publicly financed companies like Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon, et.al. must continuously pursue growth. To do so they must continuously attempt to create new markets with experimental products, and they must also decide when it's time to curtail investments in other markets. The gravity of succcess forces the ante of each bet to be larger; a modest 3% sales growth for a smallish $100 million company is a far cry from that of a $100 billion company. Like turning a mega cruise ship, these decisions must often be made years in advance with the foresight of Nostradamus. Sony is certainly not dead by any stretch of imagination. To be sure, it has not shone as brightly during recent years as it has in its past. All organizations must endure such periods. Sony's sheer size and its still deeply embedded Japanese management culture will continue to make change and response sluggish. They still plan in seeemingly geological time frames. But it still has an overwhelming base of innovative technological development capabilities, manufacturing firepower, and marketing acumen from which it can pull rabbits from hats. I've never owned a Sony video camera (although all of my televisions, production monitors, VHS decks and stereo gear is Sony). But I sure would not discount them in the future, regardless of their current lineup of products. __________________ Lady X Films: A lady with a boring wardrobe...and a global mission. Hey, you don't have enough stuff! Buy with confidence from our sponsors. Hand-picked as the best in the business...Really! See some of my work one frame at a time: www.KenTanaka.com

February 6th, 2004, 12:29 PM	#9
Shawn Mielke Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Santa Rosa, California Posts: 745	Hmm, are we choosing sides? If I had to, I think I'm in the Tenaka camp, and will continue to shoot great stuff with my PDX10s. And, Ken, thanks. Your balance of judgement, fact, and general openmindedness is a model to some of us. __________________ Breakthrough In Grey Room

February 6th, 2004, 12:37 PM	#10
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Ken should be a model to all of us. Guys, this is strictly a Ford vs. Chevy argument. It accomplishes nothing except to anger the advocates of opposing camps, which has only one single effect: to split this community. Please don't do that. Thanks, __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

February 5th, 2004, 11:55 AM	#2
Wayne Orr Major Player Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Northridge Ca Posts: 734	Wow, Jim. I guess Sony really screwed you over to be so angry with them. As a matter of fact, Sony CineAlta cameras are pretty much the standard of Hi def 24P production at all the major studios, including Sony/Columbia. Sure, there are a couple shows using the Panasonic Varicams, but Sony CineAlta's are way out front. And one reason Sony has not come out with any exciting new product, is there present line just keeps selling. Indeed, they passed on 24P for "prosumer" cameras, but probably because they did not want competition for their professional cameras with 24P. You can bet there are a lot of Sony pro cameras that went begging when Sony sold so many PD150's to embedded journalists and virtually every broadcast entity. So yes, when you curl up with your DVX100 under your pillow at night, you can sleep reasonably secure in the knowledge that Sony will most likely not enter into competition with Panasonic in this market segment. Just like any other major corporation, Sony is free to make mistakes. By the way Jim, did you buy any MII products from Panasonic? That was going to be Panasonic's trump card to knock off Sony's Beta line. You remember MII, don't you Jim? None of these companies are your friend. Wayne Orr

February 5th, 2004, 07:50 PM	#5
Joe Carney Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Centreville Va Posts: 1,828	Frank, not to belabor the point, he lives in England. And it's winter, and the English get irritable and moody in winter. Cut him some slack.:) And video equipment is generally more expensive in England than North America. wah wah wah wah wahhhhhhhh.

February 6th, 2004, 01:52 AM	#6
Frank Granovski Outer Circle Join Date: May 2002 Location: Hope, BC Posts: 7,524	I was actually strengthening and expanding his argument. :-))

February 6th, 2004, 04:05 AM	#8
Jim Post New Boot Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: London, England Posts: 13	Just went through some older magazines; every time Sony put their name on something, it followed with "Sony, no Baloney". Haven't seen one of these slogans in recent ads. Does that mean that they changed their opinion of themselves? Go see their new Aiwa stereo in some store. On the front it says Aiva, if you can even decipher it. On the back it says Sony Corporation. No baloney mentioned either. I guess times are changing. Canon has been having something like 100x larger profits than Sony for some time now. And that's no baloney, because Canon is no Sony. Heard that after the Aiva marketing stunt, they are going to a new "Sony, no Balls" slogan, which they were planning to introduce since DVX came out, but so far had no balls to do it. I'd vote for "Sony no Balls Baloney". Lets bring some truth to advertising!

February 6th, 2004, 12:40 PM	#11
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,800	Yeah, methinks Jim doth protest too much. He doesn't like Sony, OK I get it. So what? Don't buy their stuff and have a happy life. The marketplace will sort out all the rest Personally I'm completely happy with all my Sony gear: PDX-10, VX-2000, RDR-GX-7 DVD recorder, LCD screen, 2 WEGA tube TV's, cassette deck, tuner and CD changer. The VX-2100 and PD-170 seem lackluster to me, so guess what... I'm not gonna buy one!

February 6th, 2004, 12:47 PM	#12
Jim Post New Boot Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: London, England Posts: 13	not choosing sides, just teasing a little; Sony is fine. I use their products all the time. They had a CEO that was a musician after Akio Morita had a stroke and eventually died. The musician messed up Sony pretty badly. They are pulling out of the problems now. They award on performance now, not on length of employment. The Playstation #3 platform has a potencial of becoming a home computer platform. Sony is the only company that Microsoft is affraid of and is causing them headaches. They were so confident that the XBOX will sell better than PS2. That did not and will not happen.

February 6th, 2004, 02:20 PM	#13
Michel Brewer Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Ventura California Posts: 179	Sony The biggest thing to realize is prosumer sales are a very small section of the market....in broadcast cameras to broadcasters they are the king and there is no one knocking them off that. Which is also a small but very expensive market....but in terms of camcorder to consumer sales well go to any large chain and the brand that has the most product is the sony. As for the JVC HD I havent heard anything that great about them, but Id love to have a gy-dv5000 and panasonic well the dvcpro line has kinda gone away...but I would like the dvx :) __________________ milking the celebrity criminal trials thank god for the freaks

February 7th, 2004, 10:55 PM	#15
Rick Bravo Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Miami, FL Posts: 574	Ay, yay, yay! Boys, please...just kick back and have another Bass Ale or Kirin! Can't we all just get along? __________________ "The future ain't what it used to be." Yogi Berra. www.rbravo.com