Sony Unveils First Consumer HDV Camcorder

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.designtechnica.com/article5271.html' target='_blank'>http://news.designtechnica.com/article5271.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Sony today introduced the world's first High-Definition Video (HDV) 1080i camcorder. The HDR-FX1 Handycam camcorder records and plays back high definition video with 1080 interlaced lines of resolution - the highest resolution (1440 pixels x 1080 lines) of any consumer camcorder available. The HDR-FX1 camcorder will be available in November for about $3,700."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/hdtv_cam.gif" /><br /><br />The article goes on to give tons more detailes on this new HDV camcorder, but I don't quite understand why Sony is labeling this as a consumer level camera because at $3700, I don't see very many consumers investing in it. Sony HD DVC tape will be offered in the 63-minute professional tape length, which allows three minutes for recording tests. The tape will be available next month for about $18 per cassette.

[Felix Torres]

Sony probably calls it a consumer product because it isn't a pro product. :wink:
This is not a mom-n-pop camcorder, though.
Most of their sales will probably be to film school students; the specs seem about right for somebody trying to put together a movie on the cheap, say under $10,000.
Combine it with a high-end video-capable PC and you could have a pretty good garage studio for making documentaries and indie films.

This is the kind of stuff that led studio honchos to settle on JPEG2000 as the official format for digital theaters since any other choice would have opened the floodgates to the independent producers.
Of course, all they're doing is slowing the inevitable.

Moore's law marches on and both the camera and the high-end PC needed to set up garage studios *will* come down in price.

I'm guessing by 06 the combined prices will have come down to the $5000 range and maybe by 07 we'll see an equivalent camera under $1000, although I suspect we'll see true consumer HDV products (say, recording 720i) hit that pricepoint sooner, probably next year.
It'll take a while to build up the HD infrastructure but its getting here...

[Doug Johnson]

I want one... or three!

I've been waiting for this camera for a long time. I've been using Sony's DCR-VX2000 for several years and am constantly amazed by the high image quality, and have been wanting to add at least two more cameras of the same quality to my arsenal, but with this HDV camera coming out, there was no way I was going to spend $3k on another VX2000 or a VX2100.

I have been hoping this camera would have 24P, but nothing I've read says it does. That would have been really nice to appease my filmmaker friends.

As for the price? $3700 is amazing! When Sony first announced the camera, they said it would be "under $5000". But $3700!!?!?? That's a steal for a 3-chip HD camera. JVC's single chip HD wasn't much less when it came out.

I don't see Moore's law applying at this level of camera. Sony (and other companies actually) has been producing their semi-pro cameras at just around $3000 for a decade, and they still sell well. Even the 10-year old VX1000 compares very well with the current VX2100, at about the same price. A few new bells and whistles, but nothing too significant.

Where can I sign up? Gimme gimme gimme!

[Felix Torres]

I don't see Moore's law applying at this level of camera.

You don't?
It has applied to the digital SLRs, no?
Maybe not rigorously because the savings on the electronics side have been applied to improved optics and elsewhere, but still, what used to cost $3000 a few years ago is now available in $1000 cameras...

The price and capacity of semiconductor devices tends to follow some version of Mooore's law for pretty much all technologies, whether memory chips, processors, or sensors...

As you pointed out, this sony is a 3-chip camera selling at 1-chip prices.
That they can do it is because the price of the semiconductors has come down, no?