Does Sony have some kinda "Super Cam" in the works? (on topic)

[Evan Clare]

Hey guys I went to my local rental facility a little while ago hoping to hype them up about the HVX200 (I was just gonna give them a link to this web site). So I got there and I met the guy in charge of the production department and I start telling him about the camera and half way through he interrupts claiming "yeah I know all about it, but I'm more interested in what Sony has to offer."

Okay, so I'm about to leave when this other guy comes up to me and mentions that he uses the DVX100 a lot and that he'd be interested in the camera. So I get into vague details about specs, as I'd rather have them read about it. Again I'm interrupted by the Production guy, only this time he's talking to the other guy and I get the feeling he's trying to compete with me over hyping up a camera (I just want them to buy this when it comes out, I could care less if they love it or not :). So he goes on like "Sony's got this amazing camera coming out, Hd, blah blah blah, some kinda disc-based format that records HD for 13 hours solid, etc.

I then asked them if they wanted a link to a website where they can read more about it, but Production guy just didn't seem interested at all.

Damn and I thought they'd buy an HVX for sure when it comes out, but it doesn't look like it now. Does Sony really have this amazing camera coming out? If so how does it compare to the HVX?

-Evan

[stephenlnoe]

There is always a "better" camera just around the bend, hombre.
Sony will not let Panasonic get ahead more than a half/step. I'm relativly sure there is an XDCam solution in the wings for Sony.

Fact is that people are throwing specs out like bath water on a camera that will come out in about 6 months. Sony has plenty of time to fully develope a competitor and they've been known to keep things well under wraps much better than Panasonic. This is why Panasonic better not drag their feet about production of this lastest "phantom" (as of now) camera known as the HVX200.

[Barry_Green]

At NAB Sony was making a "technology demonstration" of XDCAM-HD. No product was shown or announced.

You can count on there being something new from Sony. The question is, will it be what you want?

[Graeme_Nattress]

I think they had a mockup in a glass cabinet. But their road map for HD on XDCAM is 2006 / 2007 for the higher data rate.

So yes, Sony have a new camera coming, but will it be any good? It certainly won't be compact :-)

Graeme

[thisiswells]

Definitely--but the technology of blue laser isn't even on the market yet for anything besides
big broadcast cameras.. And they're merging the consumer-ish Blu-Ray spec with HD-DVD.

So--yah something will come eventually, but you shouldn't expect to see it for a couple of years.
The 8cm discs (which they would have to use to even think about fitting in a handheld camera)
hold about 15GB currently (in development) and aren't anywhere close the the datarate that
Sony HDCAM would require. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see a 50Mbps HDV-format on
blue-laser disc in two-three years, but that is the extent of my speculations. They're definitely
not anywhere even remotely close to fitting DVCPRO-HD equivalent Sony HDCAM on blue-laser disc.

I would think Sony would want to up the capabilities of the sorely lacking 35-70K
camera market first with variable framerate and true progressive at that price point
long before they make a handheld HD camera worth it's weight in magnesium alloy :thumbup:
My .02

[Digigenic]

Maybe this is the "supacam" (http://www.supacam.com/index2.htm) that everybody's talking about... :)
I know Sony's good, but they can't be this good...

[ddh]

Nice one Digigenic!

[Mr. Blonde]

I wouldn't be worried about Sony, if they ever do catch up to Panasonic's progress it'll be another 2 years or so, besides they're way too tight to offer a truly good deal. Yet Canon's XL3 could incorporate a 1080 24p format along with the detachable lens mount...that would be awesome!

[alpi69]

SONY and Canon are up for a huge challenge. beat this for $ 6000:
- 100MBs 4:2:2
- HD
- 60fps HD and DV-recording (you can dump to SD-tape even when shooting in 720p 60fps)
- 1080p / 1080i / 720p
- 24p (25p)
- Panasonics Cinegamma
- P2 option which allows laptop-editing without any further hardware
etc etc

what´s missing? free P2 cards (so the XDcam will have an advantage if they make it affordable) and the removable lens. but a removable in that camerasize? won´t happen. i love the lightweight cameras, because i am often on mountaintops...

[thisiswells]

The Supacam DV6 actually looks pretty good on paper.
Definitely the finest so far I've seen of that type of camera. Cool for roadtrips, certainly!!

[Jan_Crittenden]

IDamn and I thought they'd buy an HVX for sure when it comes out, but it doesn't look like it now. Does Sony really have this amazing camera coming out? If so how does it compare to the HVX?


Don't worry Evan, the Sony camera is in the $$$$$ range. They will buy the HVX if they want the business. Rental companies have what their customers want. The guy at the rantal placemay love Sony, but when it comes to business, they will have what the customers need.

Best,

Jan

[Zim]

SONY and Canon are up for a huge challenge. beat this for $ 6000:
- 100MBs 4:2:2
- HD
- 60fps HD and DV-recording (you can dump to SD-tape even when shooting in 720p 60fps)
- 1080p / 1080i / 720p
- 24p (25p)
- Panasonics Cinegamma
- P2 option which allows laptop-editing without any further hardware
etc etc

what´s missing? free P2 cards (so the XDcam will have an advantage if they make it affordable) and the removable lens. but a removable in that camerasize? won´t happen. i love the lightweight cameras, because i am often on mountaintops...

Panasonic needs to make one too!!

[alpi69]

good point!

[Evan Clare]

I appreciate the responses guys, it makes me feel a lot better knowing only good things can come from all of this competition amongst camera manufacturers :). It seems my rental facility would definitly be better off getting both cameras, after all they are a provincial arts society, so to simply cater to the guy in charge rather than to the members would be a huge step in the wrong direction.

-Evan

[speedbump]

There, I said it. I wish a POX on Sony.

Are they going to introduce a supra-cam to compete with Panasonic? In a word, NO.

Oh, there will be a lot of yapping about whatever trash they can pull out in the next 6 months, but it just won't hold a candle to the HVX.

Here's some facts which I am using to form my opinion:

1) Sony has lost their soul. Their main Brain has died or retired (I can't remember which) and the new management simply don't have a clue how to compete in the new marketplace.

2) Sony is so huge, that they have swallowed up content producers in their quest for ever-greater market domination. The problem with this is that the content-production side sure doesn't want Sony to produce a single product which could diddle with the maximization of its own intellectual property cash cow. Do you really think Sony is going to make anything which will subvert their content business? Can you say 'boat anchor?'

3) Sony hasn't produced anything new in at least 5 years. They can't. They have lost the ability to do so, corporate-wise. It used to be that this was a hungry company, that spared no effort at innovation, in order to get to the top. Now they are share-driven, not merit-driven.

Pfah. I sure as hell won't buy anything from them. My most recent Sony tale of woe came from the purchase of a mini-Disk recorder. Solid, portable, good sound quality! I took the unit to a live show, recorded the audio on it, and when it came time to copy the data over its fiber output, it WOULDN'T FUCKING let me copy my content digitally. Oh no! I might be copying some copyrighted material somehow.

No... it is my ORIGINAL content. Me. I created it. Bastards.

Sony can kiss my hairy arse. They certainly won't cash any of my checks in the near future.

[Steve Shovlar]

Speedbump your hatred of Sony is getting in the way of the great products they make.
The FX1/ZU1 are excellent cameras. They may not have the feature list of the HVX200 but they have sold over 30,000 of them and they are still going strong. The HD image produced by these cameras is mind blowing. Plus of course you can HD to tape, something the HVX200 is not capable of doing in its current feature list.

If you think Sony are sitting on their backsides twiddling their thumbs you are sadly mistaken. They know exactly what Panny are doing and sure as salt and vinegar goes on chips they will come up with a rival to the HVX200 with even more bells and whistles on it.

This is only good for us comsumers. Cheaper high quality cameras with more great features.

Let battle commence! :)

[reservoir]

So this *Supa Cam* is real? I thought it was a joke / hoax website? If it's real, it sounds pretty neat!!

~reservoir~

[CineCell]

Wow, someone is either one of those brand babies, or works for Sony.

The images are mind blowing? Ummmm..... whatever you say there captain!

HD to mini DV tape... so what? That is the problem actually.






The FX1/ZU1 are excellent cameras. They may not have the feature list of the HVX200 but they have sold over 30,000 of them and they are still going strong. The HD image produced by these cameras is mind blowing. Plus of course you can HD to tape, something the HVX200 is not capable of doing in its current feature list.

[Rosestar]

Sony's competion for the HVX, for quite a while, will be the Z1U. IMO, they lost the battle for filmmakers when they failed to embrace 24P for the PD170, and now did not put 24P on the Z1U... how could they be so blind?

[Simon Wyndham]

Sony pro and Sony consumer are two totally different things really. Most of the conversation here seems to assume Sony actually cares a huge amount about the indie moviemaking market. I think that if Sony did care they would have made the FX1 and Z1 true progressive cameras.

In reality I think Sony are concentrating more on sewing up the real high end market and leaving the indie market to Panasonic,

There's only one camera the Sony Pro division are probably afraid of, and thats the Grass Valley Viper Filmstream camera now that it has portable storage! If there's one camera I REALLY want its that one!

[SoerenM]

Exactly Simon.. I guess what really opened my eyes in this regard was when I visited the Sony booth at last years CeBIT here in germany to see the very first "prototype" of the FX1 (which was a mockup too btw ;o) and talked to some of the staff there. And even the one or two knowledgable people form the staff there (that knew the technical details etc.) made it clear that this cam etc. was in no way intended for indie filmmakers or with them in mind. The whole presentation and show was just about jane & john doe being able to easily tape some 1080i material, burned it onto a Sony blueray disc and whatch it with their large Sony HiDef TV! They even said something about grandpa/grandma going onto vacation (caribean ;o) and taking the cam with them... it was quite hilarous in fact! ;-)

There was not a single Sony staff member that had every heard about dvxuser, dvinfo etc.pp. ...
So from that point on I know that I won't have to expect anything progressive from Sony in the nearer futurue.. ;-)

Cheers

[mr._guiyotinne]

but it´s not just about the cameras, if Sony cams don´t give us what we want as Pana is doing... t will happend like Speeddump said, why bother to buy a production monitor from them?or minidisks?or high end cams? or even tapes!

Sony´s behaviour is in a wrong direction and this could affect all kind of corps. If JVC or Pana started to follow this way, probably they would loose all the hardcore fans they have actually (specially Pana... i´m, becoming one just from lurking here).

Right now for me, Sony means trickery buy... If you buy a minidisk, you can´t get the record out through optic, Cameras? No real progressive in even higher price. Customers? We give them what WE want, they will pay anyway... There´s always a catch in a Sony buy. Bad way to keep happy clients...

[MattC]

I just posted this in another thread... Do you really think you make up the market? I haven't done the research, but I would bet that the 24p crowd makes up an VERY small percentage of the camcorder market. It is a niche segment. Sony chooses not to go after that particular niche, great, Pany has. But that doesn't mean that "Sony's Hurting" or "moving in the wrong direction".

[J.R. Hudson]

I can't imagine the 24p camera is neccesarily dominating the market at this time; isn't a filmmakers format?

[MattC]

Yeah it is. And there's nothing wrong with dominating a niche, hence the expression "riches in niches". But I don't think any manufacturer would trade DVX sales (or XL2) sales for Handycam sales. I'm sure Sony wouldn't (at this point) trade FX1 sales for Handycam sales. As I've said before, most people shooting video for a living are not indie filmmakers nor do they aspire to be (in a practical sense). While 24p is certainly gaining, it's still not a de-facto standard for event videography, any more than 16:9 is. Sony has clearly staked out which market segments are of interest to them and are pursuing those segments. No one company can or should do it all. Why should folks be upset that an industry leader doesn't focus on their particular niche? You should just be glad that there is a company that does, and does it well.

Matt

[Barry_Green]

I just posted this in another thread... Do you really think you make up the market? I haven't done the research, but I would bet that the 24p crowd makes up an VERY small percentage of the camcorder market.
Of the overall camcorder market, yes, I would agree.

Of the $4,000 "prosumer/pro" market? I would disagree. Call retailers and ask. I did. Not only is the DVX far and away the most successful camera that Panasonic's ever released, but I've been told that it's still, to this day, outselling the competition by at least a 3:1 margin. Even over FX1s and Z1s.

Sony's proclamation at NAB that they'd sold 35,000 was a bit of a surprise, considering that in their pre-NAB press kit they said that they would be announcing that "Sony expects to deliver 6,000 units of HDV products in the U.S. before the opening of NAB in mid-April" (taken from http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5591)

So that includes FX1s, Z1s, and decks all combined to add up to 6,000. Over a six-month period, from October until April. And, mind you, that's delivering units to resellers, not sell-through to customers. So where did "35,000" come from? Are they including sales figures for individual tapes in that number? As in, 6,000 cameras and decks, and 29,000 tapes? Or did sales magically explode to 5x their normal level right before NAB (a claim that would seem thoroughly unbelievable, considering that a) the retailers didn't notice it, and b) sales probably slowed down as customers braced for the announcement of new products).

I don't know how many handycams and 1-ccd cams are sold -- I'm sure there are many, many, many times as many of those sold as there are of $4,000 prosumer cameras, that only makes sense.

But among the crowd buying $3,000 to $4,000 cameras, yes 24p is obviously a huge factor.

[MattC]

Oh, I agree Barry, but Sony isn't in the market your describing. Perhaps i didn't make my point well. My point was that sony apparently has no interest in going after the niche that you describe (the $4000 prosumer/pro market). Even the FX1 and Z1 really isn't targeted to that market segment. It's targeted to folks with enough expendable income to afford a Sony HDTV and want an HD camcorder to go with it. Even though the price points are similar, it is an entirely different demographic than what you find on this board, for example.

We do not make up the majority of the consumer grade camcorder market (prosumer/pro is really a sub-segment). This market can be broken down into segments and sub-segments. Somewhere WAY down the line, you'll find most of the folks who frequent this board. Sony, like a lot of large companies with dominant market share, have chosen to focus their efforts on the largest market segments. Nothing wrong with that. I myself own a company which caters to a small clientele in a niche market segment. The big boys can't compete with me their and for that I'm happy - but since their annual revenue is vastly greater than mine, I don't think their losing any sleep.

Matt