New Canon Pro HD Camcorders Announced: XF300 & XF305

[cowpunk52]

http://www.dvinfo.net/news/canons-ne...amcorders.html

[dcloud]

seems pretty good on paper but...
$7,999.
$6,799.
OUCH thats pricey!

[cowpunk52]

Originally Posted by dcloud

seems pretty good on paper but...
$7,999.
$6,799.
OUCH thats pricey!

Word to that - I was really hoping for something in the $4500 - $5000 range, but that was probably just wishful thinking!

[Cranky]

"three Canon developed and designed native 1920 x 1080 CMOS image sensors" -- No CCDs. I expect prices on used A1/H1 to go up.

CF cards are a logical choice for 50 Mbit/s speed, and I think Canon also makes them. I saw CF cards with Canon logo. Nothing is said about Type II (thick) cards.

Full manual focus with hard stops.

4.0-inch, 1.23-megapixel LCD monitor, 1.55-megapixel color electronic viewfinder -- better than on the Sonys.

waveform monitor and vectorscope

[dcloud]

no word on 1/2" or 1/3"... most likely 1/3"

love the features.. but the price is too high..

would you pick this over an EX1R?

[Cranky]

Originally Posted by dcloud

no word on 1/2" or 1/3"... most likely 1/3"

What do you mean no word? It is a 1/3-inch block.

With $3,000 price gap Canon is either going to continue with the HDV models, or it has another cheaper lineup up its sleeve, similar to the HMC150 and the NX5/AX2000. I wish they also make a smaller model similar to the HMC40.

[dcloud]

Sorry but i dont see it on the link! i probably missed it or it was not written

[robertrogoz]

I am sure that at first (like all new models) it will be bugged with problems (like the new Sony), plus unproven track record in NLE, 1/3" chip and more $$$ then EX1, I think EX1 still will be hard to beat.

[Cranky]

I wonder how well MXF works with FAT32, how well clips can be split in 2GB or 4GB chunks and then recombined. Do Sony and Pana use a different file system (UDF? or something else?) to allow for long contiguous files?

In regards to pricing: MSRP is $3-4K lower than the HPX300/370. Handheld form-factor and lower bitrate. On another hand, better LCD/EVF, a long-GOP but still a good codec and cheap, cheap, cheap media compared to P2 (price difference is almost tenfold, AND you gain twice more recording time over AVC-I 100 with about the same visual quality).

[Barry_Green]

Originally Posted by Cranky

I wonder how well MXF works with FAT32

Current XDCAM-EX and P2 use MXF on FAT32, it's already a known and solved workflow.

Sony and Pana use a different file system (UDF? or something else?) to allow for long contiguous files?

Sony of course uses a different file system than Panasonic, they created their own version of MXF. Even so, they all use pointers to link files together to make for continuous recording.