Future retail price prediction for XH-A1

[Tom Films]

Are there any potential new model releases from any manufacturer in the near future that would cause the A1's retail price to drop? Or any other events that would affect the price?

I am going to purchase one of these units and can wait until as late as August or September of 2007. Would there be any significant savings 3-4 months from now.

Currently a local store is selling them for $3100 after Canon's current mailin rebate.

Regards,
Tom

 

[ObiMcD]

You might be better off getting it now as the mail-in rebate only lasts until June 30th. HOWEVER, there is a potential that with the release of the Red, one of two things could happen.
A. The price just drops in general
B. There's a large wave of used XH-A1's that hit the E-bay market.
However, I think I heard somewhere that there was a delay so it might not hit until September or so, but this is just speculation, and maybe the severe price difference will make a minimal effect on the XH-A1 (17,000 v. 3000)

 

[BARYE]

You might be better off getting it now as the mail-in rebate only lasts until June 30th. HOWEVER, there is a potential that with the release of the Red, one of two things could happen.
A. The price just drops in general
B. There's a large wave of used XH-A1's that hit the E-bay market.
However, I think I heard somewhere that there was a delay so it might not hit until September or so, but this is just speculation, and maybe the severe price difference will make a minimal effect on the XH-A1 (17,000 v. 3000)

no doubt I'm naive, but I cannot imagine that the Red will compete with the XHA1 for many customers.

And if I understand correctly, buying into the entire Red ecosystem is going to cost more than 17K

Maybe I'm wrong --- maybe there are thousands and thousands of wealthy indie film makers waiting to buy the Red...

(they have discussed a hypothetical small cheaper camera -- but that's still a considerable ways off )

 

[Huy Vu]

I doubt if the release of RED will impact A1 price or any camera under 10k. They're just not aimed at the same market. The often quoted 17k is for the body only; a fully functional camera will cost anywhere from 35-50k, not taking into account the price of going to a post house to edit your footage or buying a good enough computer. Plus the release of RED is on a limited basis of about 1000 units, and we won't see wide release for at least a year after that.

At the moment there's no direct competition that's going to be released for the next 3-4 months. The closest contender would be the 1/2'' chip Sony XDCAM EX; if it comes out in 7 to 8 months and lived up to the quoted spec, it offers serious competition to both the A1 and the HVX at a price of only $8000.