Panasonic Lay offs: Is the HVX Dead?

[hotchkiss]

I can tell you that all of our wallets would be better off if Panasonic, Sony and Canon DIDN'T introduce new camcorders every 18 months. I like the old days when I had my Betacam for six years and it was bascially fine, I didn't lust after the latest and greatest every three months.

We are all shooting HD with cheap camcorders that make relatively great images. Why not leave it at that for a couple of more years, we can all pay off our credit cards, send our kids to college and make a living with what we have. ;-) Yeah, right, like that's going to happen...

Dan

A guy can dream.... I hear you, upgrade-itis gets old after awhile. The new product cycle has become so short, that it makes my wallet spin. Outside of a couple possible upgrades to my lighting package, I'll be sitting tight with my 200, 170 and HPX300 for quite awhile.

 

[hotchkiss]

I hope that what you say isn't true EDV, but looking at my start page of the NY Times every morning, it sure does seem as if what you describe is happening. The new administration has inherited a big mess that will take them years to dig out of, the stock market seems to spiral downward, then inch back up to around 8,000 with every report and announcement. Unemployment seems to be through the roof. I haven't opened my investment statements in months because the losses are too depressing.

I think that we will pull out of this eventually, but I don't think things will ever be the way that they were before. I know that my HPX170 will last me a minimum of 3-4 years and I don't plan on any major purchases this year. We are living in unprecedented times. I hope that work keeps on coming for me and that my wife doesn't lose her job, there have been rumblings at her work.

Make what you already have work in this economy.

Dan

Dan, I hope the best for your wife's employment status. The same for anyone else facing this issue.

While this administration has inherited this mess, it is not digging us out, rather it is digging the hole massively deeper and wider. The "Great Depression" was both because of the economic policies and interventions of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations- we've learned nothing in the last eighty years. The same economic fallacies are firmly entrenched and the failed economists who did not see even this calamity coming , have the ear of the power structure. I suspect that we are just in the initial stages of this, we will very likely see a currency collapse before it is said and done. Indeed, the 170 will be a viable tool for quite some time.

On a happier note, I've been cleaning out the equipment closet and selling any gear that doesn't work for me or get used regularly. I've got a regular eBay assembly line going ;-). It's nice to get the cash and some space back. I've been surprised at how much gear I had acquired that really wasn't essential.

Lean and mean is the order of the day.