I was at GV Expo today in DC and got a chance to hear Jan's latest song and dance and play with a working HVX200, so I thought I'd post a few random thoughts for you sharks. 
Jan confirmed that production was on schedule and she just received a batch of production demos--production units without serial numbers. So the production line is cranking and Panny is set to deliver on their *original* timeline of the end of the year. Jan played some new footage from the camera from one of the Japanese engineers and his crazy friend. They strapped the HVX to a model helicopter and a mountain bike and took some--uh...engineer-class footage. It was hard to tell much because the presentation was out on the show floor which washed out the screen. More promising--Nancy Schreiber will be shooting some demo footage next week, so there should be some top notch material in the pipeline. There was also some demo footage that demonstrated the complete lack of compression artifacting--even in fast pans. I haven't kept track of all these threads, so I don't want to repeat what's already been posted, but Jan's presentation had some interesting info about the chips and the resolution and available frame rates. Using a resolution chart the HVX was measured at about 750 lines of vertical res and 700 lines of horizontal. After Jan's presentation we got to play with the HVX and everything looks great from my perspective. People have made comments about the weight, but it really doesn't seem significantly heavier than the DVX--to me at least. I thought the ergonomics were excellent and the camera handled well. I *loved* the focus assist--a 200% magnified box that pops up on the screen--and allows you to fine focus--*without* an HD monitor. The slow zoom was silky smooth and the lens is nice and wide at the short end. If you're used to a DVX, the HVX handles like a piece of cake. I watched a wide variety of people handle the cam and everyone looked pretty comfortable. The Firestore FS-100 should be ready in May and they had a mockup at the show--interestingly, it'll have it's own preview display. All in all, the feature set whomps everything else I saw at the show and this cam is going to cause problems for high-end HDV cams. I ran into fellow DVXuser Matt (mcgeedigital) and he mentioned that Discovery HD won't be accepting HDV but will accept DVCPro HD from the HVX, so I think the HVX is pretty much in a class by itself.
Jan confirmed that production was on schedule and she just received a batch of production demos--production units without serial numbers. So the production line is cranking and Panny is set to deliver on their *original* timeline of the end of the year. Jan played some new footage from the camera from one of the Japanese engineers and his crazy friend. They strapped the HVX to a model helicopter and a mountain bike and took some--uh...engineer-class footage. It was hard to tell much because the presentation was out on the show floor which washed out the screen. More promising--Nancy Schreiber will be shooting some demo footage next week, so there should be some top notch material in the pipeline. There was also some demo footage that demonstrated the complete lack of compression artifacting--even in fast pans. I haven't kept track of all these threads, so I don't want to repeat what's already been posted, but Jan's presentation had some interesting info about the chips and the resolution and available frame rates. Using a resolution chart the HVX was measured at about 750 lines of vertical res and 700 lines of horizontal. After Jan's presentation we got to play with the HVX and everything looks great from my perspective. People have made comments about the weight, but it really doesn't seem significantly heavier than the DVX--to me at least. I thought the ergonomics were excellent and the camera handled well. I *loved* the focus assist--a 200% magnified box that pops up on the screen--and allows you to fine focus--*without* an HD monitor. The slow zoom was silky smooth and the lens is nice and wide at the short end. If you're used to a DVX, the HVX handles like a piece of cake. I watched a wide variety of people handle the cam and everyone looked pretty comfortable. The Firestore FS-100 should be ready in May and they had a mockup at the show--interestingly, it'll have it's own preview display. All in all, the feature set whomps everything else I saw at the show and this cam is going to cause problems for high-end HDV cams. I ran into fellow DVXuser Matt (mcgeedigital) and he mentioned that Discovery HD won't be accepting HDV but will accept DVCPro HD from the HVX, so I think the HVX is pretty much in a class by itself.
