Time to sell?

[Spartacus]

If, like so many new products that come to market, the price point for solid state is higher than most indie filmmakers can afford (which I predict it will be for a while), then HDV will still be relevent.

I guess most people will expect that Canon will use "off the shelf" solid state media, probably sth they have a lot of experience with from their bigger photography department.
Canon just doesn´t have the market share to come up with their own (expensive) storage solution...
The real selling point would rather be a newer and better codec than HDV, that will most likely come with tapless recording. But I doubt Canon will come up with sth we all would like to see (like an intra-frame codec), they´ll probably just use the AVC their smaller cams already offer...

Right now, if my HDV camera was making me money, I´d probably wait the next year to see what´s happening...

 

[Nektonic]

I'd be surprised if Canon didn't announce an AVC-HD XH-A2 at NAB 2009 or by next summer. The A1 was announced in the summer of 2006 and was first available around Oct. or Nov. of 06. So by next summer the A1 will be about 3 years old. Canon already has their consumer cams that do 24mbps AVC-HD coming out soon. It doesn't seem too far a stretch of the imagination to assume that they'll have this out by the time the A1 turns three (which is kind of elderly for video cameras).

If this happens I'll just sell the A1 to help pay for the A2. I'd rely on the A2 for weddings and events, while a Scarlet will serve as a digital film, music video, commercial, and effects camera.

 

[Methane]

I think that the XH-A1 will still hold its value for a while. Even when it becomes a last generation camera. Naturally selling it now will get more dough than if you sell next year at this time.

 

[futureman]

The whole myth of HDV=bad has pretty much been completely debunked at this point. the quality of the CCD's and lens play a far greater role in image quality than the codec being used.

Anyone who has used the Canon cams, and edited with their footage knows that compression is not an issue, and the image is incredibly good, beating out many solid state competitors.

That being said, the canon is also half the price of its competitors, and when you factor in the cost of extremely overpriced memory cards, it is more like a quarter the price.

However i do think that something better is coming down the pipeline within the next six months that may replace the A1... but what really puzzles me is the new shoulder mount cams from canon actually have less features than the xl-h1... mainly a lack of four channel audio, which, i would imagine was a major selling point! So perhaps canon is planning to keep the current HDV models, since they are affordable and selling VERY well, and introducing more expensive solid state models, with features such as four channel audio!