What Does Sony Have in the Works?

[Greg Wolfinger]

So does anyone know if Sony has something in the works? Since Canon just put out a native 16x9 and 24p cam, should we be expecting something from Sony along these lines too? Any speculation is welcome.

[Michael Struthers]

Sony has their HDV cam coming in spring 05. The question really is whether they will go 1 more round in SD with a 16x9 24p cam to counter dvx100a and xl2.

[Boyd Ostroff]

First, yes "somone" knows the answer to this but they are not going to tell us because of non-disclosure agreements.

Second, I would not automatically assume "Sony has their HDV cam coming in spring 05". That might be a good guess, and Sony showed a non-working concept camera at NAB, but I don't think they're on record as to when they will actually introduce it. But I could be wrong - do you have a link to anything from Sony stating a release date?

Look back at the history of speculation about new Sony and Canon cameras. Many "experts" thought the XL-2 would be introduced long before it actually was. Scott Billups predicted it would appear in summer 2003. The PD-170 took just about everyone by surprise. In fact, many seasoned professionals thought it was a hoax for more than a week following the announcement in Europe.

Speculation on this is not going to be very helpful, and probably belongs in the Area 51 forum...

[Dave Campbell]

But, all I can say for myself, is I was ready to buy a PD170 until Sony show a mockup, or what ever it is called. Now I will just wait , which, I assume others are doing also.

Dave

[Boyd Ostroff]

I kinda doubt that very many others are waiting just for that Sony HDV, but I could be wrong. I agree it looked very promising and I might be interested. However I think you'll be waiting somewhere around a year. And do you really want to be the first kid on the block with a completely new and untested camera? I'd want to wait several months before buying after the intro, so we're really getting out into the future then. Also realize they were talking about a $5,000 price point which is in a whole different ballpark than a PD-170 for less than $3,000...

OTOH, if you can put off spending some money then why buy now? My *guess* is that the Sony rebate doesn't mean they are discontinuing the PD-170 at all. That is just a guess of course because nobody really knows.

Someone should really move this whole portion of the thread to Area 51 I think...

[Ken Tanaka]

This thread was calved from a thread in the Sony forum to better facilitate free speculation. Bon appetite!

[Boyd Ostroff]

Well since this is Area 51 now....

Sony's prosumer line is sort of a mass of contradictions IMO. They just replaced the TRV-950 with the HC-1000, leading to some inital speculation that its city cousin, the PDX-10 was due for replacement (this would be comparable to Sony releasing the VX-2100 without the PD-170). However, the HC-1000 has no new features that would be desirable in a PDX-10 replacement. It has a strange swivelling body that would be tough for an XLR adaptor, they used a different battery that only comes in smaller sizes, the viewfinder and LCD are lower resolution, the LCD is physically smaller and they did away with physical controls and moved everything to the LCD touch panel. Lens and CCD's are the same. In other words, it got more "consumery" (except for the black finish)

There have been no rebates offered on the PDX-10, and in fact it can still boast higher quality 16:9 than the PD-170. So who knows what might be next for that product? Maybe a minor upgrade like the PD-170, with a different color scheme, more iris steps and a bundled WA lens? But I kinda doubt they're in any rush to do that somehow.

Sony still sells the DSR-250 which is basically a PD-150 in shoulder mount form factor. Many have been surprised that there has been no DSR-270 announced.

Prior to the release of the PD-170 Sony said there was no rush for an upgrade because PD-150 sales were so strong. When reports of the PD-170 emerged, poorly translated from Japanese, many people assumed it was a hoax. If you will recall, there were all sorts of PD-150 upgrade wish lists out there, just like the XL-2 wish lists, and everybody was convinced it would have native 16:9, HD CCD's, and Lord knows what else. So the early PD-170 reports seemed like a bad joke when they bragged about the new iLink cable strap.

Now of course it did turn out to be a solid camera with some nice minor improvements, after they got over the audio hum problems on some early models. However, I doubt that very many people sold their existing PD-150's to buy a PD-170 unless they were worn out. So my speculation would be that the PD-170 sales have not been all that great, and Sony is just trying to give them a little jolt with the rebate. As someone else already suggested, they may also be worried about further loss of sales with the XL-2 hitting the shelves.

Regardless, the PD-170 with the rebate seems like a pretty good deal, and I'm sure there are a number of people out there who wish they had gotten that rebate when they bought theirs a few months back.

Who knows what they have up their sleeves for the future? If I needed a camera now I sure wouldn't sit around waiting the next big thing from Sony though. But it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong... I was one of the die-hards that thought the PD-170 was a hoax!

[Michael Struthers]

You see the tape to film transfers they are doing these days? Amazing...if they can do that with 4x3 video shot with a dvx2000, imagine what a nice 16x9 cam would do... I don't need hd for what I want to shoot.

I can't believe no one will release a cam before the xmas holiday season. I've shot with a canon xl1s, and I just didn't like the body style.

C'mon, Sony how about a pdx10 with 1/3 chips? JVC, Panny anyone *L*

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

Having read John's hands-on comments on the 350, I would think we are in for minor updates to the PD170 and PDX10, mostly in electronics. I mean, I don't expect a 16:9 PD170 to show up soon, but I would not be surprised of all that video processing and some better low-light performance were included in an updated PDX10 and 24p and/or 30p were to be added to a PD170 sequel as well.