XH A1 in Australia?
 

G'day, I have been following this forum for weeks and congratulate everyone on creating and maintaining such an informative site. However...my frustration is beginning to show! Canon Australia have been less than helpful in announcing the release date for the XH A1. OK, I know the U.S. is the largest market and I know that we are PAL not NTSC but if anyone has any info I would appreciate it. Meantime, keep up the great work guys.
Kind regards,
Don

You should be in the middle of the U.S.--the dealer here won't have one for another week or so.

Tell me about it Don, i'm in the very same situation of impending frustration...giving away to anxiety as i really need this camera for a project in Africa leaving on the 21st of December!

Let me know if you hear anything...the top camera shops down this end of the island has no clue about price or availability (Just that it'll probably be available at end of this month or perhaps into december!).

Cheers,

Dean

You won't believe this Dean, but my Melbourne supplier rang me yesterday (after I had posted my query here) and told me he just had a message from Canon to say they now expect the XH A1 at the end November (oh yeah???). The price (wait for it) is "around $6,500"! Remembering that the current conversion from US$3,999 is AU$5,205 guess who's making a killing?
He had a go at them and they stangely backed off and said the price MAY be around $6,000. Sounds like they're testing the market to me.
Good luck mate,
Don

I'm interested in this info to guys (as you can tell by my info location). And after reading your post re prices Don, all i can say is... typical and market size my arse (i consider the globe one market, humans have made the earth small this day and age)!

Ah well, thanks for the info guys.

Videoguys Australia have just advertised the new A1 this week here in Melbourne, I droped in yesterday and was told they may have stock sometime in december. As for the price I got the impression it would drop below $6000.00 very quickly.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

Yeah i was expecting something around 6000, due at least to GST. Anyone considered ordering one from the states...through B&H perhaps?

i need one by mid december...!

Dean

this is fairly typical.. i remember paying 5600 for my imported dvx100 when it was first released.. it came with a mic, huge battery and 2 yr warranty.. here in aus, for the body alone.. we were selling it for $8800 inc gst (street price.. RRP was 9300)

These dodgy prices make a huge diiffrence to grey imports and back then when i was a supplier ,the only reason ppl bought locally was for the warranty
Even as a supplier, these manufacturers did nothing to support the sales push, instead, as was the case with the XL2 they imposed sales quotas.
Now aussie retailers could NEVER compete with grey importers.. ever.. so there was next to no chance for smaller outfits to be able to meet the deadlines.

Roll forward to todays market.. Sony offered the FX and Z1 to Sony Style Stores and sony affiliated stores (not naming anyone, but the one that likes Orange... )for less than wholesale price due to bulk sales and certain handshake deals. Thats no bad thing as this helped alleviate the grey market with thse models, BUT it also screwed over the rest of the retialers who were carrying the same kit for sale.. who could STILL not compete.. even on the local level..

Okies, roll forward.. HDV hits the mainstream and NLes kick forward with support.. fair enough.. but then we see Canon use a hybrid form of progressive scan.. hmm.. the camera itsself was 14grand... and those disputing HDV have the option to use otehr codecs due to SDI out.. this in itself was the major selling point of this camera in aus.. instead of going XDCam, many MANY companies jumped the canon wagon and ended up with 2 H1's for the price of an F330 (or thereabouts)...

Canon now sees that the event videographer market has no interst in these cameras simply due to cost.. and as they need an HDV XM/GL equivalent whip out the A1... perfect solution.. thing is sony still own the market with HDV here.. so what do they do..
Bolt on the lens and kill off the elements which an event videogrpaher wouldnt need.. like SDI.. good call..
Now sony whip out the V1... same price if not cheaer than Z1....
What do canon do?
They wait..
The largest even market here in aus is weddings.. and being november, they KNOW people wont buy in the throngs of peak wedding season.
SO once the rush dies, people go and buy, then for the Feb march apri rush, they have their spanky new cams to work with.
Thats how canon see it

Sony dont see it this way.. they jsut want to penetrate the market.. they dont care whether ur events only or corp or commercial.. they jsut want a prescence in the market before anyone, and in doing so, have always ended up a foot behind the others.
Ill explain.. reason being is that their trying to get to their diehard user base before the competition turns their ears.
Canon however, know that the spec of their units alone, the glass and chipset, as well as the reviews, are all they really need to penetrate the market on the event videographer level.
THIS is where the money is.. for THEM...

So why the price? well.. think about it, we have an additional 9 months worth of warranty, in addition, canon service is impeccable. You get what u pay for. As for grey markets, i know that Canon cover their gear for 12 months if purchased from a Japanese source. I dont advocate grey imports, but the only way to really make an impact is to NOT buy anything until you are certain you are happy with the available options.

The fact AVC seems to be the format of choice in the near future tells me that the HD issue is still unresolved.
To me, its a futile arguement until HD is deliverable in an optical and marketable state.
At this time, there is no market in australia for this content, unless your working commercial or corporate.

At the end of the day, teh camera is a brilliant unit, let down by bad pricing, market offset pricing (ie, the US sells twice as many, so they get it cheaper than Aus.. Therefore Aus has to sell more units or more EXPENSIVE units to offset the difference$ that ISNT made during sales... )
Its always been like this.. and u know what ur options are when it comes to deciding.

Each and every manufacturer has behaved this way, and to be honest, its an appalling state of affairs which needs to be looked at by Dept Fair trading.