Is this what we've been waiting for ??
 

yes!


maybe?

is for me
 

but I'll use the HV10 Canon while waiting for the Sony to be available

Am I reading it right... bigger than a 1/2 inch chip, right ?

The Sony chip is still smaller that what this uses.
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=85486

Um isn't the Red camera and Silicon Imaging camera already using a large CMOS chip that clocks at 60fps? The Red chip is the size of 35mm has 4K resolution and can do up to 60fps. At 2k or HD resolution it can do 120fps. I would not consider this SONY chip a huge shocker because this has already been done and is already being used in camera designs. The Silicon Imaging camera is pretty much finished and is being used for a few film projects. The SI camera has a 2/3" chip at up to 2K resolution and can do 72fps at 720p.

Plus the Chip in the Canon HV10 camera is actually a progressive chip that is clocked at 60p. The DSP then creates 60i out of that 60p. So Canon already has a 1920x1080 60p CMOS chip that is slightly larger then 1/3". The only thing this SONY has above the Canon chip is that it is a little bit larger with a litle bit more resolution that wouldn't really help for HD recording anyway.

I think this chip is designed more to target the highend film community who might be thinking of a Red or SI camera. This may be the new direction of the Cinealta line.

Yep, I'm thinking this chip is going to find its way to the more high-end Sony gear. Most likely a successor to the F900 series or something along those lines. There's also a good bet that this is typical Sony pre-NAB FUD in an attempt to steal some of the thunder away from RED, SI and others who are undoubtedly putting a dent in their CineAlta sales.

on the data sheet:

http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/c.../imx017cqe.pdf

the title is: "high resolution cmos sensor for CONSUMER products..."

this is a 180nm process. not fancy at all: 1 poly, 3 metal... 54mhz clock. the die is big enough that it's not going to be ultra cheap. you could probably guess the manufacturing cost is on the order of $100 (and not $1000). the data is easily enough pumped into memory where a teeny and cheap microprocessor encodes it on the fly using one of the many good "visually lossless" codecs... for pro applications. or to an h.264 codec at 25mpbs for prosumer apps and onto miniDV tape. why should the latter cost more than the $3k cameras we have now?

only very recently it cost >$10k for the kind of still camera resolution we're getting for <$500 now. the same thing has always been on the verge of happening with video cameras. looks like it's begun this year.