Good words Dan. If you've got a film inside you, shoot it NOW.
If you wait for the approaching train rather than hopping on the one in the station you can find yourself waiting for ever. Getting a bit poetically romantic here, but you know what I mean.

The film has far more to do with you, the person cradling the hardware, than ever it has to do with the hardware.

tom.

First the HPX370 and now this camera - Panasonic is back on top!

This unit records at 24mbps long-GOP and 4:2:0. Other than a larger sensor, is this unit going to offer a whole lot more over the EX-3?

It looks like the AG-AF100 will be a lot easier to hold, at least depending on the type of lens you put on it.

Well 30% off the price.

4:2:0?
In this "Cinema" Cam?
Man, 4:2:2.

I expect it to have 4:2:2 as well. Panasonic isn't stupid.

I saw it at NAB and from what I was told, it can output uncompressed video through the HD/SDI port and it will have 4:2:2. A Panny rep said you can output it to a P2 deck and record directly to a P2 card. Otherwise it will hold many, many hours of compressed video on the SD cards. It looked to be about 20% larger than an HPX200, and taller, with a large carrying handle that might be detachable.

And what does this camera have that the EX-3 doesn't? Lenses, lenses, lenses! Canon mount, Nikon, Olympus, PL, Zeiss - true 35mm depth of field, in a near-35mm chip. In a true video camcorder, with 2 XLR ports. This is what pretty much what everyone on this forum was begging for. I honestly didn't see this one coming, not from Panasonic. I expect Canon and Sony to fire back with similar models by next NAB. A Panny rep said the camcorder's codec was better than Canon's D-SLRs.

I wonder of you can attach a B4 mount lens? Hmmm....

All the current DSLR's inlcuding the Canon 5d and 7d record 4:2:0 so this isn't anything bad. Considering the amazing stuff that has been seen from DSLR's I doubt 4:2:0 is going to be a huge issue. If this camera actually does a proper low pass filter to get good quality video from a DSLR then this is going to be huge. If you want 4:2:2 get a NanoFlash and add it to this puppy. 24 mbit AVCHD is also a much better format then 35 Mbit mpeg2 so yes the encoding quality will be better then the EX1 or EX3. AVCHD is a much better encoding technology and 24 mbit AVCHD can look like 50 mbit+ mpeg2.

Sony already have. They announced a similar camera at the same time as Panasonic.

Just a guess here but I'd say Sony's camera will be considerably more expensive. Just seems that way to me.

Do you have a link or any other information?

Just to clarify, the Panny will record 4:2:2 uncompressed, but ONLY via HD/SDI. Is this unit going to come a lens?

I heard a Pany rep say that it was going to run around $6k with a lens, but we're a long way from December, so don't start making purchase plans just yet.