No need to take everything on supervideo as gospel. What's key is that the chuckmeister sometimes has better info than anyone else. If you check out his bio, there are some pretty good reasons why that has happened. Yup, he got HD and the gs100 wrong - but as has been noted elsewhere, that's partly because of the way the Japanese use the term HD as opposed to the way others use it. On the other hand, he was way out front announcing the gs100 (in his inimitable theatrical fashion) and those of us who own it are pretty happy with it. He's also been pretty helpful to a couple of people I know when things went wrong - even though they didn't buy through his sources. At this point, supervideo is probably as good a source as some of the stuff I've seen posted recently on the gs400 - unless you think everything you've read here is totally factual.

We all have recieved the PV and NV GS400 info from Panasonic, or "The Horse's Mouth," so to speak. We have 1/2 the specs and a handful of pics. There must be a design or production problem at the moment because even Panasonic is surprised with the delay. One official sourse says there's a problem with the lens. And in my opinion, and this is pure speculation, there might not even be a new GS for this summer. Perhaps Pana's even dropped it and working on a NA and PAL version of the GS100? Summer's at our doorstep, and something's not right in Denmark. :-))

Patricia, as Frank said, the info has been mostly from Panasonic.

I'm sorry (well .. not too much) that people like Chucky, who make a few bucks from the whole deal of those cam's not available in NA will not be able to anymore, but I'm happy that I'll be able to get the cam here in NA (all English =) ).

For now all dealers are trying to get rid of DV953, as the price tag has fallen to less than a half of original price. (very respectable companies are selling their dv953 for about 800$)

It may be a problem with the lens, like Frank says, after all the lens on the GS400 are huge. But I would expect that the "problem" is another thing.
Pana is trying to make a world-wide release of this product.
July 1 is being given as a release date in Europe (in us was, if not changed, July4) To be able to do this you need to have HUGE inventory. Besides as many said this is the month usually picked for releasing new cams.


like:

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/camcorder...400b/index.htm
http://www.panasonic.be/servlet/PB/m..._l6/index.html

I think I've seen Frank cite exactly what info he got from Panasonic. It was pretty sparse. Long before the dvc-30 came out, there were at least small brochures available on the web (not with all the specs, of course - and even b&h got it wrong on the lens size - ask the purchaser in the other forum who ended up with the 72mm filter and nothing to thread it into). A lot of what I've seen otherwise on the gs400 is actually not any better than something appearing on supervideo - and at least I know supervideo has gotten some things very right in the past and have reason to respect it as a source of info, with the usual caveats. In the past two posts, speculation has been that there's an issue with the lens and that it's an issue of producing a huge quantity for worldwide release. Could be. Could be anything. Could even be it's going to be released in a PAL version first. You pays yer money and you takes yer choice at this point re which rumor to believe.

Patricia, looks like you are pretty tight with "supervideo" and thats why the subjective and unrealistic opinion/view on the subject....

actually as I noticed before, on supervideo there's a "white lighning" and an "MX8000" showing information/specs of the same cam - GS400.
all releases point to July as "availability date"
both Pal and NTSC.

B&H have not posted any info at the moment about GS400, so I don't know what you are talking about.

July was the set date from the start, so there's no sight there is any problem with the cam/lens or schedule of release.

the sparce information has been compiled and put togather in the GS400 thread, so if you are curious you can take a peek there.

frankly I don't know whats the big deal... I don't think anyone with any brains will buy a cam before the GS400 is officially released, and whenever it comes it comes...

you should be very biosed to say it will be the same as GS100 since GS400 is replacing GS100 too...

Wow, now we're getting into personal attacks?

=)
hey nothing personal, just facts ;-)

Yes, I agree, but it was all from Panasonic; and as soon as I get more, a PDF ad brochure or PDF manual, etc, I'll be posting those as well. :-))

I'm siding with Patrica on this one. There has been a lot of wild speculation flung around about the GS400. Some of it was tongue in cheek (at least I hope so), but lately it's beginning to sound like folks have hard documentation that no one else seems to have seen. I'm highly skeptical of some of the more outlandish claims and the fact that they are being posted along with more reasonable data brings it all into question. I would like to see this forum get back to hard facts.

The trouble is that these hard facts are slim pickings. Since we're pushing May, there's gotta be more hard facts coming, if indeed the GS400 will be making a July 1st debut. Acording to Pana, no new info has come in, nor any fully operational units for the tech departments outside of Japan. These are the hard facts at the moment.

Compiled info are conflicting so nobody knows for sure which are the facts.

So just sit back and wait (that's the most difficult part) until the official specs are released both in English and Japanese. For the Jap website to get started with all the comprehensive (and often most reliable) info, it has to be announced by Pany Japan first.

Problem in producing sufficient quantity for worldwide release?..I dont think so; not in the $1500 camcorder business.

Issues with the lens? so that's a Leica Dicomar problem ne?

Of course, I'm only speculating :-))

Yes, that's what I got from Pana, but no real detail. I'm sure when everything is worked out, and there's production, everyone will breathe easier---maybe. :-))

since I did the "compilation" of the information posted about GS400, I can tell you that this is no "random" information added in the specs. Time will tell if I got anything wrong... but now we have conformation of the 1Mega size of the CCDs from the new Pana-BE specs.

for example:
As i said some of the information in Pana's web specs (actually only Pana-es for now) is old specs, to fill in the gaps for the web-page. But if you look at the catalogs of Pana-es, Pana-uk, Pana-es you'll see only the info that was sent to them and it's more reliable (yes the GS400 is in the pdf-catalogs)...


actually as I said earlier, there is also some signs of:
Lux1 and PictBridge, but those are a less reliable and unverifyable sources and I did not add them.

here's the GS400 specs thread for more info:
GS400 specs

damn.. there's a typo in the specs and I can't edit it out =/
it's 12x zoom, not 10x

release date
 

hi there! i'm planning to buy a GS400 soon, but very confused about the release date! the belgian Panasonic site says something about June 1st!? here on dvinfo seen talking about July 1st or 4th, and to be even more confused my local dealer here in Taiwan told me something about May!
Does anyone have any reliable info yet? Thanks a lot!!

Andreas, from what I know the availability date is July1
and the "official announcement" (of specs) will be June.

June's the month stated by a few sources..
(like pana-uk)
http://www.panasonic.co.uk/camcorders/nvgs400b/index.htm

but you will know soon, if in fact the cam will be available in June in BE, the official specs for it will be released a month before, or in a few days we'll have to have official full-specs released on Pana-be.

the best way to get the info, is to write them (Pana-Be) an e-mail and ask ;-)