Whoa, whoa, Whoa! FX1/Z1 audio problem??
 

Ok, what the heck is this?

"Notice to Owners of Sony Digital High Definition Camcorder HDR-FX1/HDR-FX1E -
Sony recently learnt that limited units of its digital high definition camcorder_HDR-FX1/HDR-FX1E
may exhibit the following condition........" SEE LINK:

Sony's official Asia site also has the information:

http://www.css.ap.sony.com/consumer/....aspx?Id=31233

Looks like Asia only?? This is scary - they say to click on the "Support" link and it's broken! Ahhh!!! How can they "support" our problem when they are having their own problem?!

If you read the information at this link, it describes the problem, which is basically an inadvertant switch and an inaccurate data display. When certain FX1 camcorders are switched to 16-bit audio in DV mode, and then powered down, the camera resets to the default 12-bit mode, even though the display continues to read 16-bit. This is limited to specific serial number ranges and does not affect all cameras. Those ranges are provided at the link Murph gives above.

It doesn't say that the Z1 is affected. As far as North America is concerned, perhaps their serial number ranges are not affected, or they simply haven't made an announcement yet. It'll be worth keeping an eye on this, I suppose. At any rate it sounds like a fairly simply fix, and no doubt they have already worked the remedy into the assembly line for current cameras.

Also, checking the serial number ranges provided, it looks like about 240 of the FX1 units, and about 300 of the FX1E units are affected. That's actually a very low number. If you don't hear anything about it in North America, it's probably because the issue was resolved before any units were ever shipped over (the camera was out in Asia before it was released in North America). This is interesting but no cause for alarm in my opinion.