Hi - just wondering if anyone in Japan has actually bought the camera - did it not go on sale as of Oct. 15? So, that's like two days ago!

Anybody here know anybody in Japan who may have bought the cam?

Anybody see any reports from anyone anywhere who bought the camera?

the feedback is early, but very informative - and very positive!!!

the guy basically says that HDV is 2x quality of SD!

No panning, no artifacting he says...

I played aroung with it in a Sony shop last night. The sales guy hooked it up to a 50-inch HD display through Firewire for me. I was very impressed with the picture quality. The detail was stunning. Some of the negative points I noticed were a very stiff focus ring (forget trying to adjust focus manually the touch of a single finger), and the aperature dial was hard for me to adjust while shooting due to its design (it's more like a knob rather than a dial). It would have been nice if Sony had put a physical button on the camera to switch between HDV and DV rather than having to dig into the menu settings. There was also a two second delay between what the camera was seeing and what was being shown on the televison. I wonder if this was due to it being connected through Firewire? Strange. Anyway, I have a very positive impression of this camera so far.

Rob, the stiffness might be due to that particular early generation since it's so new off the line... they might tweak that tension in the assembly process as they ramp up production.

the 2 second delay was the firewire, when I use my crane and a 10' firewire it has a second or 2 delay but If I use s-video its instant .....go figure?