Anyone heard of Canon's offer to compete against Sony's PMW-EX1?
 

I am so close to being convinced to buy Sony's EX1, but I'm just scared that once I do, Canon will let their next beautiful piece of equipment out the door!

So with that being said, has there been any word on whether or not Canon is about to release a Flash Based System with features like 720p 60, full 1920x1080 HD, etc?

If so, I would rather hold out for Canon's offering.

I think that's a bit unlikely for the near future. The Sony is a 1/2" chip camera, totally different from any Canon. It could be they will come out with something tapeless eventually, but my guess would be it'll stay in the 1/3" chip arena.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on a new Canon. They typically let another firm develop a technology and take the hit on development then introduce a version of their own. Canon seems to be a fairly conservative company.

Well........
Certainly in the past, for video, Canon has relied upon other companies to provide a basic template off of which they could graph a product, slightly modify it, and successfully sell it.
However, recently they've indicated a slightly different trend.
The 1/3" image sensors as featured in the HV20 and HG10 are now in-house - made by Canon CMOS chips.
The image processors, the infamous DIG!C chip - made by Canon as well.
And last but certainly not least, The Lenses. Canon's optics are widely considered best in the world among many professionals for many applications, most notably in photography and professional/broadcast video.

Might their previous actions in photography reflect their current motives in video?

In photography, Canon used to be referred to as a relatively conservative company, kind of playing second fiddle to Nikon.

This has obviously changed over the last 7 years, and Canon has made great strides to position themselves as a leader in the market.
Undoubtedly, Nikon too remains a leader as well, but competition with Canon is now much more stiff and doesn't appear to be relenting anytime soon.

Canon's success in photography has been credited to their in-house development of CMOS sensors, image processing technology, and new lens technology.
All of which we now see slowly moving over into their video dept.
If they were to apply the same aggressive methods that made them successful in digital photography to digital video, they could advance further than what some people are expecting.

IMO, they are not only in a position to remain competitive with the cameras that Sony and Panasonic are introducing, they have the ability to beat these cameras feature for feature if they really want to.
It has been reasonably speculated that they would rather preserve the sales of lenses for the ENG/broadcast cameras than to try and make better cameras.

But we know that they have the knowledge, they have the technology, and they most definitely have an established presence with their cameras, and especially their optics throughout the world. This may not be enough to make them a leader over night, but it is certainly a good start, and will certainly keep them competitive in any part of video that they think they can contribute to and have an impact on.

If they have a professional camera in the works, they’d most likely announce it at NAB.

While I would be excited to see a new model released, I would not expect one until 2009. If there is one I would speculate that it would be a revision of the H1. I think we have seen the last CCD models, so CMOS seems like the next step.

The A1 has only been on the market for a little over a year. Canon held off a very long time to introduce their HD line, while everyone else had 2nd maybe 3rd generation cameras out.

I am a fan of Canon in many ways, if you look at their DSLR line up, they have released a new model every 2 to 3 years. I look at the A1 as the GL2 replacement and move to HD and we had to a wait a long time for its announcement.

Chad