Douglas R. Bruce,

You do know that that the Z1u came out a little less than a year after the PD170 came out so the statement about Sony releasing new Professional products every 4 years is a joke.

You basically want everybody to believe that the successor to the Z1u will be released in the first quarter of 2009 at the earliest. Sony would be considered mad if they did that. Panasonic may release a successor to the 100B with AVCHD that will kill the sales of the Z1u especially considering the codec is a lot better than HDV. Also Sony would have a consumer camcorder with better compression than the Z1u as well.

Look at what happened to Canon with the GL2. They lost their edge to both Panasonic with the DVC30 and to Sony with the A1u. If Canon has release a successor to the GL2 they would have been in a much better position than they are now. Sony would not want to be in the same situation.

In order to 'kill sales' of the Z1U, Panasonic has some design work to do. In particular they need to ditch P2 in favor of standard flash memory and maybe use a higher-resolution sensor, plus it would help if they had lower-priced HD cameras like the FX1 or A1U.

It does sound like Sony may be about to make a massive blunder by using red-laser discs instead of flash memory for their AVCHD camera, but that's their business. Hopefully the "Z2" will have a similar solution using Blu-ray discs with more capacity that can play directly in Blu-ray HD players, and next year would be a good time to start talking about that. If they can't get Blu-ray recording to work at a reasonable price and don't use flash memory then Sony could be in trouble, but so far they've got a lock on the affordable HD videography market. I wouldn't count them out until we see final shipping specifications for the next round of HD cameras.

Kevin Shaw,
I already mentioned that the successor to the Z1u may use Blu-Ray.

As for Panasonic releasing a successor to the Panasonic 100B, it would definitely compete with the Sony Z1u because of the better compression and the price will be under 4000 dollars. Your right, that P2 cards is not a good idea but Panasonic will most likely have an SD card slot although I bet Panasonic will have at least 2 slots instead of one. I’m no fan of 24p but for a lot of people that feature alone will be a deciding factor which will gave an edge to the Panasonic.

Paolo, I did not say that Sony release new Professional products every 4 years. Please read my posting correctly.
As to the PD170, I do not follow every camera released - but I don't think the PD170 was a HD camera. So the Z1, in my opinion, was not a successor to the PD170 - it was a new product

To be honest, I don't want everybody to believe anything! I am just adding some facts that I have heard that come from Sony people. You know, the Japanese ones that are actually working on the products over here in Japan.

But time will tell. It is not so important to me what the final truth will be.
Thanks for your opinion. It is always healthy to hear different views.

____________________

Posted twice by accident

Actually the Z1u is a successor to the PD170 but I do understand your argument about one being SD only and the other having an option to record on the HD format.

I don’t think someone who works for Sony would ever disclose a product before it’s officially announced knowing that their can be legal action against them. So it can sometimes make perfect sense to tell people that a successor to the Z1u won’t be out for a long time especially knowing that the sales of the Z1u may be at stake.

Ironically, if it was someone who worked for Canon saying that kind of remark I’d probably believe him/her. Like I mentioned in my previous post, Canon have yet to release a successor to the GL2. It would be hell for a lot of people if Sony decided to never release a successor to the Z1u for a long time.

All of these camcorders better get released quickly because it very depressing to be waiting this long.

Apple’s secrecy virus has spread to Sony, Panasonic and Canon. Hopefully some information will be announced soon.

How can you claim to know the price when the cameras are still in an early development stage? Like I said, let's see what happens when shipping AVCHD products are available, which will probably be a while yet.

My definition of early is about 2 to 3 months from now as the time we may see the first AVCHD camcorder.

That 4000 dollar price tag is an educated guess since you can get the Panasonic 100B right now for a little under 3150 at B&H.

All I can tell you is the speculation is certainly entertaining.

FWIW...
Sony doesn't have a fixed life span on ANY product. Some go long, some go short, and some in between. Several recent examples of that.
Anything that is in the HDV family, which a "Z2" would be...can't be stored on anything but tape, because that's the spec of HDV. It can't have a unique bitrate either, because that's the spec of HDV. If they were to walk away from HDV on the professional side...then you'd have more to speculate about.

Douglas Spotted Eagle,

I’m pretty sure that Sony is replacing HDV with AVCHD.

Speculating about camcorders can be considered entertainment but its pure hell reading rumors about future Apple Products.

I'm not just "pretty sure" that you're incorrect.

Why wouldn’t AVCHD be replacing HDV?
Isn’t AVCHD a much better compression? Or could you prove to me that HDV is much better.

the question isn't whether AVC HD is better or worse, that's a different discussion.
Your post was that you're pretty sure that "AVC HD is replacing HDV."

And I'm telling you straight up; You're wrong.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.