The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Looking around on B&H last night I see the Canon XH-A1S is now 'discontinued'.... wonder if this is a mistake or really true... :(

A truely remarkable camera.... even though its tape... it still has its place.... maybe sales dropped off to the point where it was no longer worth it?

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

In Belgium there is only one online store that thas the xh-a1s in stock at a reduced price which is a bit cheaper then a sony nx30 f.i. Although you get much more camera for that price I would choose the small sony over the xh-a1 if I had to choose today.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

if i was a mechanic, i'd hot rod an XH-A1 with an XA10 or XF engine and paint a racing stripe on the side. and put some mags on. and fuzzy dice...

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Technology marches on. I'm sure there's zero demand for tape based cameras right now.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

The store I mentioned also has several other tapebased camera's in stock, like the fx1000, z5, z7, xl-h1, xh-g1.. but they all are at a very high pricepoint, quite stupid if you see that their replacements cost the same or sometimes less, I don't think anyone with the cash will be spending that much on 4 to 6 year old technology. All other known videostores have cleared their shelves and only new models are available now.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

well I will be hanging on to my Two Xh-a1 cameras for as long as I can, I still love them and the fact that they are CCD is a bonus. they still capture stunning footage.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

The Canon XH cameras are still listed on the Canon USA web site.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

I wonder if B&H made a mistake then... ???

I too love my pair of XH-A1S cameras.... they produce stunning footage in trained hands...

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Yes it's diminishing fast now ... http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/long-bla...etic-tape.html

But because of the huge demand in third world countries, magnetic tape itself will be around for quite a while yet.

Last year in Capetown South Africa, I saw a retail music shop with a giant wall of music audio cassettes opposite a medium size wall of CDs and CDroms, those were mostly home grown. DVDs not so much.

Cheers.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

The XH-A1s, XH-G1s, Vixia HV40, and GL2 are still listed as current products on Canon's USA web page (CANONDV.COM).

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

From my research the XH-A1 has no fantastic replacement that is cost effective and does the job exceptionally well. Sad!

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

The xf100 is close in price compared to what the xh-a1 was, eventhough it has a better image, a better codec, it lacks too many controls the xh-a1 has, next in line is the xf300 which has all the bells and whistles but that's twice the price. My guess is that Canon will release a xf200 one day (sounds logical too me) that could be a worthy replacement but probably be quite expensive still.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

I agree, and there are many good preloved A1 and A1 esses on the 2nd hand market from users who've rushed off to follow the masses.

That's what the manufacturers project all their marketing for. One day they might say, 'we give up, we can't get a better picture, sorry it's all over.
What will they/we do then?

One thing would be to write better scripts, I wish.

Cheers.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

An XF200 - now there is a thought - a camcorder with two sensors (not one or three), one for the luma, the other with filters for the chroma - physical 422!

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

I am a huge fan of my XH-A1 (I have two of them actually.)

I know someday I will have to get something else, but I'm good for a while longer.

I'm curious about the compatibility of XH-A1 tapes with other decks?

As I've understood things all my tapes should just fine in other HDV desk/cameras witht he exception of my 24p tapes which will only play in a Canon desk/camera.

Does that sound right?

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

I know that for the progressive format (25f) in pal country I can use a sony xf1000 to play and capture tapes that where recorderd by my xh-a1.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

I have FOUR of these babies ... and love them. Only down-side for me is occasionally I get dead pixels in footage I have to compensate for in Post.

Most of my shooting is with one or two of them doing cinematic-style shots for independent film. So, I invested in a Canon FS-CF Pro Portable Compact Flash DTE Recorder to cut down on ingesting footage from tape and buying so many miniDV's. It integrates rather nicely with the XH A1s.

It is being sold for $350 discount right now at B&H PhotoVideo until Dec. 15th if anyone has been shopping around.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/684200-REG/Canon_1751V350_FS_CF_Pro_Portable_Compact.html
It even syncs record functions and recognizes video format selected on my camera.So far I like it.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Good tip, that gadget is $1,200+ most other places.
With the discount it's $595 at BH.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Any noticeable quality improvements with the FS-CF Pro (no drop frames of course). To tape, it records 1440X1080, what's being recorded to the FS-CF Pro, the same?

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Yes, what the camera send to the tape will be the same as to what it sends to the recorder, no improvement in quality.

Re: The end of an era... XH-A1S discontinued?
 

Isn't the FS-CF only Fat32 which limits record segments?