Had we started a poll back when the XL H1 was first received, yes. It's probably too late now -- most likely whatever Canon has intended to upgrade or replace on the XL H1 has already been set in stone by this time (I have no firm information about this; just a well-educated guess).

Ironically I came to this thread as I am considering an FU-1000 as I have a critical shoot coming up and the h1 default viewfinder scares the crap out of me as it is blurry and lags significantly in the cold. Can anyone verify if the FU-1000 suffers from the same slurr effect in the cold? Or is that an LCD specific issue?

Thanks,
Marty

FU-1000 is a CRT. Not affected by cold as far as I know, but I've only worked with it down to around freezing, in the snow in Tahoe, on my XL2.

Marty

I know one UK dealer (Creative Video) has the FU-1000 down as (a) not suitable for the H1 (b) discontinued.

I believe the unsuitable tag comes about because a significant minority of users were having a problem with fuses blowing. However I have not researched this myself.

The discontinued tag makes me wonder if something better is going to appear?

I would buy ANY improved viewfinder for the H1. Our choice right now is to either take the weight and time to setup our Panasonic BTW1700 LCD or leave it behind and risk the viewfinder(s) that came with the H1.

And YES - just learned of the Convergent Flash Drive yesterday on this site -WHOA!!! just what we've all been waiting for - will make the H1 and XHG1 monster compact HD cams.

The FU-1000 has not been 'discontinued' in terms of manufacturing, there WERE some issues with blown fuses in both the XL2 and XLH-1, and the XLH-1 WAS designed to accept it, that's why the second monitor port is built into the camera. As I stated, my partner in Houston shoots with his XLH-1 and the FU-1000 and uses a Mini-35 as well.

It's NOT a 'hi-def' viewfinder, it IS 'higer rez' than the stock color LCD. Make your decision accordingly.

I just learned about the device my self the other day. It will be a killer combination. Like Michael said, it will add a few years of life to the H1. It´s not cheap, but no more than buying a new camera.

Back to topic; I´m tempted to get a HD 7inch monitor, but for most of the shooting I do with the XL-H1 it´s not very practical and the f-1000 seems to expensive for what it is

At this point in the game, the FU-1000 is the only other 'shoulder mount' evf available for the H1, and it's higher resolution than the LCD. That's it. That's all she wrote. Sometimes they come up on Ebay, but they're rarely disconted much, because they are worth what they are priced at. See if you can borrow/rent one and give it a try before you discount it on price alone.

The FU-1000 does not strobe in cold. I used it today in 10degree Fahrenheit conditions.

It is sufficiently sharp to focus HD with peaking turned on. The peaking is superior to the stock viewfinder in that it can be adjusted and is not as severe and obnoxious looking as the peaking in the color finder. I use it at the minimum setting.

The downside is that it gives one the impression that they are looking at the world through a small hole and of course there is no color. The color finder appears as though one is looking through a wide picture window by comparison.