Yes, that was about it David. Betacam SX was really a disaster, all sorts of edit problems, (sync and so on). As a format it seemed to be very prone to head clogging too. Then came the The DSR 500 which produced 'muddy' DSR 500 images. I guess I was used to Digi Betacam so there was really no comparison. However, the 500 did tend to fall apart too, sometimes leaving things like plastic switch covers and eye pieces trailing behind. The XLR "box" on the back was in fact part of the chassis. If, as happened, someone managed to stand on an audio cable while the operator was moving forward, instead of pulling the XLR plug off (bad enough), it tended to yank the back off the chassis off, and that was the end of camera.

Another thing was their tendency to '500 Alzheimer’s disease', the only cure was to switch the it off and remove all power sources completely for a few minutes and then start from scratch; great fun on a live OB!
For those of us who came from BVW 400s they were very badly built, not nearly rugged enough for news work; but at that price I guess they were considered disposable.

I think you've listed the real problem David: the sheer multiplicity of formats. In the format wars there have been ‘odd’ deals being done to lure a big name broadcaster into re-equipping with a particular product. I need to be careful about what I say here, but one major French deal springs to mind. The end result has been bucket loads of incompatibility in an industry that simply couldn't afford that mistake again. It's still relentless and yet the obvious truth is that nobody can possibly afford it now.

Surely the truth is that if the program(me) is really good it isn't judged by it's format, it's watched. If it's bad, it still isn't judged by the format, that isn't going to save it. People switch away no matter what it was shot on. Most homes wind the chroma up to near bursting point and have no idea what the image shape should actually be anyway.

Ah, the much lamented SX...

To be completely fair, the images were quite acceptable when played back long form from tape. Upon edit, though...

Interesting though that Stuart had issues with head clogs. My experience with SX was working news for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation here in Canada and we got tremendous reuse out of tapes and untold hours of use without head clogs. If you watched the error correction indicator on the feeder decks (75's?), there was a lot of error correction going on with some tapes...

Please don't get me wrong: SX was NOT a production format, IMHO. But for ENG work, it was sure easier to work with than SP in a fast paced news environment.

We've been using Beta SX in our commercial productions for over 7 years now. In all that time, I've never lost video to a camera (or deck) error. Not once. It has proven to be a robust and dependable format. It has never caused any problems with our NLEs.
Not production worthy? We've certainly made our money off of it.
That said, we've gone to P2 at work, and I don't ever want to shoot on tape again.

There you go: ask 1000 people a question and you'll get 1001 answers. There certainly is something to be said about the robust nature of professional 1/2" tape...

I can't say I've seen much SX in a non-linear environment but it doesn't hold up well to linear editing. The colour seems to be the first to go. One nice thing about SX was the pre-read function that allowed you to do A to A dissolves. Pretty advanced in it's day.

Let's get this thread back to the current century!

Any news Craig? It's almost February.
You aren't holding anything back are you Tim?
You've probably already shot your next project with one of these bad boys.....

Odd that people are saying that about the photo.

It's JVC that's displaying it!

::: Welcome to JVC ::: > ????? > ProHD ???? > New GY-HM700 & HM100 Camcorder

JVC Korea apparently
As you can see there's the 700 photo, the 100 photo beneath that. The Press Release below that in English.
Apparently JVC is OK with showing the photo.

Rather than pointing to another (possibly competing) forum I thought it wise to upload the file directly here. You can see in my previous post that the pic is coming from a currently legit JVC site so they aren't concealing it... haven't pulled it, etc. My only guess is they'd prefer people to point to the JVC site itself so I'm qualifying the pic with a post to JVC site rather than an unauthorized location.

Well I've always said that JVC has the best form factor. Besides 2 HD 200's I also own a Canon A1. I commonly intercut the JVC's and the Canon and I have always noticed that the Canon has a significantly cleaner image (less noise). So I've been wishing for a JVC camera with Canon's codec.

Fast forward to today and it looks like were getting a JVC form factor with a Sony codec which at 35 mb/s may be the best of all HDV codecs.

Very much looking forward to this camera!

Regardless of the obvious inconsistency between JVC's various corporate nationalities, I pretty much have to comply with JVC America when it comes to things like this. I have a query into them right now seeking a clarification on that image, and if it disappears, then you'll know what their answer was.

I can't easily defy their requests, because they know where I live. These guys wear suits and ties and they're really polite and all, but ultimately they're corporate... which means that any decision I make about their intellectual property that goes against their wishes could easily land me bound and gagged in the trunk of Carl Hicks' Bonneville, with Lon Mass in the back seat directing him to "take a drive out to the lake."

Chris,
That's why I was wondering about the image vs the link to the JVC Korea site. That's why I was thinking the link, divorced from the site, might be subject to question (and even removal) given that the USA JVC site is not showing the image.

The JVC Korea site presents a different question that they need to think about. JVC Korea could implement IP detection preventing the site from being viewed outside a country or region. Actually many media based sites do that.

Currently the JVC Korea site with the image is easy enough to find using Google in the USA so JVC Korea apparently has no interest in blocking it or JVC USA hasn't (yet?) taken any steps to prevent finding JVC Korea's site (which has the press release in English no less!) through a USA Google search.

Certainly JVC USA has a right to control use of images it owns but it would be odd for JVC USA to claim right to block a link to JVC Korea site itself (which contains the image) when the link is still very much publicly available in the USA itself.

At the very least you should point out the JVC Korea link's current availability in the USA (as a courtesy to JVC USA at least) so they can decide how to handle internally.

If both the image and link disappear at least we'll learn something about the odd communications (or lack of) between JVC USA and JVC Korea.

Justin the 35mbps codec is not HDV. While it's MPEG-2 Long GOP, it's 35mbps VBR (XDCAM) not 25mbps CBR which is part of HDV spec as is the 19mbps apparently that JVC has also used.

Not all MPEG-2 Long GOP is HDV.
Also Not all Long GOP is MPEG-2 (AVCHD is H.264/AVC Long GOP for example).
Please don't confuse codecs.

This is a flash memory-only camera, right? No tape drive? If so, I wonder why it's so long? What's on the other side of the camera from the LCD screen, where the tape drive would be if it were an HD250?

Electronics in the centre of the camera? Balance? If the 700 doesn't balance on my shoulder like my 200's, I won't be buying. I avoided the EX3 when I purchased SOLELY because of the balance, or lack thereof. The market NEEDS an affordable, shoulder mounted solid state recording HD camera like this IMHO.

I have picture of the other side of the camera from the JVC Korea site but I'm reluctant to post it without Chris Hurd approval.

I'm willing to post imbed direct from the JVC Korea site so there's no legal question of origin or that JVC Korea is genuinely posting this publicly and can be found on Google USA.

The pic on the other side does raise some interesting questions though.

Like what? Every time I go to the Korean site, I get lost in all the swirly graphics.