Originally Posted by Barry Green

Well, if you want to do the same things you used to do, your additional budget would be: $0.

I mean, that presumes you're planning on shooting standard-def DV, just like you used to, and you would be using the HVX instead because of its additional capabilities (such as native 16:9 mode, longer zoom range, better focus & zoom, better lens feedback, etc). It is essentially a 16:9 DVX with a miniDV tape drive, so it could serve as a direct replacement for the DVX.

If you want to take advantage of its high-def capabilities, well, that may require a little bit of additional gear. Presumably you'd want a high-def monitor, and presumably one that supports 1080 resolution. You can get that with the Dell 2405FPW for around $900.

You'll need an editing station that supports DVCPRO-HD. Right now if you're using FCP-HD or Avid Express HD, that means no additional cost because you've already got it. If you're not using one of those, you may need to upgrade. It is expected that Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro should add support, but they may not, so that's something to watch for. Canopus and Pinnacle also support DVCPRO-HD, although I don't know exactly which products or what upgrades would be necessary.

As far as editing computers, if you're using a reasonably current system, you won't have to upgrade. You may want to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest, but you should be able to get adequate performance on current computers. DVCPRO-HD is a lot easier to handle (computation-wise) than HDV is, as HDV requires decompressing groups of frames whereas DVCPRO-HD is frame-discrete. You may want to get some more hard disk storage though, as DVCPRO-HD does take up 4x as much hard-disk space as DV does.

No extra expense for a deck, because P2 cards and hard disks are directly readable by computers today. You may want a $30 PCMCIA reader device for your desktop computer, but that beats shelling out $4,000 for an HDV deck. And you won't necessarily need that either, because you can plug the camera in via firewire and read the contents of the P2 cards straight from it. Whereas that workflow was shied away from with tape-based cameras (i.e., you didn't want to put additional wear and tear on your $4,000 camera by using it as a capture deck), with the HVX/P2 situation that's a non-issue because there is *no* wear and tear when copying files off the P2 cards, whether through the camera or through a PCMCIA slot on the computer.

So that leaves recording medium. To record HD on the HVX you'll either need P2 cards or a DVCPRO-HD-capable FireStore (or comparable product) or a direct firewire connection to a laptop or desktop. If you're using a studio setup where you can direct-connect, then there's no additional cost -- you can stream high-def straight to the computer and capture it there to hard disk. If you want to use P2 cards, best to get the bundle and get two 8gb cards with the camera ($9995 MSRP for the camera and two cards, we will have to wait to see what the actual "street price" is; might be $8500 or less). If you want to use the FireStore, well, we have to wait to see what they produce before we know what that solution will cost.

If you decide to go with P2, the P2 cards can be dumped directly to USB2 external hard disks connected to the camera. Considering that there's probably 4-5 months before the camera comes out, and considering how hard drive prices keep plummeting, it's reasonable to assume that an external 300gb USB2 hard disk will cost under $150 by then. That would give you five hours of storage at about $30/hr. That's cheaper than DVCPRO-HD tape stock -- about half the price of tape, actually. And drive prices will continue to drop.