See my post here, it's targeted at educators and entry-level wedding and event videographers. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Does Sony have a smaller and cheaper camera with this chip? Aren't most of them 1/3" ?

Good question, and what the heck is a 1/2.9 chip? Can't we keep it simple and leave it at 1/2, 1/3, 1/4? Do they need this odd size to do their clearvid trick?

Smooth Slow Rec
 

"The “Smooth Slow Rec” function allows users to perform slow-motion playback by capturing images at four times faster than the normal field rate (240 fields/s). In this mode, quad-speed images are captured for three seconds, stored in the camcorder’s built-in buffer memory, and then recorded to tape (in either the HDV, DVCAM™, or DV formats) as slow-motion pictures lasting 12 seconds. When using this function, Ott said the resolution of the camera image is decreased."

This function alone will make it a sweetheart in the wedding videographer's hands as slowmo is probably the most used special effect in their work.

No so fast my friend. (gearing up for college football season) The FX7 has this feature and it's pretty close to being useless. The resolution drops to youtube-like levels and it requires a good deal of light to get a decent image.
It's pretty much marketing hype. I mean yes, it does work, but only... kinda sorta. It "works" in the same way that the old VX2000's progressive frame mode "worked". It will do what they say it does, but is it really of any use?

How about when downconverting to SD... the quality drop is still noticeable? I mean editing HD and resize for standard def delivery.

Unfortunately this questionable practice of expressing a fraction with a decimal is industry-wide and has been around for a little while. Personally I find it annoying, but these size expressions are misleading anyway, since a 1/4" chip isn't really 1/4" across its diagonal but is actually a bit smaller than that.

In my opinion the industry should be expressing these sensor sizes in actual millimeters.

I wrote about the decimal-in-fraction chip nomenclature here: http://www.dvinfo.net/canonoptura/ar...eage.php#opccd
-- it's a bit outdated but the concept is still the same. Hope this helps,

The simplest and least polarizing answer I can give you is that I don't use it. I've found the results to be less than acceptable.

Chris,
from doing a quick scan of your fraction/decimal conversion article am I correct in assuming that 1/2.9 is pretty darn close to a 1/3 in chip size?

Pretty darn close is right... I'd describe it as "practically" one-third of an inch.

They showed a mockup of exactly that at the SMPTE show in Australia. Basically a shoulder-mount V1U.

Aha. I knew it. Thanks Barry,

All this seems to be is a normal everyday single chip camera popped into a large body for the form factor alone. People who come from a world of using larger style cameras do not like to go down to a handheld camera. That is one of the reasons why the XL1 did so well. It wasn't only about the features and quality but the form factor itself. Some shooters loe working with the form factor and may look into this camera.

I Really would consider it low end wedding market however. This camera is more of a replacement for a "pro" who wants to make money shooting video but only wants to look more "pro" and still stick with a camera in the single chip consumer market. This camera should give the impression of a better videographer even though it may not offer any better of quality compared to their current single chip SONY HDV camera. The camera should also compliment any users current single cip SONY camera as well. The quality should be pretty much the same so for two camera shoots the footage would match up very well.

Think of this as just a HC7 but with better then consumer controls in terms of zooming and focusing. So basically it will come down to begineers deciding if they want hand held FX7 with 3 chips or shoulder mount pro form factor with 1 chip. Really if you plan on using lights in your productions the difference betwen 3 chips and 1 chip doesn't really mean anything. The FX7 should be anymore sensitive then this camera. Having three chips doesn't give you more light, it is just another way of creating the color values.

Yes, just like the Panasonic AG-DVC7.

Plus the schools... educators will eat it up. This is the new Panasonic AG-456U, remember that? Meanwhile there's already a clear indication that Panasonic will indeed compete in this particular market as well, with a shoulder-mount AVCHD camcorder as referenced here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=101753

Fully agreed; single-chip plus RBG filtering pretty much equals three-chip these days (exceeds in some cases).

But the V1U is 3999 dollars or something...
Why would Sony put the same package in a 1900 and even add Shoulder Mount feature to it?

Chris, you are right about features and price point, I think the most important thing for this camera, if it wants to be succesful, is have manual control over all the important things.