Glenn I could care less too. I still love my trusty VX2k. Im not really diggin' the design of that cam either especially the placement of the lcd and the viewfinder on the handle all though some of the features look pretty cool other than that I guess its nice for those who need the latest and greatest.

If you start off at a higher resolution source your donwncoverted SD DVD's/VHS will still look great, so why do you need yo have HDTV to enjoy the benfit of HD camera, think of it as a future proof technology, you can use today and also tommorow.

Personally, I'm pretty excited about the HDR-FX1 and I'll be REALLY excited when the professional version is released.

Samsung and Philips 16x9 CRT HDTV's are available right now for well under $1,000. I've talked to managers at places like BestBuy and Circuit City and they say that HDTV capable TV's are flying out the door and, recently, most of them have built-in HD tuners for both off-air and cable HD.

Windows Media 9 has been approved as a standard for HiDef delivery on both standard and "BluRay" DVD media. Authoring software and HD DVD players can't be far behind. MainConcept has released an HDV editing plugin for Premiere Pro that performs "smart rendering" on the HDV MPEG stream and works surprisingly well.

All of the over-the-air stations in my area are broadcasting DTV and four of them are HiDef. I have already spoken to them about providing locally produced HiDef programming and they are very interested. I've already produced a couple of spots in HiDef using 3D animations and generated media. It's all coming together, it's moving forward much faster than you think and my existing clients are already willing to pay a premium for HD.

Obviously, I've chosen not to wait. I'll have a lot of experience under my belt (and more clients in my pocket) by the time my competitors see the light and jump on the bandwagon. The rush is on.... Be prepared.

John

>I think HDV is a marginal product for those of us in the video >business for a while and it is going to bring in a whole new and >large bag of problems that we'll all have to overcome.

Although I have no experience with HDV or this product, I do notice that images and audio sampled at higher data rates offer
a better product at reduced data rates than data recorded at the reduced rate. I work in audio and image signal processing, though I do a lot of digital camera processing in Photoshop for my photo hobby. I suspect that we will see a dramatic increase in
image quality (sharpness and color resolution) for scenes with little motion even when the output is SD video. Also, we will be more inclined to crop scenes and use sharpening to focus parts of scenes.

From what little I've read, HD, HDV or not, requires another, higher level of care with regard to focus and lighting. Nothing wrong with that but it will have a significant impact on how the folks making money with video, approach using the cameras.

I'm am almost certain that with one million pixels in a 1/3" CCD, the sensitivity isn't all that great.

For my personal use, I'd embrace HD in either form in a heartbeat.

hd tv, xhd tv, superhd tv.......

will it never end?

supose not, but as long as the content is crap, no one is going to watch it.

personally i find more and more programs have high superficial production values, and extremely low substance value (rather like used chewing gum).

give me an interesting vhs and i'll watch it any day over a mindless. glossy space filler.

leslie