Price of the Sony VX2100
 

Has anyone seen the pricing of the VX2100 lately online, The prices have shot up in the past month to around $3,000.00! You could have purchased the unit this summer for around $2,198.00 from B & H or J & R Music World and one would assume the opposite now that the FX-7 has debuted.

Is the price reflecting a scarcity of the unit (I presume it's being discontinued for the FX-7 and that could make it a hot item, given its low light superiority) or is the problem the value of the dollar versus the yen? If anyone has any comment, please weigh in. Thanks.

Anthony

$2398 at b and h right now.

I haven't noticed an increase in price for new 2100's so much as I've noticed the drop in prices for used ones.

What's up with that?

For example, recently in the "for sale" forum on this site, a couple of used 2100's have been listed. Both in good condition. Yet, both listed well under $1300.

I won't be selling mine if that's the best I can do.

Jeff

Unfortunately, Standard DV will be all but dead in a year IMO.

Even it's not produced anymore you can still buy a new vx2100 in Europe for around 3000 dollar, they have dropped around 400 dollar the past year but seem to hold at the current price. 2198dollar for a new one is acc to EU standards really cheap while 3000 is considered normal.

deja vu
 

>>>Unfortunately, Standard DV will be all but dead in a year IMO.

I just have to say that, literally, very similar posts have been placed here over the past few years. DV is still alive. I'm sure HDV will take over at some point but I think the transition will be more gradual than some think. I know I'm keeping my PD/VXs for at least another year (maybe even two more). I have yet to have a client ask about HD. I'm sure the time will come (probably soon), but so far what I have works fine.

When I do go HDV I'm not sure if I'll go Sony or Canon. I do like the images I've been seeing from the Canons lately (even samples I've seen posted with the A1). I've heard some folks even comment that they are doing well in low-light (The issue that makes me appreciate my DV Sonys).


My .02,

Don B.

The latest B&H catalog for winter 2007/2008 has the VX-2000 and the VX-2100 listed under used video equipment for $1649 and $1749 respectively.(page 464)
Hope this helps.

I honestly do not want to get into HD...I hope you're right Don. I do not own HD equipment, and wish I never had to consider any, but 2008-09 will be huge for it. Rather than predicting the demise of SD it would be more accurate to predict a fast rise of HD, starting post Christmas of this year. I suspect by 2008 SD television will be considered very old school, but not dead.

I like the Canon at this point though I've traditionally been a Sony user.

Watch the prices of HDTV starting in January....by this time next year the number of SD tvs available will be much fewer. HDTVs under $800 are already common. It's a huge market and the manufacturers are already all over it.

My point is that I was in Circuit City last night and they have exactly four CRT televisions, and I bought an excellent HDTV though small, for under $500. I will not be buying a SD television ever again. They are excellent.

I am simply making a prediction that in a year or so the demand that is already starting for HD will be huge. But my prediction isn't based on my thinking, it is based on current consumer trends.

We can say whatever we think or wish will happen, but the fact is everything will be HD at some point. I am saying it will be close to that by the end of next year.

There will be, for a long time, of course consumers that want the cheapest available, and that will enable low-end video pros to make a living with SD for a while.

The problem with HD is that people think that if you have a HD TV, you have HD. Not so. You have to have signal sources and those still cost a fair amount of money.

$400 is about the cheapest HD DVD player available. HD programming, unless off-the-air is available and complete enough for you, isn't cheap either.

Lots of folks out there who have perfectly useable SD televisions that will buy a $50 set-top box to convert digital transmissions to analog NTSC and be happy. A SD television set will last at least 10 years or longer so there are a lot of embedded viewing systems out there that people won't replace very soon.

There are more digital input SD televisions out there than I would have predicted. A 27 inch SD with dual tuners costs under $300

And a lot of people will and do go for a $60 upconverting DVD player to feed those low-cost HD sets.

And there still is no inexpensive replacement for good old video tape when you want to grab something off the air. Even Costco still sells blank tape.

I doubt that the average consumer will really care whether the source is HD or upconverted SD as long as they get what they want out of their viewing time. Next year feels a bit too close in.

Remember you are communicating in this forum to a group of people who one way or another can afford expensive camcorders and the other tools of video production. We are not a representative cross section of the US population. Joe six-pack may not have the money for HD for some time.

Still, it is all a mater of an opinion right now. I could be wrong :-)

Yes, Mike. And to hear you explain it, it might be that a year is too close for the HD apocolypse. I hope you are right. I have a friend who does hundreds of weddings per year and lots of corporate stuff, he HATES the associatged issues with HD, and he's an early adopter. He's had the cams and stuff for a long while, just did his first full HD wedding, and he's still complaining about it. He runs dual-Quad core macs and the render times were apparently something like 8 hours or worse.

even if stores stopped selling sd televisions today, it would be years before everyone becomes switched over. not everyone buys a new tv every year. a great many people have sd tv's, and have no plans on replacing them simply because something more expensive is available. I live in a populated are in california, and average friends. at least half of the people I know have a sd tv, that is not even widescreen. these people rent movies, buy movies, and go to the theater. they will not buy a new tv until the old one breaks.

vhs was claimed to be dead years ago, yet a great many consumers still buy brand new vhs players. I would not suggest filming something to be sold on vhs, but it might not hurt to offer that medium if the consumer wants it. same with hd and sd

And that does raise the question about people affording HD productions like weddings, etc. Your friend probably grossly undercharged for the HD wedding. He/she cannot afford to do that many times.

Interestingly enough, the demands for portable video, that played on cell phones and pocket PCs is for less than SD quality in most cases. People will pay in image quality in order to get convenience (and it points up the old saw that the most important ingredient in television/movies is the story).

I am surprised that more wedding videographers aren't offering a sub-SD resolution video file that can be played on the customer's i-pod or cell phone. Hey Sandra! Want to see my wedding (as they stand in the ladies room.)?

Mike,
My cable system (Time Warner) traded my DVR for an HD DVR for no additional cost. And HD-DVD players can be had for about 179.00 That being said, people absolutely without a doubt do not care about qualilty as much as we do. They care about content. If you have content you could show it through snow and garbled audio... visa-vie any network broadast movie that's SD on a HD screen. I don't think any of this is going to ward off the coming HD appocalypse because of the most important aspect of HD. Men need their gadgets. They will stop at nothing to get them. When they can spin this 2009 regulation into "Honey we need a new tv" then they will do it, and my beautiful VX2100s will be as useful as a SVHS camcorder nowadays. It is a shame, but I believe it to be true.
Bill

The problem for most of the 'guys' is that they cannot afford a new TV unless the current unit dies. Too many people could not afford the $180 HD DVD player you cite let alone have a DVR at any resolution. They have to pay for $60 tanks of gas to go to work in a car that costs at least a few thousand if it is well used and hundreds of dollars per month to pay for heating their houses.

The hierarchy of needs puts television down many levels from safety, food, shelter which are well above the need for a TV.

You are correct, they can get just as much enjoyment out of a SD football game on their 20 inch CRT analog TV as anyone else can on their 70 inch HD flat-screen.

Again I say we are in the minority when it comes to buying high-end video toys. Most of the world cannot afford HD.

That isn't to say that our client base won't pay for HD, but an HD-only client base is much smaler than the available SD client base.

I don't have cable, I have an antennae. My new $500 dollar HDTV gets channels I didn't even know existed in my area. Plus, I am getting HD (and much is widescreen also) content from every local network affiliate. I didn't even buy the set for HD, but my God, the quality is fantastic, and the reception is twice as good. I can't stand to look at SD anymore, and that is after only one day of having the set. I leave it on just to marvel at the image.

One local PBS station has multiple broadcasts (six!) happening on sub-channels, including movies during the day. It's insane.

And this is all happening in Cincinnati, where we are behind in everything.

All I know is:

1. You can buy HD tvs for $499 and less, not great ones, but still HD.
2. SD looks like crap after viewing HD.
3. I can hardly look at my own SD projects after getting a taste of HD.
4. HD and BluRay are dropping as well, and will continue to do so.

DVD took over VHS very quickly once it took off. It was gradual at first, but once it caught on, it seemed almost overnight everyone had a DVD player. Because adopting HD all the way is more expensive than purchasing a DVD player, it won't be overnight, but prices are dropping dramatically.

All in all, I think my original prediction was a bit too soon, mainly because of the HD-BluRay thing needing to get sorted out, which is at least a year off I imagine. And even though I'm lovin' this HD, I have no intention of getting a player right now. So that definitely will slow things down, as some of you have said.

I honestly haven't seen much difference in the quality between a standard DVD upconvert and blu-ray. My friend has a blu-ray player, and we've watched a few movies on blu-ray there. I can't really see a difference. The source medium is the same(film) and until they start to shoot these things in HD then I don't think the difference will be there. I think if the DVD to bluray difference were as big as the VHS to DVD difference, then we'd see some movement. It just isn't there. I, in fact, would say that most things look worse in blu-ray than standard DVD. There seems to be more grain, etc.
opinions and all that.
Bill