You seem to think that JVC held back on 24p because they were afraid of cannibalizing sales of some higher-end camera. I rather doubt that's the case because, just as Rick pointed out, the HD1 suffers in other area (optics, chroma problems, too much compression, etc). My personal opinion is that they were caught off-guard by the success of the DVX100 24p camera, and plan to address that issue in the HD1 at some point, probably after everyone buys the first batch of 30p cameras :)
///d@

Matsushita that sells under the brand name Panasonic owns 52% of JVC. Sony was showing prototypes of blu-ray HD DVD recorders last year and it was clear that they have the technology to introduce blu-ray HD DVD camcorder at 2003 NAB. There is a big rivalry between Matsushita and Sony; still they cooperate, as do all Japanese companies. Matsushita jumped the gun to be the first with consumer HD camcorder and JVC introduced it in Japan before NAB. Then Sony did not introduce anything to rival either the HD1, or the DVX. Canon didn't either. JVC is stuck selling product that was not fully developed. Sony will introduce HD DVD camcorder the latest the next NAB. It will be everything the JVC is not. The JVC does not have 24p so it does not compete with the DVX, and more expensive Matsushita models. When they were developing, they apparently did not think that it will be so bad. That's my opinion.

Rick wrote "These are consumer cameras with just adequate lenses and tiny ccds"

The tiny CCd's can easily and cheaply go to 1/2" and the lenses can be changed with a twist of the wrist. 1/3" CCD's are already creating broadcast footage, the XL1S and some others are already doing broadcast work why not alot more? Well because in documentaries and other broadcast programming people like to shoot film like images, hey, isn't that 24p that we are asking for. I shoot with a prosumer camera, certainly not a $100k unit but I have had footage on the NBC Today and CBS Morning shows as well as CNN.

The new cameras coming out are already becoming High Def, that makes them much more than a jiggly wiggly consumer cam. This site has a lot of impressive people on it, if their existing cameras had 24p the DV i community could bang out some unreal footage. But getting that look is a big chunk of why we are here, to get better video. The line between pro and prosumer is getting thinner everyday. The line between 60i and 24p is a manmade brick wall.

It's taken me a while to get back to you guys, and I apologize for that. I'm still trying to get over the fact that Dogville didn't win the Palme d'Or--in fact, it went away empty-handed.

Here's what I learned about the HD1 (that you probably already knew):

- The chip is 720P, 1.18 Mpixel.
- The camera has 60i and 30P modes of operation. No 24P.
- The bitrate is 19.3 Mbps (non-variable).
- The camera will be available August 2003. The follow-up "pro" version, the HD10, will have XLR jacks, color bars, and adjustable iris (by f-stop versus +1, +2, etc.)

The camcorder image looked just fine on the little built-in LCD screen, however, the demo folks didn't (wouldn't?) rig the camera to one of the HD monitors.

The HDVHS decks were very impressive. We were watching demo versions of Galaxy Quest and Ice Age on HD monitors, and I wasn't able to notice any compression artifacts at all. This is an especially notable achievement for graphics display as in Ice Age. However, there was occasional digital dropout, and it was every bit as ugly as when it happens on your MiniDV tapes.

If interested, you can see pictures I took of the HD1 demo unit here and here.