Re: OT: End of Prosumer Camcorders???

[Stu Siegal] "In this case, it feels to me like Canon designed these two not to draw customers off their XL camcorder line (thus many of Dave's legitimate gripes regarding form, control, audio), but to come out with a product that tempts people waiting for the Red product to come to market to jump in now, at a price that will attract many to supplement their X series camcorders with a 5 or 7 d. It's shrewd, effective, and as a consumer, it sucks. "

I don't think this is the case though. Do to a changing landscape photojournalists are being asked to provide web video as well as stills and that's who vDSLRs were really targeted towards. I mean 30.00fps might suck for a typical b'cast workflow but it's perfectly fine for the web. Some people in the video world then pressed them into service as primarily video cameras even though these are still photography cameras first and foremost. As video people continue to complain about the lack of video features the DSLR makers will probably continue to try and appease them (like w/the proper frame rates on the 7D), but I don't think they are going to sacrifice their core audience of photographers to make a camera that is video first and stills second.

Red is the most interesting player in the game because their goal from the beginning for Scarlet and Epic was to make a camera that is equally at home taking moving and still pictures. Time will only tell if Canon and Panasonic will make truly convergent still and video camera or if they will continue to make "proper" video cameras at one part of the company and DSLRs that have tacked on video capability at another part of the company.


-Andrew

3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)