Re: Cannon , JVC, SONY, Panasonic HDV vanishing?

Hi Vinnie -
well, just to drive everyone crazy (because that is what I do) - HDV is a very popular format, but there is no question that both Sony and Panasonic (and all the 4K guys like RED) want flash card style media to take off - because they get to charge you a lot of $$$ for the cards, that get outdated every 3 months. So there is a lot of HDV out there, but there is a BIG buzz for P2, XDCam EX, and of course RED flash cards.

Let me make this simple - you see how Sony Beta lasted for 10 - 15 years? THOSE DAYS ARE OVER. There is NO format - tape or data format that will last like this any longer. No matter what you buy, it's going to be outdated soon. See all those wonderful MAC G5's out there on everyone's FCP system. Just wait until Snow Leopard OS-X 10.6 comes out- then all these perfectly working MAC G5's are useless ("what the hell do you mean - I can still cut FCP DVCProHD on my G5 just fine with my AJA hardware").

The moral is that you have to jump in and buy something, and start making money to pay off your purchase, because before you know it, the next piece of junk is going to come out, and people will say "oh, you have those 128 gig P2 cards (to be released 1st Qr. 2009) - those are SO obsolete- the 512 Gig cards are coming out this summer. (The 32 gig P2 card is the largest card currently available). EVERYTHING is obsolete. Buy a RED camera - should have bought the EPIC from RED at 5K, because the REAL pros will want 5K.

It's a game, and no matter what you buy, it's not cool enough, big enough, fast enough, etc. You just have to jump in and start playing. Everyone on this list has done this, and you must do this too (or go to work for McDonalds).

Bob zelin