hello members. Finally, the wait, and speculation/insider & outsider information- is over. Read if you have'nt already, Robin Liss's very very micro sliced skinny on TRV950's replacement- the DCR-HC1000. No telling when it will hit our shores here in the states, but I'll sit & wait it out and see what happens...

Joe

Don't get your hopes up, this appears to be a dilution product appealing to the mass public more than the enthusiast (on a budget). It is very likely to be a dissappointment in the areas that matter (video quality).

If the CCD's and lens are indeed identical with the ones from TRV950/PDX10, perhaps even including the DVCAM's great 16:9 capabilities (let's hope that's true), plus all the necessary manual functions like zebra, shutter and gain control, how could this cam be a disappointment in video quality?
This model will perfectly eliminate the huge gap between Sony's growing line of small 1chip, lower budget, fully automatic cams and the expensive, larger size, manual prosumer models like PDX10, PD170/VX2100. I can't see anything wrong in that. This is just Sony's long overdue answer to Panasonic's DV953 and Canon's Optura Xi. With the arrival of Panny's GS400 and Canon's Optura 30/40 on the horizon, there is at least hope that manually controlled middle class camcorders DO have a future.

I do not believe that the imagers (ccds) are identical. If they are, developing a new product with a lower price point means that there must be a cost savings somewhere. This translates to the buyer as a loss.

cc,

I bet they are moving the production line (or have moved it) from Japan to China.

This is one way that costs can be substantially lowered with sometimes a quality improvement and no internal component changes.

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Sony DCR-TRV950 [Mini-DV Vid](2003)
Canon ES-970 [8mm Video] (1998)
Canon Z135 [35mm] (1995)
Yashica Mat-124G [2/14x2/14] (1994)
Canon Elan [35mm (1994)]
Canon AE-1 [35mm] (1981)

That is possible, but I don't think the entire answer lies there. In all likelihood, the replacement will be a step down in features/quality.

I'm one of thoses uniniated Camcorder users, who is trying to decide whether to buy the HC1000 or TRV950. I live in Australia so both Cameras cost or will cost when released approx $USD4000, which makes me super scared to decide. I'm not interested in still photography, I have a Sony DSC-F707 for that. Given the lack of information out there, does anyone want to offer an opinion as to which Camcorder to buy? At this point the major advantages of the HC1000 that I can see is the 5.1 surround sound and the 200grams of less weight.

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Jonathan

I would wait for an official release and some pro and amateur reviews.

Can anybody confirm or infirm the following speculation:
*this new camcorder has a plug for one extra microphone only ... or two? (4 mikes -2x2) are required to produce 5.1 sound )
my worst fear : to be stuck with only on plug for an extra mike, the pb being that you can't buy an extra mike similar to the built-in one, so sound capture would be automatically different in front and rear tracks;
the ideal situation would be, IMHO, to have lateral stereo : Right front/back and Left front/back couples of mikes, not front R/L + back R/L. Fears appeased, or sustained?

IF they offer 5 channel (or even 4 channel) audio on this camera, it would be a very strange thing to do for a consumer camcorder. After all, this is a compact camcorder, what is the point of being compact and portable if you need to have an elaborate audio setup?

There is a picture of the 4 channel mike here:
http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/...mg/image011.jpg

Is that a joke?? The close proximity of the recording elements to each other will provide zero surround sound effect. What will result is 4 identical tracks....heck, I can get that with a mono stream duplicated 3 more times.....but, I (and nobody else) would want to.

glad to know about the 4 mikes. By the way, right from the horse's mouth, the approved ultra professional way of recording stereo with two mikes is a 110° angle between the two mikes : with four mikes that is still a 90° angle between each, the four tracks can't but be different ; our ears are not swivel ears, like a horse's own, let's say that our left hand side ear for example collects sound from the left side (front and rear + what goes on internally in our heads), same for the righthand side ear, nothing like front/back. Only until recently did anybody bother to record in 4 channels. With two mikes it's just impossible to emulate the replay of sounds coming from behind our heads without an extra pair of speakers. That's what surround is meant for, I suppose, not just special effects that I don't personally care about. BTW has anybody tried this?
commentary on the picture of the mike : it definitely is a front/rear system, and the cables are very short : ideally this should be placed well above the cameraman's head. The fine thing is that it offers 4 identical mikes which tends to prove they're not aiming at some kind of blurred surround sound for the rear speakers, but four sound sources on a par. Good, we can always find 4 separate mikes to experiment with.

Just FYI... DVCAM doesn't have any capabilites relating to aspect ratio (4:3 vs. 16:9) that are different than any other tape format, including MiniDV... it's the camera (such as the PDX10) and the CCD usage/arrangement that makes the 16:9 "good"... and there's always anamorphic lenses to make any cam TRUE 16:9 with no loss in resolution. Bottom line, DVCAM is not required for "great 16:9 capabilities".

Of course DVCAM has nothing to do with 16:9. But it is a fact that the PDX10 (DVCAM model) has much better widescreen than the DV consumer model TRV950. I was referring to the widescreen quality of the DVCAM model from the TRV950/PDX10 product line, not DVCAM in general.