What Were They Thinking

What Were They Thinking
(Created 13 Feburary 2008: Updated 10 April 2009)
By Guy Barwood - www.xdcamexinfo.com
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The Background:

It seems to me that every time a manufacture releases a new camera to market there are some design decisions which boggle the mind. Occasionally they are there to keep the cost of the product down so we can afford them, but more often than not these decisions are politically based on marketing decisions rather than producing the best product to the customer. They deliberately (and often artificially) limit what a camera can do so they can either make more profits on the sales of media, or the next model. Some design decisions are just bad all by themselves. This list is my take on these decisions, which in my opinion simply embarrass their manufacturers in producers minds:

Sony EX1/EX3 & JVC HM700: No native Standard Definition recording. The stupidest decision EVER.
Sony EX3: Form factor, you have to be kidding me...
Panasonic HPX300: 1/3" sensor block? Oh please, you show the way with 2/3" on the 500 and drop back to 1/3: on the 300. Is there a 1/2" 400 still too come (but at what price...)
Panasonic HPX300: Only records to P2. A budget 1/3"camera that will cost you more in a few hours of recording media than the whole camera itself. 100Mbps is only 12.5MBps which can be easily written by various media formats now, from SDHC to Compact Flash at low costs & you know it.
Panasonic HPX500: Beautiful 2/3" sensors, then you use low resolution ones and fudge with offset pixels.
JVC HM700: Quicktime wrapper only without buying a Sony add on?
So close and yet so far. Just record the codec out of your MPG2 encoder as MXF & send it all to SDHC cards and be done with it, no need for XDCAM EX at all.
JVC HM700: 1/3". Aren't we past 1/3" in this class camera by now? Sensors smaller than my pinkies fingernail?
JVC HM700: Putting media slots on the right side of the chassis.
Why not make me lean over the camera to swap media when it is recording, cause that's a GREAT idea, NOT, up there for thinking that through.
JVC HM700 SxS Recorder: Single Slot? Seriously, Single Slot? Your kidding right? Who gets fired for that one?
Hoodman SxSxSDHC: SDHC adaptor card to compete with MxM & MxR. Nothing bad about the product, but the name? You have to be kidding! Try saying that 10 times quickly...
Blu-Ray: No native 1080 25/30p support? What the ****? Sure, then go make a whole suite of cameras that shoot 1080 25/30p. Sony, how did you plan to let your users make Blu-Ray versions of their 1080 25/30p footage from their fancy Sony HD cameras? Didn't really stop to think of your customers again did you there?

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