Special   b
   New TRV30 Intro Date for USA is June 25th 2001        
This just In... Sony has delayed the World Wide          
  Introduction of the TRV30, starting with the date         
 that has already past for the Japan release.  Production  
 lines are affected and worse this will also impact the     
 new release of the PC3000 and TRV1000 3CCD cams!
I am in the process of reassessing these 2 cams arrival. 
I will have more... Read It All Here 

Wednesday 28th March 2001 First TRV30 NTSC hit 
Tokyo streets this morning at 9:30A.M.  About $1299
Reason for this low of price... very plasticky looks......
This is now Over a  Month Late here in Japan.
   I believe USA 27th June is now possible, with PAL to  
follow this summer around July with FOUR instead of
the usual two production lines now ramping up here...
   TRV1000 & PC3000 are back on track for late summer 
         release; stay tuned for my NAB appearance & report!          

Well, they say Beware of the Ides of March...     
I am back from Globe trotting, storm dodging    
  & the Pana, Canon, Sony Dealer New Products 
2001 shows...
 First; Special Congrats to my MAC people on their
TITANIUM & OS-X

I Now have Bad News and I have Worse News! 
HERE!

These are Your 3 2001 Mega Pixel Camcorder Champs 
   
       PC120                    TRV30   Specs             MX3000       
STOP PRESSES
MX-3000 NTSC for North American e-mailers
Price reduced  just e-mail me HERE 

  According to my boys on the Canon assembly line   
there is now a rush to get Blue Tooth added to both
the 2002 GL-2 &  XL-2 as it is almost certain both   
new Sony's (TRV1000 & PC3000) have them and  
are expected  early 2002... 
Watch for my live NAB Las Vegas report in April 23-25th...   

Your SPRING Prices A/O March 1st!
E-Mail Me for these products, their contacts & toll free phone numbers.
Please let me know if you are NTSC or PAL based. Only PAL with Analog Inputs are priced...

PS... When e-mailing me let me know if
you are NTSC or PAL!

The only not so bad news is a GL-2 weigh in against the   
three top contenders for the Economic-3CCD price point 
  Sony TRV1000 and PC3000 and the Pana Leica MX3000  
  Not to be confused with a PV-DV951.  The New 
      Pana MX3000/300E is truly one of the best camcorders I or 
          any other video reviewer has seen. The image sharpness and    
     color resolution to say nothing of even the magnificent 
       still imaging is a sight to behold. It is very possible that Pana 
             USA has elected to bring this cam out in their NAB professional 
            products showing meaning the price will be similar to what they 
             did last time... The EZ30u selling for $1725 in Japan was offered 
               to us for a measly $3995... how soon Pana forgets.  That it is now
               selling about the original Tokyo price of three years ago; tells you 
         something about what they may try again.  GL-2 will be priced
        roughly where the GL-1 is now so as to be more competitive 
          with the TRV1000. The 3 chip PC series will, as in the past, be
      priced about $150 higher...  for some God unknown reason.

    On the 1 CCD front... Sony is sitting in the cat bird seat with
     a PC120 shipping in January (USA) and the TRV30 just now
    coming to market.  Pana and JVC have joined belatedly the 
     Mega Pixel camp with Sharp and Canon to follow. All have 
     some Flash Memory with SD sitting at 256MB and the Sony
     Memory Stick struggling to get the 128's out now and the    
      256MB hopefully by Christmas... at this rate!  Next bump to 
    500MB and 1GB maybe a case of too little, too late.  Other 
technologies are ready to come to market this year at a    
fraction (Fraction!) of the above Flash Memory costs. 

    There are three companies with Tiny Thin DVD burners with
      another, almost a dozen, second tier names to follow that are  
    ready to jump in your wallet... maybe even cheaper than the  
      $99 CD-Rom prices of today. That will be an interesting 200 1
battle worth watching the shake out.  However...
         After seeing previews of all this technology of FDD, CD & DVD
               burners... I am left with the feeling maybe I am being jerked             
     around and being sold a bill of goods I may not Really want. 
Follow me on this line of thought... 
   If I can get a really small and thin and portable CD burner    
 (CD-RW) that will now start playing DVD's as well... 
    is it a no Brainer that blank CD-RW's @ 15 cents or even 50 
     cents (full list) and can now be burned double sided to 1.4GB
  makes a whole lot of sense and CENTS than a DVD blank  
       that can run anywhere from 20 bucks to even $50 depending    
              on whether you want Quality to count or not?   Am I missing           
        something here? Yeah, sure a DVD burns 20 gigs and maybe     
          some day a technology will burn a Gazillion gigs... BUT, I'm still 
          bothered by that 15 cent disk in one hand and a similar looking    
                  $50 DVD in my other hand. Maybe it is just me & I better get with       
              the program & make sure I am suckered into every new thing that    
comes down this never ending electronics pike. 
I AM Very skeptical here folks...

Work stations will hit 2 GHz in a New York minute and my special
     Flight II chuckmeister Editing Station just started shipping last month
     at the incredible 1 GHz Pentium... & that's a Laptop folks! 15" TFT 
100 GB HDD & 8lbs.
    My little 2 pound GT Laptop Video Editor with 680k CCD that has 
     been shipping to my e-mailers since LAST November 12th is STILL
              not showing up on the radar. Some of you may own your GT as               
much as 1 Year before it ever does hit the store shelves here...  
Simply Amazing!
    Energy saving Crusoe processor is ready for up grade to...  2GHz! 
        BTW... turns out some Mean people were spreading what turn out to  
            be false rumors about Transmeta recalls.  There was NO Sony recall      
    in Japan... oooh, if Intel gets caught with hands in the cookie jar...  
they will loose more credibility in a New York Second...  
than All the good will of decades of hard earn customer loyalty! 
Now you have...  The Ugly! 
 
 Thanks to Apple FireWire;  everything is either out or now in the 
    pipe line from scanners, printers, DVD  to HDD and camcorders.  
The new 
   Titanium G4 1 inch thin with a DVD burner and OS-X at a 733Mhz
    Motorola processor will probably out pace a 2GHz Pentium 4 and 
 will finally arrive this month... hold onto your wallets on this one!
         Like Steven Jobs says,  the best Money can buy. Too bad its yours.  

 I am often asked about multi Mega pixel chips from the Digital  
camera realm migrating to camcorders. 2 million, 3 million and 
even 4 million mega pixel chips are not DV... they will be used 
      in the follow on technology of Home High Definition TV, VCR's   
  & camcorders.  When? Probably when you get tired of spending 
     all your hard earned money for D8, DVPro & DVCam I suppose. 
No incentive to shoot the hen laying golden eggs...    is there?

 My Concept Cam for those that Haven't been here long and
   following my monthly tirades... is about spotting technology 
 somewhere else and doing a better job.  A digital camera    
  out performing a Digital Camcorder is one of those ideas.    

more Camcorder News later... Aloha