WELCOME TO
CES 2001 SuperVideo News
This is NOT a TYPO... 2001... NOT 2002 !
Note: News will be posted at the bottom rather from the top. 

Jan 2001 Las Vegas Convention Center... Press Meeting
Looks like we are in for quite a ride on the Wave of Technology for this year.
      I could begin with my little Sony GT and its processor... that is because        
AMD is rumored to have gone beyond the announced strategic relationship 
for a Transmeta Computer Morphing chip to break Intel's strangle hold on   
 the computer business Server market. But, the rumor is a MERGER folks!   
Also the China section here has a new wrinkle... Taiwan based Laptop /     
Notebook makers are migrating to China mainland production facilities this 
year to cause a whopping 50% CUT in Laptop prices due to slave... er,      
reduced Labor costs. 

Well, we first had a TV set, then it went color and then we had a computer  
         monitor and it then went color. Nothing new eh? OK, follow me on this... then we 
            had Trinitron and everyone played catch-up with "Flat" as in Flat screen. Then we 
              had Thin as in LCD and TFT and now you can hang them on your Board room wall 
                because at ten grand they seem out of place on your bathroom or even Living room 
wall... 
    I mean for crying out loud... ten grand for a TV!  OK, I am getting off course... 
        Samsung and Zenith announced last year a sub Two Grand wall screen... that's 
        nice... so where is it. I am told here this morning "it's coming." So is the Second  
                  Coming! Now well have a new screen...  uh, how about U-XGA at around... oh,            
            about 1800 by 1600... hmmm! The DPI it seems on the best monitors right now is   
       85dpi. This new U-XGA is coming in at around 130 something.  Pssst... we are  
      getting close, do you know why? Because when we hit 200dpi our TFT will be  
         indistinguishable from PRINT! The resolution on a wall TV equal that feat at only 
one more click @ 2000 X 2000.

   What can you do with all this bandwidth... well, wait to you see what is rolling down 
the pike here to challenge High Def TV.... HD-DVD and boy talk about licking the 
           screen on an ice cream commercial or your cat going after a TV fish bowl commercial    
 This will knock your socks off. It will also answer that question you all have been   
           asking me for the past six years of mini DV... If the consumer had DVD and HDTV,        
  then what can videographers do to capture at an even higher rate.  HD-DVD it will 
be in a camcorder to replace that damn tape transport... finally.
  It may even be 20 to 30 percent cheaper. Imagine a 3 chip equivalent cam that     
out performs a Canon XL-1 at about $1799 and change?

Batteries for camcorders, walkmans, cell phones... you name it, lasting a month
 on a charge and costing under $20 to boot!  Negative Lux. 3.3 Mega Pixel chips
   migrating to camcorders. Camcorders that will produce better photo images than 
  a wedding photographer... boy, I knew that one was coming some day! It's here. 

Audio of CD quality down loaded Free from the web was yesterdays news...  
 Here comes Movie-napster and almost every movie ever made Anywhere       
 will be downloadable and free from the web. Only thing, you may get slowed  
with your old Pentium III processor... you are going to need Bandwidth...a lot 
more Bandwidth.   Can we all say Bluetooth? Named for a legendary old        
 Scandinavian leader.. this already replaces IrDa and will very soon send         
USB and even FireWire into the waste basket of protocols.  Where you may  
 spend now 30 minutes trying to down load your favorite tune from the web      
  with an old telephone connection... your Cable Modem guys are one in a         
minute or two.  When the Cable Modem guys try to download their favorite     
     movie and DVD's it may take them hours! Bluetooth will be at around 5 minutes. 
 Think about that... your phone connection may take days and weeks to down  
load a single movie... uh, can we all say goodbye to our phone company?     

I know... "with pleasure!"
Now if I just find that booth that lets me use water instead of gas in my
car and put a giant propeller on my roof for a $5 monthly energy bill to
 heat and electrify my house, I will be all set.

 PC110's are all over the place... Sony USA is saying better late than never.
That means there should be no delay this June for the TRV20 replacement
TRV30 which will also have this new Mega Movie 2001 feature.

The Panasonic Dicomar LEICA Lens is giving Sony and Canon in the Japan
home market a run for their money. So... here comes the GL-2 and the long
awaited TRV1000 and sister unit PC3000 all with their 3CCD and NEW 
lens promotions 2nd and 3rd quarter this year.  Prices will heat up as I 
expect all three will have street values under the two thousand mark.

I keep getting asked about the new Panasonic and Videonics Video mixers.  
 I have to remind you folks that their day has Passed.  Why on God's earth do
  you want to pay More and get Less. For crying out loud, I can get a 15" Digital
TV screen attached to a notebook computer running almost 1 GHz and over  
20GB of storage for a thousand dollars less!

The Hitachi people pulled me over to their booth to happily proclaim that
their long awaited DVD-Ram Camcorder $1999.95, the DZ-MV100A is
officially being rolled out here at 2001 CES. Their literature said...

The DVD-RAM discs used by the camcorder not only far outlast traditional tape media,  
       but they also feature multi-compatibility with DVD-RAM products, such as future DVD-RAM 
 equipped personal computers and future DVD-RAM recorders and home DVD players. 
 With DVD video recorded on the Hitachi DVD-RAM Camcorder, consumers can easily 
   connect the camcorder to a TV to enjoy the recorded video or plug into the USB port of a 
 PC (equipped with Windows 98 or Windows 98 second edition) or drop the disc into a  
   4.7GB DVD-RAM drive for editing, viewing, printing or even posting recorded memories 
on a personal home page.

Also included with the camcorder is disc navigation software providing immediate and 
random access editing to any scene recorded on the disc. There is no rewinding so     
editing is simplified and can even be done directly from the camcorders LCD screen.   



think about this, more later... got to go to all the news gatherings!
sincerely your one and only meister
 


  Bill Gates Invents Electric Chair 2000              
 Teamed up with Laz-y-boy and Sony we        
get the new millennia version of the Hot       
Seat.  Very comfortable and with leather       
      a real pleasure to mute the spouse's concerns 
about the home looking like an office or a    
   cable & wire factory... depending on how        
  long the arguing has been going on.               
$999 street.

Pana IS A NO Show With New 3CCD Leica Lens 
Camcorders for latter in 2001... 
You are NOT going to like this... department
        Well, here is what Official Pana USA has to say...

-----Original Message-----
 Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 
 Please E mail your comments to 
pbtssupport@panasonic.com

 No Madam.., no plans at this time

  Well,         here is mud in your eye professional 
wedding & event videographers... No crummy
  Leica Lens 3CCD's for you... at least USA. The
rest of the world... uh, OK ! hmmm, must be   
some logic there. Did, I ever tell you people I  
had posted here for years an e-mail reply by   
 the Sony head cheese who said in 1997 to my  
       question "would I have to wait till the Millennium 
   or Hell to freeze over first for a new VX2000." 
He picked... Hell !  
If you do not want to wait till Pana
  USA gets off the pot... Order Here
SPECS & PICTURES HERE 
You want to see a Leica Lens on a Pana?
http://www.supervideo.com/mxhome.htm

Your Canon Show-Report...
January 14th chuckmeister Observations to my Hurd-meister @
http://www.dvinfo.net

Aloha Chris:
Been up to my keester with traveling... CES, MacWorld, Sony promo in Osaka and a Laptop  
 info session yesterday at the Imperial in Tokyo.  This new emerging battle ground for              
dominance in the 3CCD 2000 dollar market is heating up. Definitely the shot heard around     
the world was that Sony was stopped dead in its tracks from launching its second tier product 
line for the new Millennia last year and no TRV1000/PC3000 along with side kick GV-D1000 
appeared. Instead it was back to the drawing boards until 2001 for these long awaited puppies 
because of the Pana 3CCD Leica Lens Digicam.

This Dicomar German lens cam with flash memory already sitting at 256MB and Sony's        
Memory Stick with a now delayed 128MB version to say a missed Jan One 256MB on         
hold has the Tokyo streets murmuring. And it is not good for Sony adopters. The Pana has  
taken dead aim for those Sony customers. With matching Sony features long missing from  
   competitors... Intelli Hot Shoes, Flash memory, Optical Stabilization, Mega Pixel for the still 
  image side of the cam and outside battery mounting. Plus the unique Pana features of an All 
Day belt mounted external battery pack and the much appreciated Crystal Clear 
All Weather Housing to say nothing of the LEICA name on a lens.

       This has impacted on Sharp, JVC but more importantly to the USA - North American market... 
Canon and more specifically the GL and XL anticipated Millennia models. Just to compete 
these models will feature Flash Memory and the color view screen. The Fluorite lens label 
     will now be second generation &  "improved" on both the XL as well as the GL series.... yes, 
    SERIES. Even a Glasstron Olympus Eye Trek goggle can be found as well as intelligent and 
     inter active Hot Shoe. Why Canon would put a USB port on the XL and not the GL is beyond 
       me and I told them so in November. I also criticize that they did not extend the interchangeable
 lens from the XL down to the GL family as I believed this was their Niche market & Canon
 strength they should capitalize on... we shall see. I also expect to see more attention paid to
   audio and wanted it to expand from wireless gimmickry to XLR and individual manual dial up
     control. I also said they could expand the XL series into a surround type audio record effect is
     sorely missed and needs to be addressed as Hitachi is already looking into this for their DVD
   recording camcorder. Yes, Canon is still stuck on mini DV but I can foresee two dramatic XL
        moves; possibly with the next model changes in 2001... multi system recording as well as playback,
       a first BTW... and the use of both mini AND standard size DV tape cassettes in a consumer/prosumer
      camcorder as small as the GL and XL series. BTW, this was to be a unique feature over at Sony but
  only on the new GV DV-VCR line... now maybe with competition heating up we will see that in a
Sony camcorder as well. JVC said no to that idea back in November when asked. Sharp seems
  floundering in a sea of competition without any rudder. They seem to be in a death wish for the
bottom of the barrel scrapping low-balling market of sub $500 models that no one seems to be
able to figure out.

 Third tier companies like Kyocera, Fujix, Nikon, Olympus, Aiwa, Sanyo to say nothing of China's 
   Acer and Korea's Samsung are lost with all these model changes and can NOT afford to compete
until some dust settles and product shake out occurs... maybe 2002. Editing manually with Pana
   mixers and multi thousand dollar Videonics seems like a dead end when FOR CHEAPER one can
pick up a full blown Laptop computer system, with even a 15" TFT Digital TV / Monitor screen   
thrown in can edit easier, faster and cheaper... why would I want a VERY limited MXProDV for 
a thousand dollars more ..........

My Hurd-meister... step back and take a deep breath for a moment there. "Gee, chuckmeister. 
      your web pages are getting filled with more and more computers and less and less camcorders..."
Well.  I wonder why Chris? Can we all say convergence? How about the fact the camcorder is
           getting knocked down a notch and is NOT the prima ballerina it once was in our industry? Because...
the customer is Now ahead of the power curve with a DVD based system in the house and has
      eclipsed our standard of recording... In order to Now compete the Videographer has to adapt and 
      adopt. Unless you have a few hundred thousand in change floating around in your pocket... forget
        about High Definition recording to say nothing of the elaborateness of the equipment at this stage. 
            Hitachi's DVD novelty is just that but may eventually get some where if they can dump the spinning    
       disk and gain some main stream acceptance with either Sony or Pana that control all direction for
our medium. It's been done before and in fact little out cast Sharp's im-mobile view screen is a
great example of industry acceptance.

Don't get me wrong... my Sony GT Laptop does not either belong or will wind up replacing a  
       VX2000 at a wedding atop a Tripod... not yet anyway. It replaces what goes with the videographer
     by adding computer and telecommunications to the equation. It gives the on scene videographer
        the ability to maximize his talents, more productive in less time and a higher income. All attributes
        each of us seeks and wants... to say nothing of "needs." Remember that syndrome back in the Hi8 /
         S-VHS war days... the cyclical of the POOR videographer spending ever and ever more money and
       getting less and less in return? My GT is two pounds and can go 17 hours on battery power if need
         be.  With Seven FireWire ports and Seven USB ports I can out perform a whole team of A/V people
          & keep all the salaries myself... finally! I can edit and deliver if need be right on the spot & demand
             a premium for that kind of service.  When the end of the shoot comes I do not have to face long hours
            of editing, mixing and compiling... I can be done right there on the spot and go on a much needed &
        much deserved vacation. Especially if I can charge thousands to some medical or legal convention
            that has no preconceived ideas about charging... like some teenage girl and her mother trying to get
a wedding on the cheap... A-men to that.

    There is some 2001 insight from MacWorld, CES, NAFTY and Comdex
this past few weeks...    Sincerely with Aloha ...    your chuckmeister...

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