Move aside, XF300. The GY-HM600 is coming.

After six months of buying, testing, rejecting then sending back cams for refunds , I was ready to give up. I tried three different Sony NX70s, a Sony NX5, a Sony VG20, and just this week a Panasonic AC160 that I really, really thought would be the one. I won't bore anyone yet with why I rejected them; the reasons were different for each one. Suffice to say that I will NOT pay thousands more for a "pro" cam that has problems compared to my tried and true Sony HDR-CX550V!

After six months of this agonizing struggle, in the midst of my black depression - there were no others left that came even close to my requirements - I saw the GY-HM600! Perfect on paper in every respect except for the lack of AVCHD 2.0 support, which provides 1080 50/60p - something that I fell in love with while using the NX70 and the VG20. Now I can't live without it.

So, I did some searching and found a number for JVC headquarters on the east coast. Using my well-honed skills at penetrating corporate phone menu trees, in less than a day I received a call from none other than Craig Yanagi himself!

I was floored and impressed by his commitment to customer interaction. This blows away anything I have seen with Sony, Panny or Canon.

We had a very pleasant chat. Although he could not commit to giving the new HM600/650 1080 60p by the time it is on the market, he did say that it was possible, and I sensed that he was interested in the feedback regarding this particular feature. He is active on many pro video forums, and regards social networking as a key aspect of his job.

There is a lot of people urging JVC to give the new cam AVCHD 2.0. I'm cautiously optimistic it will happen after talking with Craig. After all, the standard has been out for nearly two years and is pretty much a "standard" feature on most AVDHD cams now.

http://www.avchd-info.org/

Steve

If one of your drawbacks of the AC160 was lack of 1080 60p, their is an update to get it. Personally I believe it should have had 1080 60p from day one. Still, you never know if JVC would do the same thing Panasonic did and add 1080 60p support if enough people complains.

@Ungermann

Well, now I am sad again. This last six months have been brutal on me.

I had such high hopes for the Panny AC160. I never dreamed it would suffer from the most bizarre problem I had encountered so far - ridiculously loud servo whine when zooming at any speed other than a slow creep. Although the image quality was good - much better than the NX5 - the servo noise combined with a lot of other annoyances (like low-quality rattly switches and buttons) led me to reject it.

All I really want is an updated Sony NX5, that has 1000 TV lines of resolution, a bigger LCD, uses SDXC cards and supports AVCHD 2.0 with 1080/60p. Variable frame rates for a bit of time lapse would be nice too, but is not a requirement.

I guess I'm not going to get what I want.

Perhaps it is time to give up on video as a hobby and try something else. Get back into flying Ultralights, perhaps. Or maybe take up gardening.

Steve

Actually, it was the announcement of that update along with the $300.00 Turbo Focus update that led me to pull the trigger and buy it a month before either would be available.

http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales...ab2012/07.html

See my reply to Ungerman for the reasons I rejected the Panny. I was so heartbroken!

Steve