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I'm not going to hold you in suspense waiting for my opinion of the new Sony HVR-Z 7 U-I think it is the best video camera for the event video market today. It has the picture quality of the Canon XH Al, the low-light sensitivity of the Sony DSR-PD170, the interchangeable lenses of the JVC GY-HD110, the flash recording capabilities of the Sony XDCAM EX1, and none of the CMOS problems of the Sony HVR-V1U.
There is a lot to take notice of on the Z7 but the first thing I noticed was how many accessories it comes with. There is no way not to notice them all as they occupy an entire layer of the packaging that separates you from removing your camcorder from the box. Some of them are familiar or improved over previous offerings but I'll focus on the new ones such as the new Compact Flash (CF) memory recording unit and its i.Link cradle and the ones that are missing, including a CF card and an optional S-Video connector. The new recording unit is designed to record to CF cards as an alternative to or at the same time as recording to tape. As much as I like the improved workflow of recording to flash memory, I love the redundancy that recording to tape offers. I currently record to a Focus Enhancements FS-4 or to a portable hard drive connected to my laptop using Adobe OnLocation, but with a 2-camera shoot I fill up my FS-4 after 3 hours and have to rely on tape if the show runs a bit longer.
From a capturing standpoint it is much easier to work with one type of file storage and much faster to transfer files from flash or hard drive memory than from tape. An added bonus with a continuous file is that you don't need to resynchronize as often in a multi-camera environment. 32 GB cards are readily available and they can hold just under 2.5 hours of DV or HDV footage. Although I prefer longer recording times for a stage production, it is very easy to switch to a fresh card during the intermission, giving me 5 hours of record time. Although I was hoping to play with my new...