You saw it on Charlie’s blog dated September 19, when Sony first announced the release of the HVR-V1U camcorder.
Well, this swell little puppy arrived at VM HQ a few days ago for a photo shoot for the cover of the December 2006 issue for our annual “All Camcorders Buyer’s Guide”, one of our most popular issues. We here at Videomaker are very honored and privileged to be able to take a first look at this beauty that I am holding in my hot little hands because it is one of only three V1Us in existence in the entire world! Yep, that’s right, not just in the U.S., but one of only three in the world.

Due to the fact that holding onto this camera is a rare event, of course we have to return it to Sony today.. and I believe the man in purple, orange and white picked it up a few hours ago. (If you hear Sony making noise about it’s disappearance, please don’t suggest that it was smuggled away in the trunk of my car!)

Currently, I’m shooting my own videos (and that documentary I keep saying I’m going to finish) with a Sony VX2100, a model Sony is discontinuing, and I might relegate the VX2100 to the role of “second cam”, and try to crunch the numbers to convince myself I need to upgrade. This V1U will retail for a bit less than five grand and will be on the market in December of this year.

The V1U is the pro version of Sony’s HDR-FX7, and can shoot in 1080p at 24fps, and slo-mo up to 240 fields per second. It has a nice 3.5-inch LCD viewfinder and 20x optical lens. (Oh! I’m getting excited!) The camera also comes equipped with 2 XLR inputs, shoots DVCAM and has the ability to sync timecode, among other cool features. Watch for a full review on this camera in Videomaker’s Test Bench soon.