HDV - Future of HDV

Future of HDV

JVC released its latest HDV camcorder — the GY-HD250 — in 2006. In September 2011 this model was discontinued on the U.S. market. The "B" modification of the older GY-HD200 was released in 2008 and discontinued in November 2009. The latest HDV camcorder made by Canon — the HV40 — was released in 2009, but it traces back to the HV20 developed in 2007, and was phased out of production during 2011, though stocks have lasted through 2012. The latest Sony consumer HDV model is the HDR-HC9, originally released in 2008 and discontinued on the North American market in 2011. 2008 was also the year when Sony presented the latest "advanced amateur" and professional HDV camcorders, namely the HDR-FX1000 and the HVR-Z5.

All the three major manufacturers of HDV equipment — JVC, Canon and Sony — have heavily invested in development of MPEG-2 video compression scheme and continue to rely on it in their professional tapeless camcorder lineups: XDCAM HD (Sony), XDCAM EX (Sony and JVC), XDCAM HD422 (Sony), XF Codec (Canon). At the same time Sony and Canon have joined Panasonic in marketing of AVCHD recording format, which is claimed to deliver visual quality similar to HDV at half the datarate. Consumer high definition camcorders released by these companies since 2009 employ AVCHD format.

Industry analysts do not expect new HDV products, but believe that manufacturers will continue to support HDV for their existing users, while at the same time transitioning to file-based workflow.