It’s February, but we’re already in the run-up to NAB. Sony had a deluge of press releases today. Among them was one in particular, about the new HDC-1400 studio camera. It looks to be an HDC-1500 that only does 1080i60 and 720p60 and lacks a few other features. Suggested list is $65,000, which is about $30,000 under the list for the HDC-1500.

Along the same lines, Panasonic recently announced the AK-HC3500. Spec-wise, it’s right in the same ballpark, though it lacks 720p support. No pricing has been announced, but I’d guess $50k.

It’s really exciting to see studio HD cameras coming down to the sub-$100k range. Getting to the point of being able to have a whole camera system (camera, lens, viewfinder, CCU, RCP) for less than $100k will be a big deal. Depending on what retail is on either of these models, it may not be far off.