Can someone explain to me what Sony’s prefixing is all about? They just announced the V1U, the successor to the Z1U. So far, they haven’t made any changes to the A1U. So the V is better than the Z and also better than the A. Obvious eh?

In any case. Here it is, the V1U. The gist? It’s a tarted up FX7, as we might have expected following the announcement of the FX7 at IBC. The only major difference is that instead of the pseudo-24p stuff from the Z1, it’s go true progressive chips (CMOS not CCD). Interestingly, Sony derides those crummy old “progressive-look” systems in their press release.

A few interesting things to go along with it. First, it can apparently run at hi-speed, 240fields per second, and record that to the normal 60i tape. That’s a VERY cool feature – true slow mo without laying down for the HVX-200.

They’re also pushing a 60 gig harddisk recorder to go along with it. They don’t say too much about it, but it’s an interesting option.

So here you have it, the V1U. $4800, shipping in December (January in the real world, nothing really ships in December).