During a previous career in broadcast television back in the early 1990s, I sat in on an Avid demonstration, and I recall our station's chief engineer inquiring about the price, being told that it was "around $50,000", and him replying "not bad".

But all video sources at the time, even D2 digital video tape, required REAL TIME analog transfer into Avid! No such thing as direct data transfers via Firewire in those days!

Today, I look at $800 Panasonic consumer camcorders you can carry in the palm of your hand, yet they boast 3 CCDs and 1080i high definition video and I think how amazing that is.