I am sort of in the same boat here Steve....
However, I think the overall price of the VP50Pro is not that expensive comparing to other (similar or more priced VPs) for what you get.
I do feel a bit let down as I bought the VP50 with NR advertised for that model and of-course we now know that it was never going to be in due to hardware (ie not enough size of FPGAs etc).
I am thinking that if I go for the upgrade I'll pay 625 or ~700 (incl the HD-SDI), I get features missing from the VP50 (ie NR) and additional ones such as hdmi 1.3 and HD-SDI and the whole "must-have" of video (1080p24in1080p24 out
so that my future FPJ convert this to 1080@96
.
Initially I thought it was not worth it. But now, I think that if I want to fit HD-SDI I'd pay at least £500 (or more) here in the UK. Also, I was thinking that I could buy a flea for the NR filtering. But that also costs another £500 or more. So for less than the price of fitting hd-sdi separately and buying NR filtering, I also get hdmi 1.3 i/ps and o/p. Sure I wish the pro came with 2 o/ps but I can live with this as I am using hdmi splitter for my Direct View and FPJ.
Also, I don't understand why the beta testers are not talking about the features and improvements. Probably because they are not that big. Today, a beta tester over at AVS noted that there is a significant difference with NR over OTA SD signals. This is really good news for me, as I am very happy with the current features of VP50 in terms of scaling etc.
Nevertheless, even if it performs similarily to current VP50 (I know people have complained about audio drop-outs but I never had any with latest firmware) I still think it is a good deal.
I do wish that they actually had a proper Colour Management System for calibration purposes, like the new Radiance will have, but I don't see this happening with DVDO soon.
Finally, for me, it comes down to this; I bought the Vp50 for £1300. Now I pay another 700ish and I get a complete (debatable but I am positive
) , future proof, VP. At a net price of ~ £2000 it is not really bad for the videophile. Of-course, this is my thinking and opinion. Plus, the other option of changing, say to radiance XD, would cost me more (unless they offer competition products trade-in which I think they don't)
Regards,
Kostas