Another in the parade of cameras
Panasonic’s latest camera, the AJ-HPX3100 seems targeted at news gathering and little else. This is a lightweight and smallish shoulder mounted camera, the same size as their HPX307, that will shoot in Panny’s great AVC-Intra codec. 
The important thing here is the 2/3″ CCDs, giving full-raster 1080 imaging and 4:2:2 10-bit sampling in AVC-Intra 100. If you want to double the record time, losing 4:2:2 and dropping to 4:2:0, you can go with AVC-Intra 50. Panasonic doesn’t say they’re identical, but these are the same specs as the MUCH more expensive, full sized HPX3000 (list $48,000). And better than the also more expensive HPX2000 (list $27,000). Those cameras have some advantages, like 5 P2 slots instead of 2, but the cost savings of the HPX3100 (list $19,950) trump them all for run and gun news gathering.
No crank?
You can shoot HD in AVC-Intra and in DVCPRO HD at 1080 in 24p, 25p, 30p, 50i and 60i, and in SD (480i/586i) in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV. No 720p and no over- or under-crank for slow-mo. I didn’t see any mention of time-lapse capability.
Format bashing ahead…
The only hitch I see is the P2 format. I hate being tied to such a proprietary format. I only have two clients actively using it and they are willing to accept other formats since P2 isn’t universally used by freelancers. (Edit: There is no format being universally used by freelancers.) P2 media is expensive per minute of record time, with only 1 minute per GB at the highest quality option. (A 64GB card is $895) Of course, there are many work-around solutions, like the nano-flash adapters. And most clients now seem to be happy as long as you can give them some form of digital files to take home. So, a question…are you using P2, and why? For a production facility that goes from pre- to post-production, you can choose your own format. For freelancers, I wonder what work-arounds are being used to accommodate clients.
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I love the P2 workflow I have my 18 year old daughter with me and she copies all cards to her 17 inch Macbook pro which has 750 gig memory.Then she copies it to 2 external hard drives ours and the clients.Most people I know edit on Final Cut Pro and I have one client who edits on Edius and they have no problem.$800 for a 64 gig card is peanuts,I now have enough of them to shoot a whole event or movie on 2 cameras soon to be 3 when I buy the 3100.The P2 cads are bullet proof I’ve had editors call me up several times to say their Hard drive has crashed or is corrupted I have never had trouble with the P2 cards in the 3 years I have been shooting on it and some of the cards are 3 years old and perform like the new ones I have.