Well, I went to ISA and looked at everything at length. The news for us Seiko users was pretty good - as I saw it.
The HP 9000 looks nice (black is always more sleek) and has an interesting add on - the air cleaning box and heater. It looked like it may work pretty well but gasing of the prints would probably cause some additional odor the system couldn't contain. As far as I could tell the HP is more expensive. There are some interesting "no interest" financing options that include a 3 year warranty. The 3 year lease with warranty is $1,219.00 a month.
The HP 8000 wasn't printing when I was there but it was on display. It looked like a nice machine. I haven't gone over the specs yet - I have to wonder why it's made to print half as fast as the C64. Is it just a software throttling or is it a mechanical thing? It certainly looked more heavy duty than a lot of the other low end printers from Roland and Mutoh.
Regarding the air cleaning system, there was another new product that seemed to be designed to take care of the gasing - a plexi enclosure that went from floor to top of print. I don't have the name of this one - If you're really interested in this call Sign Supply USA at 800-852-0820. They were exhibiting it and were informative as well.
It seems we may finally be getting an answer about the warranty past 2 years. The Seiko folks were tight lipped, as usual, but didn't seem as negative about answering the question as they've been in the past.
They also indicated that Seiko isn't out of the printer business by any means. They said they intend to introduce new printers in the future - more good news.
In the booth I talked to Pat Ryan and Clint Fox from Seiko. Nice guys. They were pushing the 100S printer, answering the various C64 questions everyone had, and had a pretty cool booth that was filled with fully wrapped monster trucks. So if you were wondering if you can wrap a monster truck with C64 printed vinyl...
