Firestore or P2 cards?

[alexk]

Hey there,

Just spent a week agonizing over the pros and cons of buying a Sony EX1 or a Panasonic HVX202 (PAL). Ultimately, my heart goes with the HVX - it just 'feels' like the best choice for my style of shooting, which involves lots of camera and subject motion. Agility is a big factor for me.

With that in mind, now I need to decide on the best data transfer method. Do I get two 16GB P2 cards and swap them back and forth to my laptop whilst shooting OR do I get a 250GB Firestore, save time on set, and transfer it all later.

The Firestore sounds like the best option up front but I have some questions that hopefully someone experienced in either method may be able to help with:

FIRESTORE
1) How do I mount it so that it's going to be as 'agile' as possible? Do I need to buy something extra to do this?
2) Is it heavy or awkward to work with? Is it stable when moving a lot? Freedom of movement, without knocking the connections out is what I'm most worried about, I guess.
3) How long does the battery last?
4) Important: Can you review the clips back instantly via the camera LCD or from a monitor attached to the camera?

P2 CARDS
1) What's the transfer speed like ie. how long does it take to unload a full 16GB card to a laptop?

If anyone could help with these questions that would be excellent. Much appreciated.

Thanks for now,

ALEX :thumbup:

[dantewaters]

Well I used a firestore this weekend...
After having two 16gig p2 cards for awhile, and I must say they both have their pros and cons.

I will also say that the p2's pros can out weigh the firestore

mainly longevity, it's more durable, and I feel safer using the p2 even though data can be corrupted, but I haven't encountered that.

I feel that anyone of them can work for an individual, but you must have a workflow. For example what I did this weekend was a conference, and I have in total about 15hrs of footage, so I had a lot of dumping to do even with a firestore, and my 250gig and 160gig drives were not enough (I needed to make sure they were formatted because they had stuff on them).

Anyway So before each session I had to make sure the firestore had enough room to capture the day. Now what I must say is if you have a laptop and pcmcia slot then the p2 card works better, because you can use a 2nd card while you dump, and if you have a schedule to dump then it will be rather smooth. With the firestore however you would have to stop your recording, not unless you have 2, and even then it will be just like switching tapes.

I look at it this way, both can work in any environment (long as you plan ahead)
but generally I look at them as -

P2 is for controlled situations - You can pause and adjust accordingly.

Firestore for uncontrolled situations - you have very little control over what is happening so you need to keep rolling and adjust with the event.

[dantewaters]

About the transfer speed I would say via firewire using the camera a full 16gig card can take about
20 - 25mins last I checked.

I suspect the PCMCIA slot should be a lot faster as it's not using the camera, but I would say based on my times now full 16gig card should be 17mins or a 1gig per minute.

[Barry_Green]

On a modern Windows laptop transferring via the PCMCIA slot to a SATA internal drive, the transfer rate is about 2 gigabytes per minute. So a 16GB card takes me just over 8 minutes to transfer.

[rhett]

About the transfer speed I would say via firewire using the camera a full 16gig card can take about
20 - 25mins last I checked.

I suspect the PCMCIA slot should be a lot faster as it's not using the camera, but I would say based on my times now full 16gig card should be 17mins or a 1gig per minute.
Yeah, 1 gig per 1 minute is an easy and mostly accurate rule to go by. So if you're shooting 1080 24p, basically you can fill up a card at almost the same speed that you can unload it. If you're shooting 720 24pn you're laughing, since you could easily dump a full card and bring it back in before the other card has filled up, making an easy, continuous two card workflow.

Considering how cheap a few 8 GB cards and an old PCMIA laptop are, and how much more versatile and, well, easy P2 is compared to Firestore, I'd say that's definitely the way to go unless you have to be shooting constantly and don't have the time (or the assistnat) to swap cards.

[warwickt]

congrats on the HVX-202. Great decision over the other. I have also 2 x 16GB P2 cards. all the above suggestions ok and as stated depends greatly on your workflow and camera settings too. Continuous recording the FS100 is great or a load of P2 cards or some P2 cards with some way to offload them and swap in and out as you need whilst recording.. all been said I guess.

I didn't do a FS100 instead I went for a self powered Firewire disk enclosure called the NEXTODI CF2525. It has extra batteries and I put a 200GB PATA DDM in it. Enclosure is $HK1350 (€110 ish) comes with leather case, screw drivers, batteries.. nice. It is made in Korea.

All is good but does not permit any recording .. not my workflow.

HVX2xx - simple set HVX into 1394HOST mode. Connect the NEXTDO to 4pin HVX using any 4-6pin FW400 connector then offload what you need.
TRansfer times are the same as above.. approx 2MIN /GB.
Each trnasfer enables a FATS32 partition.

I find this very useful when trvalling and I use up 32GB of availabel (2 x P2 16GB cards) and I dont have MACBOOK pro or similar. Get him and plug in then FCP Log & Transfer :)!

I get 16 offloads (FATS32 limitation in its file system) before NEXTODI is "full". Option #2 is to buy some more PATA DDms and insert accordingly.

works just great with HVX! but DOES NOT WORK with SONY EX1 as we tried it ver USB and iLINK... search this forum for some comments on this and other arrangements.

HTH

[Richard J. Johnson]

Why the hell are P2 cards so expensive? It Seems like having 32 gigs on something as small as SD would cost more. Dumb question but I am still on the DVX for now.

[wgzn]

Why the hell are P2 cards so expensive?

geez would people please quit all the crying over P2 price! when i bought my first NLE back in 1995 or so my 4gig hard drive cost $6000. this isnt a cheap business.

[alexk]

Cheers everyone for your excellent info. Has helped a lot.

I shot a music vid with the HVX200 a couple years ago and remember being very impressed with it - in every way. Lots of green screen footage, which turned out great (so much better than I anticipated) - the HVX rocks!

Our workflow was the 'P2/laptop shuffle' but I just couldn't remember how long the transfers were taking. So thanks for that.

I'm thinking I will go with the P2/laptop method for now, though I do have a MacBook Pro so I'll have to get one of those Duel Adapter thingeys. Has anyone had much experience with those? Any issues or hiccups to look out for?

Much appreciated. Excellent list, here.

ALEX

[David S.]

In March 2006, we paid over $7500 for a HVX200 and one 8 GB p2 card.

Now we are getting a HPX170 and a 16 GB card for about $5200.

If you have to ask or complain about the price, you should stick with tape.

We will never go back to tape.