Ok, lets talk P2 and workflow...

[evinsky]

Because these are the two things Jan can clarify at the moment.
I don't know about the rest of you but I currently make my living primarily with my 2 DVX100As. I also occasionally rent SDX900s and Varicams. But 85% of everything I shoot is on the DVX. That being said I have no love of 4:1:1 or tape media and see no reason what so ever to continue using it. That ringing you here is (Hopefully) the death knell of the Mini-DV tape.
So on to P2...
My basic understanding is that the P2 is a PCMCIA card. I don't know the exact difference but it's fair to assume it's faster/larger than a standard PCMCIA. It seems likely there are SD card guts inside.
I feel pretty confident in the assumption that the HDX will have only one P2 card slot. Maybe two but it seems unlikely given it's (Assumed) DVX form factor.
For this workflow to be effective I would need at least 2 P2 Cards with capacity of at least 20min recording each. This almost gaurantees that a card could be off loaded to a drive or Laptop with enough convienience as to not interfere with shooting.

So that means in addition to the camera I'd need:
2x P2 cards
1x Battery powered 60gb Hard drive w/P2 reader and Firewire(800?)
2x Firewire P2 readers for desktop and Laptop
1x HD card for my G5 (DV deck will no loger work for HD playback)

This all leads me to two assumed workflows...

Run & Gun
(Documentary/reality TV and advertising research)
Camera> Full P2> Offload to portable HD while shooting on card 2.
Portable HD offloads to main bucket (1TB raid) for editing. OR...
If time sensitive edited directly from drive.

Production
(Episodic TV, Commercials, Narritive films)
Camera> Full P2> Offload directly to Laptop/Bucket via firewire reader
while shooting on card 2.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

BTW a usefull accessory would be a P2 reader/deck capable of playing back DVCPRO/50/HD through firewire. I think Pany makes a very expensive Pro model but one more like the DV2500 would be ideal.

[alpi69]

...and there comes the question again: how do you wanna deliver?
for a filmprint: back to P2 and give/send it to them.....so you need at least one more.
for commercials/broadcast: HD tape-device of some sort or a P2 (or downconvert to SD, DigiBeta)

OR the elegant solution: get a huge internetline into your house so you can give access to the videofile (uncompressed AVI or QT)...

[Neil Rowe]

some good questions here. heres my personal take on the workflow ill likely be taking.. assuming i can.

a laptop would work for dumping the cards to in the feild. or pannys new HDD reader combo whichever is more economical a laptop does alot more so it really pends the price of pannys new toy. cause you can run external removeable HDDS of a laptop for virtually unlimited storage.

you dont really need a p2 reader for your laptop since its PCMCIA..just plug it in. and for the desktop id assume you can use the camera connected via firewire as a removeable p2 drive.. thats the way other p2 cameras work. or if you actually are dumping to HDD in the feild you wouldnt be dumping from p2. youd be dumping to your pc from HDD likely via firewire again.

..im not really sure if youll need an HD card for your computer unless you plan on streaming HD in or out. if your simply transferring files in and out *your PC should be able to handle DVCPRO-HD 24p at 40mbps without the need for an hardware HD card. ..thats a data rate a *of a little over *1.5 simultaneos DV streams. and if thats the way they run it as estimated, what it all comes down to is whether or not your NLE will play with the DVCPRO-HD or DVCPRO 50 codec at 24p naitively.

delivery of HD content could be done by way of external removeable HDD and then transfered to HD tape of choice, or film out. ..at least thats the way id do it. i dont forsee myself buying a deck to do it myself anytime soon. since for most things ill likely output to dvd and save an HD master.

..at least thats the way i see it going in my mnd right now.. hopefully things will follow those lines.

[Gary_McClurg]

I didn't have much time to check it out. But I was in Best Buys the other day and just quickly asked do they have any laptops with HD monitors and a salesman showed me one for around $1,500,

Might be good just for framing etc, but not sure if it'll work or not for color, etc.

[Neil Rowe]

..yeah, im hoping that theyve included a zoom function on a nice high res LCD for a focusing aid like the new sonys. im fine judging comp, color and exposure off the lcd if its at least as accurate as the DVX lcd.. specially if it has underscan and zoom too. but those high def laptops would definitely be sweet if dvrack would run them to their potential.

[Sumfun]

Is there any standard for putting HD on DVD's? That would make it convenient to deliver shows to clients and to save them for yourself. Also, how do you foresee saving your original footage for later use. Right now we just save the DV tapes. But you can't do that if you only record to P2.

[abeljerrod]

Sumfun...the HD DVD & Blu-Ray technology is a coming! HD-DVD players are being announced for 2005 but still not something in every household. Currently you have the option of DL (Dual Layer) DVD's for the considerably larger files but they certainly have their own limitations. Until then, the archiving of footage will probably be the biggest concern with this workflow method.

[Gary_McClurg]

Here's one that should go for around a $1,000 bucks.

http://news.com.com/Toshiba+next-gen+recorder+slated+for+years+end/2100-7353_3-5514081.html?tag=nl

[Flintstone]

For HD on DVD, right now, your only option is Windows Media. For fully authored solutions, Sonic has something to do that using WM9 HiDef source. Unfortunately, it can only be viewed on a PC right now. I am yet unsure as to the performance of HD using the Mac version of Windows Media on a Mac. I believe that H.264 with the upcoming Quicktime 7 will be another viable option for HD on DVD for the Mac side as well as PC.

[Neil Rowe]

im not really into tha whole HD-dvd thing right now so im not sure whats all available right now at this very moment, but i do know that there are windows media 9 HD DVDs available. and you could make one to play on a PC. only thing is that your client isnt going to want that. they want a standard format that anyone can use on regular DVD players. and youll want the *best quality HD master for keeping., so although WM9HD is great quality .. its not what id recommend for either purpose. *


save it to a hard drive. if my math is correct, a DVCPRO-HD tape costs apx 50.00 for a 60 min tape. youd only need a cheap 30gig drive at 40.00 to store 1 hour of DVCPRO-HD at 24p. and you can buy an 80 gig drive for apx 60 bucks. which would hold somewhere around 3 hours of DVCPRO-HD footage at 24p.
edit: so if your getting paid for your projects .. and extra 60.00 is not alot to tag on for HD archiving of their project to tape or HDD give them the choice and the benefits and drawbakcs of each if you like. if your not getting paid. IMHO its still pretty cheap for anything worth saving. you can always just pay for transferring a project on HDD to a tape as well.

[nullphonic]

Archiving is becoming an issue for me also and will certainly get worse, anyone have any experience (good or bad) with the Iomega Rev systems? (35GB native, up to 90GB compressed)

[evinsky]

The HD card I'm talking about would be for playback not capture.
A true CRT HD Monitor is an absolute necessity for frame accurate playback durring post. Color correction and effects need to be previewed in a full rezolution format before delivery. For me that will probaably be on a 24" HDTV ($1000). A production HDTV cost at least 3k so that's out of the question. However that does bring up the point that I will need a field monitor capable of at least 800 lines in order to preview shots accurately...
Wow this gonna get very expensive.

[xander76]

My basic understanding is that the P2 is a PCMCIA card. I don't know the exact difference but it's fair to assume it's faster/larger than a standard PCMCIA.

The P2 won't be "larger" than a PCMCIA card, because then it wouldn't be a PCMCIA card. PCMCIA isn't a storage standard, it's an interface standard. PCMCIA cards can be network cards, Firewire cards, storage, or anything else practically. Because it has to be able to fit into a PCMCIA slot, though, a PCMCIA card cannot be bigger than the standard allows.


It seems likely there are SD card guts inside.

This is true. A P2 card contains 4 SD cards RAIDed together.


I feel pretty confident in the assumption that the HDX will have only one P2 card slot. Maybe two but it seems unlikely given it's (Assumed) DVX form factor.

I think it will have at least two slots for a couple reasons. PCMCIA cards are quite thin, and an average laptop can contain two slots (the SPX800 has 5 slots). Also, early P2 cards are going to have a fairly limited record time, so having multiple slots will ease this burden. Most importantly, though, 2 slots allows for continuous recording. The camera will automatically switch from card 1 to card 2 when card 1 fills up; there is no down time for switching tapes and not a frame is lost.


For this workflow to be effective I would need at least 2 P2 Cards with capacity of at least 20min recording each.

According to Panasonic's road map, 8 GB cards should be out this year. At DVCPROHD 720p24, an 8GB card should give about 24 minutes of footage, give or take.


So that means in addition to the camera I'd need:
2x P2 cards
1x Battery powered 60gb Hard drive w/P2 reader and Firewire(800?)
2x Firewire P2 readers for desktop and Laptop
1x HD card for my G5 (DV deck will no loger work for HD playback)


Why would you need Firewire P2 readers for desktop and laptop if you have (a) the hard drive that you can download to in the field and (b) firewire/usb2 on the camera?



Run & Gun
(Documentary/reality TV and advertising research)
Camera> Full P2> Offload to portable HD while shooting on card 2.
Portable HD offloads to main bucket (1TB raid) for editing. OR...
If time sensitive edited directly from drive.


I agree that this is the correct workflow, but the gap between being out in the field and getting back to your RAID at home is dangerous and worries me. On the P2 card, I think the footage is safe from the elements. On the RAID, the footage is safe from a hard drive crashing. The portable hard drive, though, is getting jostled around and moved about constantly, and it is not striped anywhere. If that drive crashes, your shoot is ruined.

I'm sort of hoping that Panasonic might come out with a RAID 1 version of the hard drive P2 reader for folks who want absolute certainty that their footage will be protected.


BTW a usefull accessory would be a P2 reader/deck capable of playing back DVCPRO/50/HD through firewire.

Completely agreed, although I'm hoping for shoestring operations that the camera can do Firewire to HD out conversions itself. Then you wouldn't even need a HD card for monitoring.

[evinsky]

I don't feel comfortable using the camera for playback. I guess the head wear issue is moot but I think I would still like a dedicated playback solution. Often I end up working with my editor at the end of a shoot and sending a crew out without me to do pick ups. So the camera would need to leave the bay. BTW I was reffereing to larger capacity in the above P2 statement not phisical size. As for the portable HD...
It's not a perfect solution but I shoot at least three TV shows where having a laptop/raid standing by is just not fisable. I need to be able to record many hours of footage with out carring a backpack or stopping to download. That means either a belt mounted hard drive or a ton of very expensive P2 cards. Plus these HDs are designed to take some abuse.
I think it would work fine. I guess this brings back the one advantage of tape media... Volume.

I have one more note... If everything you shoot is transferred to the Bucket then your storage overhead becomes enormous. I usually just pull selects instead of importing whole tapes. So in this workflow it would be backwards. I'd have to pull all the material I felt I wasn't using and burn it to HDDVD or some other stable media. Oy!

[The_Video_Guy]

save it to a hard drive. if my math is correct, a DVCPRO-HD tape costs apx 50.00 for a 60 min tape. youd only need a cheap 30gig drive at 40.00 to store 1 hour of DVCPRO-HD at 24p. and you can buy an 80 gig drive for apx 60 bucks. which would hold somewhere around 3 hours of DVCPRO-HD footage at 24p.
edit: so if your getting paid for your projects .. and extra 60.00 is not alot to tag on for HD archiving of their project to tape or HDD give them the choice and the benefits and drawbakcs of each if you like. *if your not getting paid. IMHO its still pretty cheap for anything worth saving. you can always just pay for transferring a project on HDD to a tape as well.
I've been wondering how this workflow will work too. I've considered the hardrive option as well but I think that's the last thing you need to rely on is something mechanical that spins... that is the greatest thing about recording to cards... it would appear almost indestructable. I think the Blue Ray will really solve a lot of this... 50 gigs of storage on a disc! I'm sure they won't be cheap at first but they are bound to be more reliable in the long run than a 40 gig hdd... probably cheaper too.
For awhile until the cards get big enough, I think this work flow will be a bit cumbersome. I bought into the minidisc format when it first came out and it works great for what I need... erase an audio track with a click of a button... move it around on the disc... preview it right there... and best of all non linear!... all definate pro's which the card benefits from as well but the space thing will definately be an issue espcecially since they are not cheap. I get that theory... you can delete it right away... but on location? When I have a digital cam, I now buy a 2 gig card... I remember the days when I had the 32 meg and had to do that... delete them as I went... it ended up being more frustrating than beneficial. I'm guilty of being a "pack rat shooter" I want to keep all the takes. :)

[nullphonic]

DISCLAIMER: Pure rumor, speculation. I’ve just become very interested (geek) in how far and how fast they can ultimately push these P2s. The only reason I'm posting this is that it was posted by someone who supposedly had "been hired by Panasonic to demo FCP and 24P stuff for them a couple of times".

Another Quote: "they also stated that at release it'll have 8-9GB capacity when released and that within a few years, they expect to be mass-producing 256GB & 1TB cards"

(sales people have a way of train-wrecking technical peoples lives for months at a time, they “release” technological breakthroughs 70% faster than physics allow sometimes *;D)

Here's the link...
http://www.hdforindies.com/2005/02/more-info-on-panasonic-p2-based-camera

Again, pure conjecture, this needs to be filed under "wouldn't that be cool" *8)

Saw this somewhere else...
"Maximum storage size: 4GB (8GB predicted for 2005, 16GB in 2006, 32GB in 2007, 64GB in 2008, 128GB in 2009)"

[Sumfun]

Checking on the B&H website, the biggest SD card currently available is 1GB. So if there's 4 SD cards in a P2 card, then the max capacity is 4GB. However, Sandisk announced back in October that it will ship 2GB SD cards in Nov 04. Apparently they're behind schedule, but the 2G's will probably appear before the HDX does. So that will make the max capacity of the P2 cards 8GB in the near future. Sandisk and Lexar have already announced 8G Compact Flash cards, so 8G SD cards shouldn't be too far behind (maybe a year or two).

What I don't get is the price of the P2 cards. The cheapest 1G SD card at B&H is $72.95, which makes the price of 4G less than $300. Even the fastest SD card (Sandisk Ultra II at 9MB/sec write) is only $93.95 each or $376 for 4. (However, the Panasonic 1G SD cards costs $150). The PC card itself can't possibly cost more than $100 because all it does is demultiplex the data to 4 SD cards so that it can sustain a higher transfer rate. So I'm guessing that anything above $500 for a P2 card is just pure profit for Panasonic. I guess you can get it if there's no competition, but I hope Pana will lower the price to get more volume from us prosumers.

By the way, it's interesting to note that the Sandisk Ultra II at 9MB/sec can handle a DVCPRO50 data stream by itself (no RAID), and can ALMOST handle the DVCPROHD 24p by itself.

[Jan_Crittenden]

nullphonic *wrote: The only reason I'm posting this is that it was posted by someone who supposedly had "been hired by Panasonic to demo FCP and 24P stuff for them a couple of times".

Ben was hired by me to work a show in Washington DC. *He was our demonstrator for the FCP/DVCPRO50 workflow, which was ajacent to the P2 Demo area.

>Another Quote: "they also stated that at release it'll have 8-9GB capacity when released and that within a few years, they expect to be mass-producing 256GB & 1TB cards"

There will be an 8 Gig card by the end of this year. *Moore's law can't be held in one place for long.


>(sales people have a way of train-wrecking technical peoples lives for months at a time, they “release” technological breakthroughs 70% faster than physics allow sometimes *;D)

The interesting part is that as each card comes into play, the solution only gets better.

>Again, pure conjecture, this needs to be filed under "wouldn't that be cool" *8)

Get out the "cool" file.

>Saw this somewhere else...
"Maximum storage size: 4GB (8GB predicted for 2005, 16GB in 2006, 32GB in 2007, 64GB in 2008, 128GB in 2009)"[/quote]

That sounds right.

I promise when I have more time, maybe Friday night, this has been a very busy week for me, I will come back and respond to this workflow question. *But I have to say, many of you are showing me that you do get it, and you don't have to give away the ease of archive, but I'll come back to it tomorrow. *Sorry I have been so busy.

Best,

Jan

[nullphonic]

Excellent, thanks Jan.

[xander76]

Checking on the B&H website, the biggest SD card currently available is 1GB. *So if there's 4 SD cards in a P2 card, then the max capacity is 4GB. *However, Sandisk announced back in October that it will ship 2GB SD cards in Nov 04. *Apparently they're behind schedule, but the 2G's will probably appear before the HDX does.

2GB Sandisk Ultra II cards are currently shipping: http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=505822&store=macmall&source=mwbfro ogle&adcampaign=email,mwbfroogle&wt.mc_id=mwbfroog le


What I don't get is the price of the P2 cards. *The cheapest 1G SD card at B&H is $72.95, which makes the price of 4G less than $300. *Even the fastest SD card (Sandisk Ultra II at 9MB/sec write) is only $93.95 each or $376 for 4. *(However, the Panasonic 1G SD cards costs $150).

We talked about this on another thread, and I think it comes down to the bandwidth requirements Panasonic is putting on their P2 cards. According to their website, the 2GB card has 320Mbps throughput and the 4GB card has 640Mbps throughput. This means that the 4GB card's SD cards have to have a throughput of 20MBps, and those cards are indeed more expensive.

While it's nice for the card to be fast when downloading the footage, it doesn't need that kind of throughput for recording the footage. My personal hope is that Panasonic sticks to using cheaper, slower SD cards to keep the price of P2 cards down, but there's no indication yet that they will.



By the way, it's interesting to note that the Sandisk Ultra II at 9MB/sec can handle a DVCPRO50 data stream by itself (no RAID), and can ALMOST handle the DVCPROHD 24p by itself.

By my math, 9MBps = 72Mbps, which should be enough for the 40Mbps that DVCPROHD 720p24 requires.

[Zim]

so you record 12 min on your card, stop everything and unload it to your laptop. Then you record 12 more minutes and stop again to unload to your laptop. (I hope you have a lot of room on your harddrive). Let's hope your computer doesn't crash!!
This sounds like a fun toy for some people but unless the price is under $5,000 and these P2 cards are cheap and can store at least 30 mins on them it won't be a big sell.

[Barry_Green]

First of all, you'd only stop everything if you only had one slot. The camera will likely have more than one (the SPX800 has five). That means you could potentially record *perpetually*, as opposed to the current situation where you record for 60 minutes, stop, change tape.

As for record time and cost, that remains to be seen, we don't know anything about capacity and cost yet.

[Zim]

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of no tapes but if the tapes are high, the camera is 8,000 or 9,000 grand it will be out of my budget. Not to mention computer upgrades, etc.

I wonder if you will be able to leave the card in the Hd-P2 to transfer to a computer or you will have to take the card out and put in a card reader?

[Zim]

I was just thinking you can shoot DV on those cards right? So if the cards are not to high and the camera is in my budget I could still just shoot DV and HD later after I can improve my computer. (My iMac is getting kind of old).

I guess we will all just have to see what Panasonic is going to do!!

[Flintstone]

I have a concern about P2 workflow for events. Okay, I know, P2 is mostly for filmmakers in mind. However, there comes a time when you need to record for prolonged periods of time, and/or your camera needs to be locked down; so swapping P2 cards will be a disaster if the cam moves ever so slightly for that shoot.

This is why I believe an external hard drive will surely come in handy.

[Neil Rowe]

..really the p2 cards are aimed at everyone. especially ENG wher their ruggedness and cool prerecording and other features are very cool. realistically within an few years the capacity will be there for a couple cards to record quite long enough even for event videographers. but i suspect well be able to go directly to hard disk soon enough anyway if its not already possible with their new feild P2 reader. i do like that panasonic is thinking ahead with expansion and the way of the future.. the way of the future.. the way of the future.. the way of the future.. the way of the future.. aaaaaaghhhhhhhhh the way of the future.. the way of te future .. in mind. solid state is where its at.

[Barry_Green]

I wonder if you will be able to leave the card in the Hd-P2 to transfer to a computer or you will have to take the card out and put in a card reader?
That is how it works with the SPX800 -- you can either pull the cards and insert them into a laptop or P2 Store or some other reader, or... you can plug the camera into the computer, and read all the cards through the camera (the camera appears to your computer as if it's an external hard disk).

Whether the HDX will be able to do that remains to be seen, but the SPX can.

[Barry_Green]

I was just thinking you can shoot DV on those cards right? So if the cards are not to high and the camera is in my budget I could still just shoot DV and HD later after I can improve my computer. (My iMac is getting kind of old).

I guess we will all just have to see what Panasonic is going to do!!
I don't know what's been confirmed or not, but it would certainly seem reasonable to expect that you could record DV to the cards... I mean, we know it'll record DV, Jan's said so. So that means it'll either have a DV tape drive, or it'll be able to record DV to the cards -- it just stands to reason.

[Barry_Green]

I have a concern about P2 workflow for events. *Okay, I know, P2 is mostly for filmmakers in mind. *However, there comes a time when you need to record for prolonged periods of time, and/or your camera needs to be locked down; so swapping P2 cards will be a disaster if the cam moves ever so slightly for that shoot.

This is why I believe an external hard drive will surely come in handy.
Oooh... excellent point! Yeah, the lockdown nature is something to consider. Well, that's a good reason to vote for having a FireStore (or other type of hard disk recording, whether through firewire or an integrated hard disk or something like that!)

[xander76]

I have a concern about P2 workflow for events. Okay, I know, P2 is mostly for filmmakers in mind. However, there comes a time when you need to record for prolonged periods of time, and/or your camera needs to be locked down; so swapping P2 cards will be a disaster if the cam moves ever so slightly for that shoot.

I think you're right about this. I've read a lot of people complaining about event videography with P2, and even if Panasonic comes out with their 8 GB cards alongside the HDX100, the camera will not be perfectly suited to that shooting style. If you truly need long amounts of video on lockdown for longer than about an hour (2 slots of 8GB each = 50 minutes of 720p24), the HDX100 may not yet be the camera for you.

But what's genius about P2 is that it hitches itself to the right star. Whereas digital tape has changed very little in the last decade, flash memory has increased capacity many times while prices have plummeted. According to Panasonic's roadmap, we'll have something like this (please excuse the formatting):


YearMax. Card SizeMax Record Time (2 slots/24p)Max Record Time (2 slots/60p)
200616GB1hr. 40min.43 min.
200732GB3hr. 20min.1hr. 25 min.
200864GB6hr. 40min.2hr. 51 min.
2009128GB13hr. 20min. 5hr. 41 min.


Within two years, almost any event you would want to cover will be possible with two P2 cards. Within three years, you can cover almost any event in 60p. So while we might need a hard drive recorder solution in the very near term, I don't think we'll need one in the long term.

[rfinch3]

I shoot with a p2 a work it, takes 5 cards, 4 gigs a peace price $1000.00 a card.
it gives me about 80 mins recording at dvcpro 25, i get 40 min recording at dvcpro50
it is a very nice cam it records at 60i/30i/24p with a 2/3 chip editing is so simple you stick the cards in to any lap top and avid or what ever program you are using to edit, finds it. no capture, because it is a hard drive.
I got some pic's i will post soon

[Sumfun]

I promise when I have more time, maybe Friday night, this has been a very busy week for me, I will come back and respond to this workflow question. *But I have to say, many of you are showing me that you do get it, and you don't have to give away the ease of archive, but I'll come back to it tomorrow. *Sorry I have been so busy.

Best,

Jan

Jan, if you're still reading this thread, we'd really like to hear what you have to say about the HDX work flow.

[CageWarrior]

Am I looking at the right p2 cards here? https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/sales_o/p2/p2card/index.html

8min/16min max recording time? seems kinda short*;)

I guess it wouldn't be as bad if you had 5 slots for 40/80min shooting time,but if it only has 2 slots you're looking at only 16/32min.

Wouldn't work for me,I'd have to wait until 07(when memory increases) before I could use something like this.

[Jan_Crittenden]

Jan, if you're still reading this thread, we'd really like to hear what you have to say about the HDX work flow.

I am still reading but I thought you guys were doing quite nicely. But since you ask I am going back to evinsky's first post.


My basic understanding is that the P2 is a PCMCIA card. I don't know the exact difference but it's fair to assume it's faster/larger than a standard PCMCIA. It seems likely there are SD card guts inside.

No, it is not larger than a PCMCIA card, it is the same size. There are 4 SD cards in an array. It is the nature of the array that gets us the transfer speed on the PCMCIA card, 640Mbs.



I feel pretty confident in the assumption that the HDX will have only one P2 card slot. Maybe two but it seems unlikely given it's (Assumed) DVX form factor.

No comment.


So that means in addition to the camera I'd need:
2x P2 cards

My feeling is that whether the camera had one or two slots, you would want two. But in justifying the price think about the fact that you would never need to buy tape for Acquisition again. That if you decided to use tape as your archive you would end up using less tape, just because as you build the archive tapes, you don't save the garbage, the messed up lines , the microphone boom in the shot, the badly framed, the out of focus, you know what I mean.


1x Battery powered 60gb Hard drive w/P2 reader and Firewire(800?)

The device we have on the table the P2 store does file tranfer over USB. It is a pretty niftly device that you simply insert the P2 card and it sucks the data off the card at about 4X. But you could also do this with your laptop computer.


2x Firewire P2 readers for desktop and Laptop

Now I am wondering why you are referring to the firewire. If you have an older MAC that only has the slow USB 1.1 I can understand. And why 2X, do they not have PCMCIA slots?


1x HD card for my G5 (DV deck will no loger work for HD playback)

If you choose to work in anything but 25Mbs, then yes you will need to upgrade, but you could do this over time. But the camera and work at the level you currently are and the progress as more jobs come it.


Run & Gun
(Documentary/reality TV and advertising research)
Camera> Full P2> Offload to portable HD while shooting on card 2.
Portable HD offloads to main bucket (1TB raid) for editing. OR...
If time sensitive edited directly from drive.

When you put the drive into the computer it mounts as a drive. This is the beauty of it, you can edit from the drive, so things can be done quicly, but if the program is long form, then it is a quickl and easy to slide the data to your hard drive and go onto the next drive.


Production
(Episodic TV, Commercials, Narritive films)
Camera> Full P2> Offload directly to Laptop/Bucket via firewire reader
while shooting on card 2.

This is absolutely viable.


BTW a usefull accessory would be a P2 reader/deck capable of playing back DVCPRO/50/HD through firewire. I think Pany makes a very expensive Pro model but one more like the DV2500 would be ideal.

Yes the AJ-HD1200 is pretty expensive, but my thought was many of the projects that you are working on will have some other deliverable requirements than tape. If film, then a hard drive to take to the film out facility. If DVD, there's that, as the HD capable dissk come to play, there is that. So let's say that 1/3 of what you do will need to roll back to tape. You rent the tape machine for the jobs that need it, and if you are going back to tape for your archive, at the same time roll off the archive footage, so that you can free up the hard drives.

Of course, taking the archive back to tape is not the best asyou lose a lot of the benefit. If you ever used the footage again you would have to digitize it back in, which is time, and you would lose the meta data, which today you may not have interest in but in three years you may.

At any rate, because you are now working in HD, the likely hood is that you will find the right job to come through that will help you pay for the HD machine. Its like the number of guys that rented the SDX900 before they bought it. Some got to the 4th rental and bam! the next job had just the right amount of cash in it to make the camera theirs, and now the camera is a line item in the production, and that money goes into their pocket, not the rental facility.

Hope that adds something,

Jan

[evinsky]

Thanks for the play by play Jan...
Here in my follow up.
I just finished shooting a TV show for CMT, a few hours ago in fact.
Shot on the Varicam. In two days we shot 56 32min Tapes for a single one hour TV show. (3 camera shoot)
This show will air in SD but the producers wanted to protect for HD later plus give a better look than the DVX which is what we've been shoothing on before, plus some SDX. So how could I handle the sheer amout of data here with only two cards per camera? I suppose I could get a third but these things are expensive. If there is a portable drive capable of downloading in the field great, but then what? How do I deal with the footage in such quantity? Lay off Tape? Tomorrow were moving on to Kansas City to continue on another show. So the tapes are going back to LA to be imported. This would be roughly 90 8GB P2 cards or 720 GB total. I suppose these could be dumped to a 1TB Drive like the Lacie and carried back, but to maintain a fast paced shooting schedule would require a dedicated file dumper person and at least two powerbooks.

Am I making sense?

Lastly part of the draw of the HDX and the DVX is economy. The show I started working on would not pay enough for me to rent or own an SDX.
But it paid for my DVX easily. This current show would definately not be able to make me back an investment in a 25K deck. I do plan on upgrading to the HDX but I'm sure my 100A will still get over 250 hours a year on it's heads.
Again, thanks Jan...
E.

[Jan_Crittenden]

In two days we shot 56 32min Tapes for a single one hour TV show. (So how could I handle the sheer amout of data here with only two cards per camera? I suppose I could get a third but these things are expensive. If there is a portable drive capable of downloading in the field great, but then what? How do I deal with the footage in such quantity?

Okay, so your tape cost is 52 X $60 = $3120.00 and that equals approximately 30 hours of footage. It will take a similar amount of time to digitize this into your system. So far there is time and money involved and you can gain more control over time and money by going with P2.


How about this? Instead of delivering $3000+ worth of tape, why not deliver to the producer the footage on Hard Drives. It is already digitized. Just edit. Over on PC Mall I see a 250GB drive for $250. This X8 gets you more than enough room in DVCPORHD 100Mbs for 30 hours of storage and has a net cost of $2000. Or that Lacie TeraByte Drive is under $1000, this may be even more viable. Either of these costs less than the tape, and saves time in the edit room. I know of one of our Digital Filmmaker Grant Grand Prize Award winners spent a week and a half of the Computer grant time just digitizing footage. In this solution, the digitizing is done. Import into the time line, you know which clips; they are shot marked. So we have saved money over tape acquisition, and time.

Before you get excited, this is temporary storage. But the beauty of it is that it costs you and the producer less than DVCPROHD tape. I mean you did bill him for the tape right? or at least somebody had to pay for the tape.


Lay off Tape?

Tape is boring. :) You could go back to an archive on tape, and that is a viable choice, but there is a better way to archive; it is better on a nonlinear storage like the Hologragphic Blue Laser Disk at 200GB or DLT or SAIT. From a digital archive as data, you get to keep the immediacy of the footage, i.e., you never have to digitize this fooage, it is just available for import into the timeline. You don't give up the meta data, and you have developed what you have shot into a Smart Archive.

You don't have to save everything, although you could, you could just save that which is viable, not the out of focus, mic boom in the shot, or the blooper shots. And even this saves money if you go back to tape for the archive. You need fewer tapes. Point is in tape acuisition, there is time at the front end loading tapes. This is done while you are under pressure to get the job done. The Smart Archive can be done after you have sent the invoice.


I suppose these could be dumped to a 1TB Drive like the Lacie and carried back, but to maintain a fast paced shooting schedule would require a dedicated file dumper person and at least two powerbooks.

The P2 cards can transfer very fast and as I see it you could do it with just one laptop and the drive. In general I think you could expect an 8G card to transfer in under 4 minutes.

If you did the Lacie Drive, then you are saving $2000 on the tape and that could be your P2 Loader position. You probably would not need to spend that much on a daily rate but certainly for a week or so, that wouldn't be bad. And you still have all the other benefits.


Am I making sense?

Sure, but you make it sound like the tape is free, it is not. The time you spend digitizing it into the system is not free either. You can Shot Mark the good takes before you transfer so the editor will know which one is your best take. You can do a voice memo to the editor as well(this is a P2 feature) and all of this shows up on the laptop in LA by just mounting your drives.

If they want to archive, the producer can either roll off the good takes to tape or go to deep archive of some nature. And if the LA producer does enough HD he owns an HD machine. So he can do his achive however he wants to.


Lastly part of the draw of the HDX and the DVX is economy. The show I started working on would not pay enough for me to rent or own an SDX.

And the P2HD camera will be cost effective.

However, I thought you were using a Varicam? Did you switch shows on me? I made all of these calculations on the expendables for DVCPROHD production, not the cost of the camera. I was calculating the amount of storage needed by the number gigs used for HD recording. I thought you were using DVCPROHD tape, if not, the rework against DV tape is similar and comes out as more of a dollar to dollar match but with the added ease of no digitizing.


But it paid for my DVX easily. This current show would definately not be able to make me back an investment in a 25K deck.

Maybe not this show, and since you didn't have to deliver a tape, why would you buy an AJ-HD1200A. I wouldn't. In fact, I would rent one if I had to deliver tape. I would only need it for the afternoon of the final play out.

And like many of the SDX900 and Varicam owners, they rented an SDX900 or a Varicam about 4 times before they ended up with the job that would help them buy it. Its not that you have to buy the 1200 to produce in HD. Absolutely not. You only need that if you are required to deliver a tape.


I do plan on upgrading to the HDX but I'm sure my 100A will still get over 250 hours a year on it's heads.

I am sure it will. SD is not dead, it is still vital and kicking, and if you have to deliver an economical DV tape the DVX, comes to the task in strides.

Hope this helps,

Jan

[Flintstone]

Really don't want to be a nag, and I apologize in advance for it, but here goes:

Seems to me that P2 in this particular case, simply acts as a middle man; albeit much faster and reliable then tape, but it can quickly become an issue.

Indeed for shots that are planned and organized, P2 will be the ultimate solution. *But let's say, for example, you are shooting an event, or a very busy show with multiple cameras; swapping out P2 cards onto the hard drive loader and back to the cameras, may cause some undue stress to the camera-person. *Meaning that you must always keep in mind that the P2 card only lasts for a few minutes in HD. *Sure you can have an assistant go back and forth to each camera, and swap out the cards and dump them on the loader. *But that's another salary you have to account for; not to mention the potential for errors. *("Did I transfer that P2, or Not?" *"Damn, where's that P2 that had the most important scene?" *"Oups, my boss is going to fire me for having lost a single $2000 P2 card!") *You see where I'm going with this? *A Firestore type device directly connected to the HDX will indeed be more efficient for such a task.

The P2 HD loader is nice, but redundant and somewhat useless in such situations. *There are simply too many transactions, too many steps… and too many things can go wrong.

So that’s my fear of P2! *That, and lock-down mode! *Any thoughts?

[Sumfun]

Hi Jan,

Thanks for your posts. *I think you made some really good points about the cost and time savings of using P2 over tape. *But I was wondering if Panasonic would be willing to go one step further and output the HD video over firewire so that it can be captured to a DTE device or to a laptop. *This feature may not be viable for some run and gun applications, but I think the majority of the shooters here will find it very useful. *It will save us some money for P2 cards, but maybe more importantly save time and reduce the distractions of uploading the P2 cards to a hard drive.

Firewire can support up to 400Mbps, which is certainly more than DVCPROHD's 100Mbps. *And Maxtor's external drives (for example) can support a sustained transfer rate of 41MB/sec, or 328Mbps. *So I think that much of the hardware is already in place to be able to support HD over firewire.

[Jan_Crittenden]

But let's say, for example, you are shooting an event, or a very busy show with multiple cameras;
So that’s my fear of P2! That, and lock-down mode! Any thoughts?



Here would likely require a different solution. As an example, if I was going to do this with the SPX800, I would hang a firewire drive off of it and be a happy camper. Events by their continuous nature are better served with this sort of solution, even if you have a tape drive in the camera because, wouldn't you know it, the ceremony ceremony just ran 72 minutes or the guys lecture just ran 90, or ... well you get the picture.


Hope that helps,

Jan

[Gary_McClurg]

I hope that was a hint.

[boo]

I hope that was a hint.

and a good one indeed! ;)

[nullphonic]

It may be good to speak to an ENG person that’s using a P2 card system now and get some insight into their workflow and/or their tape-to-P2 crossover story.

For us, we have absolutely no plans for event work so it’s perfect…

- * * *Time = money, no digitizing is wonderful. (My worst experience with a 16mm project, transfer, ‘wall of tape machines edit’ was an expensive nightmare. That was 10 years ago but I still wake up screaming, the whole tape-is-dead thing is exciting for us)

- * * *No tape drop-outs.

- * * *Raw data archiving to standard backup tapes (There’s an LTO tape coming out this year that’s 400 GB uncompressed and the rep at Exabyte said the tapes will start out at $50.00-$60.00 each, that’s somewhere in the 14 cent a GB range for ‘deep’ archiving.)

- * * *No moving parts: silence, maintenance.


Our ‘planned’ data/work flow regarding capture/edit/archive is…


- * * *(Field) P2 capture.

- * * *(Field) laptop/G-Tech-G-Raid 800 GB firewire-800 drive.

- * * *(Studio) G-Raid popped onto the production box/network, dump bad takes, blown/dead shots.

- * * *(Studio) Archive with goofy little LTO tapes off G-Raid (slowest point at 93 GB an hour however it’s total fire and forget over a 7 disc 200 GB uncompressed tape autoloader: 1.4 terabyte uncompressed while we sleep and a secured shelf life of 30 years, currently around $62.00 each for 200GB native tape which is 31 cents per GB)

- * * *(Studio) Edit from local drive and/or G-Tech/G-Raid 800 GB.

- * * *(Studio) Archive finished HD product to LTO again, create distribution/master media (HD -> SD down-rez for DVD mostly for us), clear the drives.

We end up with a cheap raw footage archive, cheap final product archive and over a terabyte of clean drives to go again with and the complete elimination of the digitizing process (camera wear-and-tear and time).

We decided on the old-school LTO tape for archiving simply because it’s dirt cheap (and getting cheaper), its physical space economics and most importantly it’s fire and forget during the archive process. Again, time is money and we lose no time here. Even if/when the DVD capacities get larger and larger, you can’t beat walking out of a control room and switching the lights off while a terabyte+ archive happens with no intervention (spanning DVDs/CDs is a nightmare, it makes no sense to us of course to burn hardware for archiving and that’s obviously expensive i.e. your tera-RAID has 6 month old archives on it. And we want to keep everything for the “Now in HD” re-release when the DVD technology allows *;D).

The event-recording folks are obviously in a different situation and it remains to be seen I suppose. I certainly see the points regarding everything from ‘bumping’ a lock-down shot for P2 trade-outs to real-time data offload management. It would be nice to get some input from an ENG person that’s using a P2-only capture process now.

[Flintstone]

Here would likely require a different solution. *As an example, *if I was going to do this with the SPX800, I would hang a firewire drive off of it and be a happy camper. *Events by their continuous nature are better served with this sort of solution, even if you have a tape drive in the camera because, wouldn't you know it, the ceremony ceremony just ran 72 minutes or the guys lecture just ran 90, or ... well you get the picture.
Thanks Jan, and sorry for nit-picking. *Now, there's just that question of who's going to come up with a DVCProHD firewire-to-disk capable device. *A question surely answered at NAB2005?


I hope that was a hint.
:P *:)

[evinsky]

Jan...
This is actually my fist TV show on the Varicam. The producer was able to convince CMT to pay for HD because it's the centerpice show in a feature weekend special on a big artist. But normally we would shoot DVX/SDX. I know that the producer is interested in shooting more HD, but the majority of our work would still need to come close to our DV25 budget. So you see the media cost in DV would be only 29 tapes @ $6.00 each or $174.00. So I would have to convince him to pay $1500 for a drive in order to replace $174.00 in tape stock. I know it sounds like apples and oranges but this is how you stay competitive... by offering higher quality at a reduced cost. We could sell the idea of cheap HD to the network and maybe they would go for it, but it's always about the bottom line with these guys.
DLT tape sounds interesting, I don't now prices on that archving format. Blue laser is still untested as is HD-DVD. There needs to be an inexpensive, more stable longterm storage solution than
hard drives. I see my HDs fail on average every 2-3 years. As far as delivery as long as the drive is Raid it's fine.
I guess my point is this...
I'd like to have my HDX pay for it's self in 4 jobs just like your example.
But I have to know this workflow can fit into no more than 1.5x my DV25 budget in order to sell the idea to the producers.
Thanks again...
E.

[ChuckS]

evinsky, did they post the show in HD?

There are always going to be producers who want more for less but there is such a huge difference in quality that there is no comparison. Unfortunately the gating factor to upgrating to HD is not the camera or cost of the media, but the additional expense in the overall HD infrastructure.

Jan/Panasonic's official sales rhetoric sounds good but I don't think it will be effective at trying to help people make the transition from DV to HD, especially when it sounds like many of these productions can only marginally afford to use the SDX.

Jan, would Panasonic ever consider selling just the DVCPro(HD) Codec's. If they did it might be possible to build a facility/workflow to that can cost effectively deal with the increase data demand.

[Jan_Crittenden]

Evinsky wrote:
This is actually my fist TV show on the Varicam. But normally we would shoot DVX/SDX. I know that the producer is interested in shooting more HD, but the majority of our work would still need to come close to our DV25 budget. So you see the media cost in DV would be only 29 tapes @ $6.00 each or $174.00. So I would have to convince him to pay $1500 for a drive in order to replace $174.00 in tape stock.


Actually you could cover the amount of gigs needed with a 500 gig drive or 2 250s. Now I was looking again on the Western Digital Drives and found a Caviar 250 with 8 MB of cache for $160 X2 =$320 and no digitizing. Mount the drive, edit. So your producer can have his entire shoot into the computer for $320-$174 = $146. So that is maybe 3 hours worth of digitizing and it wil take close to 30 hours to digitize. Which is less expensive?



>I know it sounds like apples and oranges but this is how you stay competitive... by offering higher quality at a reduced cost. We could sell the idea of cheap HD to the network and maybe they would go for it, but it's always about the bottom line with these guys.

Well DV quality is $6 but DVCPRO50(SDX) quality is not $6, it is closer to $30 per hour. I think you need to think about what it costs to plant person in front of a computer and just mark in and mark out. As this is what gets the invoice out the door faster, if they don't have to do that. It does give you a competitive edge and your producer an edge as well. Yes you might cost a little more that the tape delivery competitor but your client doesn't have to spend 29 tpaes worth in fromnt of the computer doing nothing more than digitizing.


>DLT tape sounds interesting, I don't now prices on that archving format. Blue laser is still untested as is HD-DVD.

DLT is very popular with guys that archive the entire project, timeline, clips the whole nine yards, pull it from the tape and open the project. I still think the Holographic Blue Laser is stunning or at least very promising, as a format for archive. They are saying a 50 year longevity and a cost that is 25 cents per gig.



>There needs to be an inexpensive, more stable long term storage solution than hard drives.

I totally agree. I think there is and there will grow to be, more. As people finally start asking for nonlinear access for the archive, the industry will deliver. That same Holographic Blue Laser by 2010 is expected to grow to 1TB. Once there are customers saying that they don't want to go back to tape, then innovation does happen. And to just touch back on the interim Hard Drive. note that last year I spent $300 on a 250GB hard drive.



>I guess my point is this...
I'd like to have my HDX pay for itself in 4 jobs just like your example.

I don't see a problem with that.



>But I have to know this workflow can fit into no more than 1.5x my DV25 budget in order to sell the idea to the producers.

This looks outstandingly doable from here, what do you think?

Jan

[lebroz]

??? Panasonic is going solid state? No moving parts

You want hard drives ( I don't mind :) ) but dont bring tapes back into this.

First affordable 3CCD, now at ($599 MSRP Retail GS65, Circuit City has them... GS150 Also ;D) people complain that the cdd's are too small, that the image stabilizer too bad... (WTF)

First quality 3CCD solid state Camcorder and people are trying to kill the goose before she lay the egg...

True that the electronics industry is monopolized and subsidized but, what Matsushita (Panasonic) Electronics Ltd. is doing is pretty nice :)

*edit* :o When did i hit silver status ::)

[Zim]

Jan did you say tape is $60?

[Jan_Crittenden]

Jan did you say tape is $60?



I said that DVCPRO50 tape will run you, depending on where you buy it about $60 an hour. If running at DVCPRO level on the MP tape it is about $30 per hour. DVCPROHD tape is just a little more than the DVCPRO50.

Hope that helps,

Jan

[Jan_Crittenden]

nullphonic said: It may be good to speak to an ENG person that’s using a P2 card system now and get some insight into their workflow and/or their tape-to-P2 crossover story.

It is not totally likely that the shooter would have the whole story. From the situations and places I have visited, the shooter never sees his footage after he has shot it. The cheif engineer or VP of operations would have the better and complete story. And some places are still using it just like tape and others are just beginning to see the power of what they have. This would be interesting conversation but not totally telling, IMHO. Additionally, the only place you will find the P2 is in news organizations, so their workflow, while similar to yours, would be disimilar to the Event guys.


Our ‘planned’ data/work flow regarding capture/edit/archive is…
(Field) laptop/G-Tech-G-Raid 800 GB firewire-800 drive

Don't need Firewire 800, 400 will do.


- (Studio) G-Raid popped onto the production box/network, dump bad takes, blown/dead shots.

Exactly, why take up space for garbage, the total Smart Archive.


- (Studio) Archive with goofy little LTO tapes off G-Raid (slowest point at 93 GB an hour however it’s total fire and forget over a 7 disc 200 GB uncompressed tape autoloader: 1.4 terabyte uncompressed while we sleep and a secured shelf life of 30 years, currently around $62.00 each for 200GB native tape which is 31 cents per GB)-

This is interesting, can you point me to the manufacturer?


We end up with a cheap raw footage archive, cheap final product archive and over a terabyte of clean drives to go again with and the complete elimination of the digitizing process (camera wear-and-tear and time).

I think he gets it!

Best,

Jan

[Jan_Crittenden]

ChuckS asked:Jan/Panasonic's official sales rhetoric sounds good but I don't think it will be effective at trying to help people make the transition from DV to HD, especially when it sounds like many of these productions can only marginally afford to use the SDX.

Chuck, I dislikethe word rhetoric, as it implies that what I am says is simply sales hype. It is not. With this new little camera the lure of 4:2:2 SD costs little more than the 4:1:1 SD. Yes, with HD comes some added burden on monitoring and how you deliver, but that is not the only driving reason to buy this camera. It can be SD for the 1st year and HD after that. Or HD for one shoot and SD for the rest of the year. Point is that it can take you where you need to go in the quality level you need to be.



Jan, would Panasonic ever consider selling just the DVCPro(HD) Codec's. If they did it might be possible to build a facility/workflow to that can cost effectively deal with the increase data demand. * *

Currently the DVCPROHD codec has been purchased by Apple and Avid. Others are considering. So it really depends on what you mean do we sell it. We do. Do you want to run an entire facility on a compressed domain, don't know if that is the right thing to do. Working on a closed desktop system, that works, but for high level color correction and tweeking, nothing is better than uncompressed HD.

Did that answer the question?

Best,


Jan

[Neil Rowe]

..jan , when you said you would just hang a firewire drive off the spx800 for an event type job, i got the feeling (speculated) that perhaps you could do just that with the new camera (HDX)as well. theres been alot of talk about whether or not someone will make a firewire capture drive with the software for DVCPRO-HD and DVCPRO-50, but when you said that it made me think.. why do the current drives need to have software? simple. becuase the camera doesnt. * * * so i was thinking that the camera has its own built in software to simply write to file on an attached drive of any kind with fast enough datat transfer rate.. *so you could just simply buy a firewire drive and plug it in and write directly to it. .. no problem... cause the data transfer rate is plenty high enough there. *

then i thought.. wait a minute. OF COURSE the camera has the ability to write directly to file on a mounted drive.. thats exactly what its doing with the P2 card... duh. *so it wouldnt be a big deal for it to simply have that output go to a firewire drive.. same deal.. just different *drive mount imterface and type of drive is all. it streams data to p2 through pcmcia with its own internal software so why on earth couldnt it *do it through firewire to an external firewire drive? .. my answer. well.... i think it can. * *not to start rumors and speculation here. but if it cant now, i see no reason why it couldnt be implemented. then all this talk about needing longer takes is just mish mash. people are happy enough with the possiblilty of writing directly to HDD right now with the firestore and nnovia quickcapture and such and P2 *adds pure reliable solid state recording and other fancy features that come from the joys of solid state memory. but if the camera has the ability to go directly to external firewire HDD as well. well i know your right Jan it will be the hottest camera on the market right when it comes out.. without waiting for p2 to get bigger and better and cheaper. sure, when it does why not use it and its awsome features and small size and wieght over just an external HDD..i certainly would want to go all solid state even over direct to HDD recording because of the reliability- and quickness of data transfer to NLE and all the other snazzy P2 stuff, but until then .. if firewire streaming is built in i dont think anyone will be complaining. ...bwahahahahah!! i cant believe i didnt realize that it was not only possible , but very likely before. if im right about this, and i know you cant really say anything, but my excitement just went up a few notches for the camera when my fears went down a couple notches.. * *and if im wrong.. well, theres still time to make me right *;) * not to grind the rumor mill.. *:-/

[Flintstone]

Another way to go about this, if direct Firewire to a standard hard drive is not possible due to some obscure constraint, is to have a P2 style PCMCIA card with a firewire and/or USB2 port at the end. *Thereby fooling the HDX into thinking that the hard drive is a big P2 card. It would probably be more direct this way, and not require extensive firmware modifications. *I would suppose that the drive would have to be formated using some sort of specialized file system.

Then again, keeping it simple, as Neil suggested, properly coded software in the firmware shouldn't be that much of a deal, right? *Simply flip a switch, or change a menu setting to transform the Firewire port from video-stream-out... to P2 redirection. *Very simple to do, and would cover all audiences... Not just a P2 efficient workflow indie cam, but a quazi-infinite storage uber event cam also. *The best of both worlds without the need of specialized and expensive add-ons.

[Zim]

It's probably going to be a good camera but the price to buy and operate sounds like its going to be way above my budget. (not to mention computer upgrades to run HD) When I had the XL1s I had the camera, extra batteries, tapes, lights, case for all around $3500. You could do the same or close with the DVX100a. The Z1 would probably be alittle over $5,000 with some extras. The HDP2 I guess we don't really know yet but it does sound high.

Maybe I'll be surprized in April

[Neil Rowe]

only issue i can se would be powering the drive. it would need to be low power consumption , bu the cam doesnt have to run a tape drive so it should have a little more juice to spare.

[Flintstone]

I would assume, without necessarily going with the 3.5" desktop hard drives, that typical 2.5" 5400RPM laptop drives would be acceptable power and speed wise. Some sort of battery addapter could be setup to take advantage of the new DVXUser 5000mAH batteries. ;)

[Flintstone]

Besides, I think I could live with a battery belt if necessary. Need to power that light too, right? ;D

[Barry_Green]

... and if they put a six-pin firewire connector on it, the camera itself could maybe power the drive... I have a 60gb USB2 pocket drive that pulls all the power it needs from the USB port.

Neil, that's brilliant -- man, if you could walk down to Fry's and pick up any old firewire/usb2 drive and plug it in... that would be just the ultimate! I'm going to write Jan off-line and suggest it, hopefully there's time to implement features like that!

[Neil Rowe]

.. or direct to laptop. .. but i dont know that a whole belt would be needed.. you could probably run one of those little led lights off a couple potatos. battery adaptor would be easy though.. anyway ..we're just having a wishing well chat now. doable *certainly, but just wishing well stuff for now. .. nothing confirmed.. nothing denied. * certainly alot to cross our fingers about though.

edit: thanks though barry, i just cant believe that we didnt see that the potential was there to simply write to external HDD instead of P2 before. its really the same thingas far as the file transfer goes. and you guys are right. any small laptop size drives would work without too much power drain. and again theres no tape drive so the power should be there to run it fine. 6 pin powered firewire out to a small high capacity low power consumtion external FW drive would rule supreme. ..is so doable i can taste it.. even powering a full 3.5 inch drive wouldnt be too bad. just buy bigger batteries for the cam. and have enough for each day.

..who knows, maybe they already implemented it?

[Flintstone]

STOP IT! *

I'm drooling already with anticipation. *And it's only wishful thinking... How, oh how am I going to sleep tonight! * ;D

[nullphonic]

This is interesting, can you point me to the manufacturer?


Here’s the device…
http://exabyte.com/products/products/get_products.cfm?prod_id=581&product=Magnum%201x7% 20Tape%20Autoloader

The cool thing about Exabyte drives (other manufacturers may do this as well, we just settled here after research) is that you can replace the drive component itself only (fits in the palm of your hand) so that when newer capacity tapes come out, for instance the 400 GB native drives that are due to drop 4th quarter this year, you can just replace the drive and it’s always backward compatible to legacy/smaller tapes.

We spoke with Jim Garrison over at Exabyte, very nice guy and quick to respond. When the LTO III tapes (400 GB uncompressed) come out, it will make this autoloader a 2.8 terabyte backup device obviously and he’s mentioned that the tapes themselves will start out very cheap (that was the 14 per archive GB estimate).

It also has an internal barcode reader (standard with autoloaders), great for tracking obviously.



Don't need Firewire 800, 400 will do.


We’re going with the G-Raid 800 drive since they boast “Supports multi-stream video playback with real-time effects on Final Cut Pro HD” off the drive itself. The LaCie drives are nice as well but these were engineered for speed from the ground up (RAID 0 x 400 GB firewire 800) rather than just capacity. We haven’t used one yet so it remains to be seen but worst case we’ll have a good sized field drive.

http://www.videoguys.com/gtech.html

[Neil Rowe]

fred, have you ever seen " Pi " ? *

[Flintstone]

You mean the 1998 Sci-Fi/Thriller? No I have not, but the trailer looks good. I don't recall seing it at the video store either.

[reservoir]

*Pi* absolutely owns. What a great film!! I think Darren Aronofsky is one of the most respected indie filmmakers of our time. His follow-up *Requiem for a Dream* was pretty stellar as well. I highly recommend both. ~reservoir~

[Neil Rowe]

..when the protagonist in "pi " cannot deal with his mental anguish he finds a very interesting way to deal with it. *:P

edit: its nothing i would personally reccomend.

[Sumfun]

edit: thanks though barry, i just cant believe that we didnt see that the potential was there to simply write to external HDD instead of P2 before. its really the same thingas far as the file transfer goes. and you guys are right. any small laptop size drives would work without too much power drain. and again theres no tape drive so the power should be there to run it fine. 6 pin powered firewire out to a small high capacity low power consumtion external FW drive would rule supreme. *..is so doable i can taste it.. even powering a full 3.5 inch drive wouldnt be too bad. just buy bigger batteries for the cam. and have enough for each day.

..who knows, maybe they already implemented it?

They did implement it. It's called FireStore and Nnovia. But of course they charge a whole lot more than just the cost of the drives alone.

I think another factor that we have to consider is shock on the HDD. After all, not all of them can work while being shaken in a run and gun situation. But then again, it's probably not any worse than the abuse given to an iPod.

[the_producer]

Neil, on your post about using any firewire drive to stream the video, if it is not a feature, do you think that you could add a firewire p2 card that connects to a firewire drive. I think you know what I am talking about. They primarly made them so people could add a firewire port to an old laptop.

Now that I think about it more, the camera would have to have the softwear to run that too...or someone could make a p2 card with the software in it so that we can use any hard drive we want.

Still would rather have firewire streaming direct from camera to any drive.

[Flintstone]

They did implement it. *It's called FireStore and Nnovia. *But of course they charge a whole lot more than just the cost of the drives alone.
It's for DV only, not DVCProHD. Unless of course they update their firmware... unless they want to sell another more expensive model to milk every HDX user as much as possible.

[Sumfun]

It's for DV only, not DVCProHD. *Unless of course they update their firmware... unless they want to sell another more expensive model to milk every HDX user as much as possible.
FireStore is releasing an HDV version for Sony and JVC in the 2nd quarter. I'm sure an HDX version is not far behind. I agree it's expensive, but if it's the only game in town ...

[Flintstone]

Hope your right.

[Neil Rowe]

sumfun, i think you missing the point of what we are talking about here... *;)

were not talking about wanting a firestore or nnovia type drive that has to have software and controls built in because *it has to figure out what to do with an incoming DV or stream and *DV or DVCPRO-HD device control commands. *we already know that that is possible. *I think the part that your missing is exactly what i was reffering to in the section of my post that you quoted when i said "i cant believe we didnt realize that the potential was there to just write to external HDD instead of P2 before". * *perhaps if you read back to the beginning of when i posted my idea it would be more clear. * but to sum it up :

firestore drives and the like exist because a DV camera is not a computer and wouldnt know that a external hard drive was hooked up to its firewire port or what the heck to do with it. so the firestore drive has to run itself and know what to do when its attached to a DV camera.

the new HDX DOES have the ability to run a computer drive just like a computer. it runs hot swap P2 cards (which are just solid state memory drives) pretty much just like a computer does. so the camera itself controls the drive. *the drive doesnt need extra hardware or software to run like a firestore, *because the camera itself runs the drive just like a computer. *

so my suggestion is that since the camera can recognize drives up to huge capacities as planned for P2 cards, and can write data to them just like a computer, why not let the camera interface with a drive through the firewire port as well as the PCMCIA slot where the P2 card goes and make it selectable *in the menu as to where your recording to, or possibly to both.. maybe it would fil the p2 cards first, and then write to external HDD on the firewire port or whatever. *that way you could buy ANY fast enough *external firewire drive and *plug it into a 6 pin firewire port on the camera so the camera powers the drive and reads and writes to it just like it does with the P2 cards. except using the firewire port instead of the pcmcia slot, and a different type of drive. but it shouldnt matter, as long as the drive is fast enough *the camera should just use it as a drive and it shouldnt matter what type of drive it is. * so if they code the cameras firmware to be able to use either port for its storage drive location and add some drivers for external HDDs if needed, *the camera could run any fast external firewire drive for storage and all of a sudden recording tapeless HD *with the camera is actually affordable now.. *instead of having to buy 4,000.00 worth of p2 cards to *get a measly 8 gig on p2(possibly 16 gig when the camera comes out). you can have a huge external firewire drive and capture for probably longer than your battery would last in HD. and same as P2 you can simply unplug the drive and plug it in your computer and youve got all your files and data right there. (firewire is not hot swappable though... so youd want to have a large enough drive to run for a while if you need a long straight recording time)


..anyway i would be suprised if it wasnt already in there. i cant see why they wouldnt put it in. * perhaps to gaurd P2 sales. but P2 isnt going to sell if people cant afford it and its too small storage now anyway, which means the camera will sell less until P2 is more reasonable. *and P2 is *much much much *better than using an external HDD, so when it is higher capacity and cheaper people will buy it anyway over a cumbersome external HDD... but thats only if they bough the camera to begin with. *being able to use any firewire drive for storage from the get-go would likely drastically increase initial sales throughout *the period of time when P2 isnt the most affordable *or doable solution. *



edit: and if its not in there you can gaurantee that im going to try hooking up various PCMCIA to firewire drive solutions almost immediatly. *:) who knows maybe thats a soltuion that they intend for us to do and they dont want or really need to mess with firewire drive stuff if you can run a drive off a card in the pcmcia P2 slot...

[Barry_Green]

a DV camera is not a computer
Know what Panasonic refers to the P2 SPX800 camera as? A "camputer". Interesting, eh?


the new HDX DOES have the ability to run a computer drive just like a computer.
Well, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves -- it does have the ability to run P2 cards, but who knows where the processing logic is? It might be actually some sort of firmware in the P2 controller, and thus not accessible to the firewire/USB2/whatever ports. Let's HOPE (and ask) that Panasonic include this type of capability, I think it would be BRILLIANT for them to do so!

Absolutely brilliant.

I mean, HD tapes cost about $60 for a half-hour. So five hours of HD recording, to tape, would cost maybe $600. Or you could get a 300gb external hard disk for HALF THE COST OF TAPE -- $300. Instant-access, random access, no dropouts, and you could delete bad takes and actually get more recording of "good" takes than you could with tape.

As you said, P2 is far superior to hard disk recording, but it sure would be exquisitely nice if they'd offer us both!

[Neil Rowe]

hey your right (big suprise there..lol) .. "camputer"

yeah though.. i am making a big basic assumption that the camera holds the logic for running the cards. id be really suprised if the logic for controlling the card was in the card itself and not in the camera though. cause .. well, that would just be backwards production wise. the cost of each P2 would have to be higher for all the small logic controllers, instead of just putting one in each camera. id be very suprised if that were the case, but i certainly know what you mean. we cant rule out any option no matter how unlikely it is. we can only wait and see.

[Prairieboy]

If somebody has access to the SDX 800 could we not test this theory out right now. I have been watching this from a distance and I have been riding the emotional roller coaster from interested, to concerned, to currently fairly excited.
Perhaps since this product is out we could directly ask Jan if this would work with the 800. The question has nothing to do with the new camera, so no disclosure worries. ;D

[Gary_McClurg]

I don't know if I can post the link since Panasonic gave permission for a different site.

But on dvinfo.net

They have a pdf file on the use of P2 cards, it's for the P2 version of the SDX900.

The thread is titled.

Panasonic P2 Series PDF Brochure

[speedbump]

I'm sorry to say it, but the P2 math isn't adding up for me. And I'm definately getting the impression that Jan is trying to sell me razors.

I'm not trying to be insulting; I'm saying that the value proposition isn't there with 4GB P2 cards at $1000-$1200, unless you absolutely require untethered freedom. In which case, you are going to pay for that capability.

Solid state data storage is very sexy. Its what we all want. Tapes suck. I get that.

Ok, so we've got between one and three (probably two) P2 slots on the new wunderCamera. The whole point of this camera is HD, so let's assume you are using it for that, which means each Gig of storage is one minute of HD video, right? A 4gig P2 card saves 4 minutes of DVCPRO HD video.

Let's also assume for illustrative purposes that you don't get any HD projects until the 8gig P2 cards are available. So probably, your max capacity using P2 is 16 minutes. But wait! You can hot swap your cards as you go, alternating empty/full cards. Fine, but who is doing that? The camera operator? I think not for run & gun, which means you have to have another person, which means you have to pay for that person, and the equipment they are juggling these cards with.

It is not unreasonable to think that many event videographers will need to record for at least a one-hour stint. That's what? Six card swaps during the capture, assuming you aren't forced to go over even one minute. Will that shake the camera? This doesn't sound easier (or safer, really) than tape. I guess the best solution today is to invest in one of those camera-mountable firestore drives. But if I do that, then why should I buy P2 cards, which are hideously expensive, in the first place?

How does this work with Steadicam? Not, really. The vast majority of us will never use Steadicam-type rigs, but not having a cheap, long-lasting, and untethered storage option is what we are forced to deal with because the engineers decided to forgo tape.

Now, as with all new technologies, things will only get better with time. The cards will grow in storage capacity. And all this speculation is moot if you can tether yourself to a laptop with a 50-ft firewire cable. Who knows, maybe someone will come up with a PCMCIA adapter that allows them to trick the camera into storing the data on their 60GB Nomad (or whatever). This sounds like a job for embedded Linux! Or better yet, it isn't that difficult to imagine a small widget which plugs between the firewire port on the camera, and translates that video stream to a file, which could be stored on an MP3 player.

Am I missing something here? These P2 cards are inadequate for the job at their current capacities.

Can't wait to get the camera, though!

[Jarred Land]

here is a basic p2 overview

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/P2/

[dvpixl]

i cannot wait till it hits mainstream. that was a good review Jarred

[Jarred Land]

thx... the P2 format is pretty cool, nice to have so much info for each clip. on the 800 you can even hook up a GPS to the camera and on each clip it tells you exactly what co-ordinates it was shot at, so if your off in the Jungle and lost but shoot something cool you know how to get back.

[ullanta]

I'm just adding my voice to the petition for some solution that lets us record to a standard external hard drive... I don't know how big a market segment we are, but event videographers are desperate for such a solution and would gobble up the camera. Recording Operas, as I sometimes do, requires solid takes of up to 90 minutes, and the ability to store 7-8 hours on the "temporary" medium per day. Ability to record a live backup simultaneously is pretty key, too for once-in-a-lifetime events... so if there's any wiggle room, I'd vote for simultaneous P2 and hard-drive recording.

I know it may not be your market for this camera, but really, you should develop SOME product that will meet this important need... don't let the external capture drive folks grab all the business with products that are less capable (in terms of storage capacity) and more expensive than they have to be! Please?

-Barry

[Zim]

sounds like the P2 card will be a pain in the butt until they can make them bigger and cheaper.

[Anders Holck]

I think you guys are overreacting a bit:

- Firestore has already announced upcoming HDV support. DVCPRO HD could easily be forthcoming...

- Jan, has stated in another thread that: "I assume you mean will the files have an MXF wrapper. And the answer is via the USB port but not through the 1394 play out. The MXF wrapper holds the the individual files together, meta data, audio, video, and proxy. If streaming out of the 1394, then no, it is a DVCPRO HD file, or DVCPRO50 file or DVCPRO..."

This would imply that the camera has both a USB connector and a firewire connector.
Media on the P2 will use the MXF format, but the stream OVER THE BUILD IN FIREWIRE CONNECTOR is a standard DVCPRO HD stream. So support for this should be trivial for HD recorder manufacturers as long as their bus supports the increased bandwidth.

[Isaac_Brody]

I would put with a pain in the butt for real 1080 24P. It's worth the hassle, worth the swapping, uploading, and extra planning. For those who want to stick to tape there's always HDV.

[speedbump]

Ok, I've had a good night's sleep to refresh my attitude.

These P2 capacity issues are exactly the same thing as when I bought a digital camera a couple years ago. The storage card that came with it was only big enough to save something like 16 pictures at the highest resolution. Although I could get almost a hundred pics if I went with the lower resultion, I waited 6 months to really use the camera in production until I could afford a big enough storage card that I could save 100 pictures at high res before swapping cards.

The overhead of swapping was just too disruptive to have anything less than at least 100 picture capacity. These days, I can get a single storage card that let's me snap pictures all day without a change.

Now lets revisit the P2 solution.

Just like the digital camera, I'm buying the HVX because of its capability to capture higher resolution images. Frankly, most of the kinds of projects that I work on allow me the flexibility to start/stop the camera to swap cards, or to be tethered to a large (i.e. a laptop) capture device. So I'm going to hope that a FireStor device is available around the time I need to record for more than, say, 30 minutes. If not, well, then the project has to pay the premium for the storage.

I'm predicting that all you early adopters are going to rapidly get tired of this card-swapping thing.

[speedbump]

As far as the issue of how many P2 slots the HVX will have, think about it:

It has got to have at least two. One would be worse than none! With two, you can do the hot-swap thing perpetually.

A year from the introduction of the camera, we might see a 16Gig P2 card. Hmmm, at that time (assuming the cards are affordable!) the whole swapping issue kind of fades away. That's the tip-over point when we'll all slap our foreheads and say that Panasonic was brilliant for building in solid-state storage capability.

"...Remember when we used to have to change tapes every hour? Chuckle, chuckle, hand me another beer."

[speedbump]

Anders:

The reason the FireStor was such an elegant solution for DV capture was that the hard drives at the time were fully capable of sustaining the bitrate necessary to manage the DV stream. But now we're talking 40 or 100Mbits/sec, and this starts to push the edges of what a single drive can reliably sustain.

Yeah, I know that we've got commodity drives which handle 20MB/sec sustained transfer rates, but they gobble power like Jabba the Hutt. The FireStor solution has to manage transfer rate, power, and shock issues. I don't think it will be a trivial matter to add support for DVCPRO HD data streams.

[Isaac_Brody]

This has already been brought up, but P2 swapping is similar to swapping film magazines. If you have that experience, you'll plan accordingly. This may not be a bad thing for all of us kids raised in the digital era. It will force people to think more about their shots, possibly even make better films because they're not shooting a lot of footage because tape is cheap.

We don't have all the answers yet, and you're going to have to be patient these next few weeks until we get more information. At the moment this camera may be better suited for those doing film projects than event videography. It doesn't really make sense to cover an event in HD since you have no delivery format for it yet.

An 8GB P2 card is supposed to debut later on this year, probably right around the time that the camera comes onto the market. And if this camera's hot third party companies will respond and create P2 media. It's coming. Chill, have a beer, let NAB roll around, and then Jan can answer all of our questions and then some.

[speedbump]

Isaac:

Using the excuse that film crews are already used to swapping 400' catridges every 4 minutes is lame when addressing the shortcomings of P2 capacity. It would be like saying, 'here, use this digital camcorder, which will free you from having to develop film. Oh, but, you have to make sure you turn this crank on the side so that the hard drive spins.'

Huh? It was jarring as an argument when presented in Jarred's Dvxuser P2 article, and it is unconvincing now. We adopt new technologies because they offer significant functionality over and above whatever they are replacing. Imposing a 4 to 8 minute swapping cycle as an alternative to tape is not, to me, compelling.

Like I've been saying before, time will fix this problem. I guess I'm just reacting to what I saw as 'ooohhh P2, it must be good!' kinds of posts. Anyway, Jan dropped a hint the size of a small moon in another thread that pretty much renders this discussion academic.

We don't really know anything yet. All we've seen is a shrouded DVX look-alike. (That was the most eeeevil and effective marketing tactic I've seen in a long time, so congrats to the marketing people.) All this buzz is exactly what Panasonic wants! I fully expect that the HVX will do everything I want it to, and more.

[Anders Holck]

Anders:
But now we're talking 40 or 100Mbits/sec, and this starts to push the edges of what a single drive can reliably sustain.

Yes, but the Hitachi E5K100 has a write speed of around 17MB/s worst case. That should work for a 100mbs stream.
The power consumption is only 2W when writing.

Even the 7200 Hitachi E7K60 is only 2.5W when writing.

It's a only matter of time, the problem right now is the FS hardware not the drive.

But when I'm shooting I always bring my PB anyways so when the HDX200 is shipping 2x8GB cards :-) should be sufficient even for long takes, or else a long Firewire cable can hook up to my PB.

[speedbump]

Here's an evil thought:

Slap a gigabit ethernet port on the camera, and have the firmware support Windows networking, so all you have to do is plug the camera into your laptop, mount a share, and capture to your heart's content. Since everyone supports Samba, you don't care if its a Windows, OS X, Linux, or SGI computer at the other end of the camera.

Muahahaha!

[greeches]

good idea speedbump! Gigabit ethernet streaming woudl be freakin sweet and affordable!

[Phooey]

USB 2, firewire, firewire 800, gigabit ethernet. They'll all work, and none are the problem. In fact, I think gigabit ethernet would suffer from other transports because of lack of power. Any the weather. Jan, are you saying that the HVX will stream DVCPROHD through firewire, but you'd have to capture it live in FCP? And it will export the MXF files with separate folders and metadata and all that through USB? Can it do that live, or just as a transfer from the P2 card?

I have a feeling someone is going to have to come up with a PCMCIA card with a firewire port on the other end and software to put on your external harddrive to essentially make the HVX think it has a 256 GB P2 card in it.

Personally, I do not mind work arounds for an affordable HD solution. They are temporary problems anyway.

[Jan_Crittenden]

Hi,

NAB!

Peace out, :-)

Jan

[boo]

fast forward to fall/winter 2005...

equipment:
mac g5, g4 powerbook, broadcast monitor, dv deck, g raid 800 firewire drive. i'm editing in fcp4.5(hopeflly 5 by then). i have an hvx in hand w/ 2 p2 cards...am i correct in saying that if i were to shoot in dvcpro(25), this would be the same as shooting dv and thus not needing additional equipment/boards?

if shooting dvcpro50 or hd, would i need to add a card such as a kona 2 or black magic and possibly a hd monitor?

[Barry_Green]

We adopt new technologies because they offer significant functionality over and above whatever they are replacing.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

And once you work with P2, you will *never* want to put up with tape again. Just like tape has been exorcised from every other place we've used it (audio recording, music recording, computer storage, etc) it will also be eliminated from video recording. The nonlinear advantages are simply too compelling.

[Tzedekh]

Isaac:

. . . It would be like saying, 'here, use this digital camcorder, which will free you from having to develop film. Oh, but, you have to make sure you turn this crank on the side so that the hard drive spins.'
Don't laugh -- the >$60,000 Kinetta (http://www.kinetta.com/) digital cinema camera has a handcrank (http://livefromnab.com/articles/publish/article_105.shtml).

[Isaac_Brody]

:cheesy:

[Rick Haywood]

A post from 3 years ago?…

“I was thinking of changing my 35mm still camera over to one of these new digital models but I have some real concerns. :undecided

Assuming that I can get the same quality as my 35mm camera (some say better) I am really concerned about having to put those little flash memory cards on the shelf – that seems kinda expensive. I know that I can view them on my PC ‘n all, but I dunno’, I just don’t feel crazy about copying them to my hard drive – don’t those things fail?

Someone told me I could copy them to CD-ROM or even DVD (one day) but that sounds like a hassle and I may need to employ someone just to keep doing that for me. I know that I could get instant access to all my pictures and even archive them and find them again, but I dunno’. Someone even tells me that I can edit them in my laptop in the field and show the client straight away on set or in my studio, but I dunno’.

The problem is that I like to shoot 2-300 pictures when I shoot and those little cards will only hold 20-30 at a time so I will have to have a whole bunch of those expensive cards. Someone said something about hard drives you can use in the field to store up to 1000 photos but I’ve never had to do that before.

I think I’ll stick to paying for rolls of film, then sending them off to the lab and getting the proofs back a week later then paying through the nose for the prints then filing the negs in my hermetically sealed cabinet and writing them all down in my notebook. Why would I ever want to share those with anyone across a computer network anyway?

I figure these digital camera things are a passing fad, the memory is way too small and way too expensive, they’ll never take off. Mind you that one that records pictures to a floppy disk looks pretty good, just like using film really.”

Sound familiar? Solid state may not be everyone’s soy-milk latte today but it will be great for most, and ready for the rest tomorrow. Just look at the doors it is holding open for you now, 1080/60i, 1080/24p/ 720/60p using a DVCPRO HD intraframe Codec.

Rick Haywood
Manager Broadcast & Display Systems
Panasonic New Zealand Ltd.

[Aaron Koolen]

Rick, interesting post, and glad to have you visit!

By the way, when the HVX200 does come out (I know, no one's said when that is) how long would it take to get into New Zealand? The Sony Z1 seems to have made it here pretty fast, so I'm hoping that the new Panasonic does too. If all the rumour and speculation bears fruition, then it will be my next camera if it gets here in a reasonable time.

Another thing I'd like to know is, do you guys do launches here of the cameras when the arrive? I can't remember hearing of any Panasonic ones in the past but then again, my work is volunteer and I'm not heavily in the industry.

Oh, and of course, if you need someone to test the camera under the harsh New Zealand conditions of Queen Street, Auckland.................... :)

Cheers
Aaron

[SergejIvanovits]

Rick, interesting post, and glad you try to draw a parallel between the cost of production in photography and video.

I'm using 1Gig SD cards to photography. All together 6 cards. I can take ~300 pictures on one card and to put in the next card takes a very Little time. If I could use only 1 card because the prise and the card could only take 10 pictures, than I would use film. To transfer the pictures on the set takes so much time that it is not possible to have a continuous workflow. The same is with the P2 cards. I need 3 cards and someone to transfer the footage to the disk during I still shooting. I guess the data transfer is at least realtime. If it takes more to transfer than to record than I would need more cards. And it costs. BTW. I had 7 SD cards but one has error. Has the P2 cards life time guaranty?

[Anders Holck]

I guess the data transfer is at least realtime.

The current 4GB P2 card is 80MB/s or around 6.4 x realtime (1080p 30) according to Panasonic.