BUMMER - Looks like no recording to off the shelf drives

[town]

from creative cow p2 forum:

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_thread.php?threadid=809628&forumid=193

Hi,

Have been totally inundated with stuff since I left LV. The 1394 output must see an intelligent device on the other side, like a Firestore device. Please note that Focus Enhancements is a P2 Partner and as such we are working together to find a solution.

There may be others but in the least you could record to your Apple or the Avid.

Best,

jan



Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[reservoir]

Damn...

~reservoir~

[Barry_Green]

A) that doesn't necessarily rule out USB2 control of a hard disk.

B) no other camera can do it, so if Panasonic does, it'd be unprecedented anyway.

C) I fully predict that if the camera doesn't allow for it directly, someone will engineer a device that plugs into the P2 slot and has a USB2 or Firewire port on it, which *will* allow you to record directly to an off-the-shelf hard disk. That device would take care of whatever electronics/intelligence that the camera needs to see and the drive needs.

In fact, we should probably start lobbying Focus to get them to produce exactly that product!

[thisiswells]

Okay, then how does SPX800 do D2D?

[Barry_Green]

I don't think it does.

Does it?

[cineman9]

No surprise that it would need to connect to an intelligent device. Barry's right that someone will come up with something. One possibility might be a "smart" Firewire enclosure for a hard drive...if that makes sense.

[Daniel Skubal]

can't you just make a go-between card that tells the camera that there's a powered drive, and then a controller device on the card that manages harddisk capture? Hmm, okay that sounds complicated. Any electrical engineers out there wanna give us some input? :D

[town]

C) I fully predict that if the camera doesn't allow for it directly, someone will engineer a device that plugs into the P2 slot and has a USB2 or Firewire port on it, which *will* allow you to record directly to an off-the-shelf hard disk. That device would take care of whatever electronics/intelligence that the camera needs to see and the drive needs.


Come to think of it, it seems weird that a product like this doesn't exist already for DV cameras. Or does it?

[Barry_Green]

Well, it does, but it's called a laptop computer. i.e., you can use a laptop running a capture program or DV Rack or something like that, and use it to capture to an external hard disk.

What we need developed is something that would be a small standalone piece of hardware, and would understand and support the 100-megabit data rate of DVCPRO-HD.

[pmark23]

I brought this up on a previous thread.

It isn't difficult at all to create a 1394>SATA/EIDE adapter. There are already plenty of single-board computers (http://linuxdevices.com) (SBC) the size of a credit-card which have 1394 and hard-drive interfaces. The bandwidth is trivial for a relatively modern processor and I/O chipsets. The OS is already built-in to the SBC from flash-ROM (Linux, of course). Linux already has 1394 libraries and drivers.

All that needs to be done is to write a bit of software that peeks at the 1394 DV stream, and starts writing the stream to disk when it encounters a "Record" flag (and stop recording when it encounters a "Stop" flag.) The stream will have to be wrapped into a video format (such as .avi), but that's trivial.

Nothing else is needed. All administration can be done from a PC later by simply mounting the device as a hard-drive over USB or 1394. This bit is already written for us.

It can be made more complicated with LCD displays and switches for scene reviewing, but the bare necessities can be hacked together quite quickly. Things like power-management also need to be though of.

Something like this would make a great open-source project, because small vendors can quickly build something to sell for a bit of profit, and end-users can start hacking away at it, adding new features that they NEED in the field -- which the vendors can add into their future versions. If someone doesn't have enough money to buy it from one of the innumerable vendors, they can hack it together themselves.

[Luis Caffesse]

What we need developed is something that would be a small standalone piece of hardware, and would understand and support the 100-megabit data rate of DVCPRO-HD.

I thought that's what the HVX200 was
:)

Seriously, is there anything that difficult about making the camera able to record directly to hard drives? Seeing as it can already recognize an external hard drive in order to transfer files from the P2 cards, is it that much more difficult to get the cam to shoot straight to that same hard drive?

[robotx21]

Why not use a firewire PCMIA card used in laptops to be used in HVX-200? Wouldn't that "trick"
the camera of viewing a P2 card but instead it records to a HD? A thought?

[Barry_Green]

Seeing as it can already recognize an external hard drive in order to transfer files from the P2 cards, is it that much more difficult to get the cam to shoot straight to that same hard drive?Well, we're hoping that they'll do exactly that. But it may not be possible to support it for live streaming.

Personally, I think the hangup isn't necessarily the technology -- I bet it can be done. I think the hangup is the users who would cheap out, trying to use substandard technology, then whine and gripe and moan when it doesn't work. As an example, if Panasonic supports the feature (recognizing that you *must* have a drive that can sustain a minumum sustained rate of, say, 15mBps across the entire surface of the drive), what do you think will happen when some user plugs in an ipod?

Board after board after board spammed with "HVX doesn't work", "they said it'd write to hard disk but it doesn't", "don't trust Panasonic", "my shoot was RUINED because hard disk recording didn't work", etc. You know it'll happen. I know it'll happen. We all know it'll happen. And the thanks Panasonic gets for giving us this cool, unprecedented feature? Abusive beraters, who will try to cheat the system and then complain loudly and frequently when their cheat doesn't work. A compatible-model, high-speed hard disk might cost $80, but they'll find some slow, underpowered 4200-rpm drive on "special" at NewEgg for $39, and guess what -- it's too slow and won't work. And who will they blame?

I mean, we already see that -- how many posts do we see that ask about "different brands of tapes", etc... people buying a $3400 camera, and then trying to save 50 cents on the type of tape they use in it.

Well, perhaps that's being cynical, I don't know. I am hoping that they do implement the feature, and they come up with ways to protect themselves and the users. Maybe some sort of speed benchmark the drive needs to pass before it can be used to record on, I don't know. Three years from now, when hard drives are 8x faster than they are today, this will all be a moot point, I'm sure. Of course, three years from now we'll have 128gb P2 cards, so this will be a moot point as well!

[Spiff]

three years from now we'll have 128gb P2 cards, so this will be a moot point as well

Then again... in three years we could be recording true 1920x1080 4:4:4 at 440/880 Mbps to 512 GB Memory Sticks... you never know ;)

[Luis Caffesse]

I hadn't really considered that angle Barry.
Hopefully Panasonic will see fit to include the feature regardless.
It would be a shame to see a company refrain from adding another groundbreaking feature to a camera soley because of the ignorance of those who might use it.

It does seem like a simple feature to implement, and as you've said many times, this camera is all about options. I hope they keep that spirit in the final specs. Imagine that, this could be the first camera to shoot to tape, solid state, or any hard drive fast enough to handle the datarate. Given all the other options the camera has, options on recording media would be in the same spirit. Panasonic realizes P2 might be a little bit ahead of it's time, why else would they include a tape drive. This is a 'transition' camera ... transitioning us from SD to HD, from tape to solid state...why not add HDD support, to ease the transition away from tape?

Keep lobbying Barry!
This would be a huge addition, if they made it happen, and one that would help silence the "Panasonic is just trying to get you to spend your retirement money on P2 Cards" crowd.

Personally, I would MUCH rather shoot to P2 than to a hard drive.
But, until I can afford all the P2 I would want, a hard drive would be a nice option.

[ullanta]

Well, it does, but it's called a laptop computer. i.e., you can use a laptop running a capture program or DV Rack or something like that, and use it to capture to an external hard disk.

What we need developed is something that would be a small standalone piece of hardware, and would understand and support the 100-megabit data rate of DVCPRO-HD.

Actually, it's also called a FireStore FS-1, FS-2, or FS-3. The FS-4 is the only part of the FireStore lineup that DOESN'T allow you to just plug in OTS firewire drives. The 1, 2, and 3 actually allow you to hook up 5 or 6 drives at once for super-duper-long recording.

Hopefully they'll do something for the HVX...

[ullanta]

Anyway, just for the record, it's easy to say "How hard can it be to implement a smart FW drive controller", but it's not necessarily true. Certainly, in my day job, whenever we deal with vision systems these days, porting FireWire drivers and code to new logic boards is a major and tricky part of the effort. I'd also point everybody toward actual discussions on this forum of the QuickCapture, the FS-4, the CityDisk or whatever... none of these efforts have proven easy. That may be OK for a third party accessory, but Panasonic is going to want to be real sure it's rock-solid before releasing anything like this.

-Barry

[Barry_Green]

Excellent points! Excellent points. The Quickstream/CitiDisk scenario being a prime example of "obviously, it isn't that easy"!

[Aaron Koolen]

You know, I'm no electrical engineer, but I am a software one. I really don't believe that adding a controller system to the HVX so it can use Firewire drives, is really that hard. Maybe it's a bit expensive so they don't do it, but really, I don't believe it's that hard. There is code on the HVX to write to P2, so it knows about filesystems and if it was designed correctly, you'd think that there'd be a way to add a hardware system into it's current configuration to support firewire devices.

Aaron

[town]

Great points... But if Focus is working close enough with Panasonic to have a working product out when the HVX ships it doesn't seem unreasonable wonder why they can't team up to build that functionality right into the camera. This also makes me wonder if the cam will have upgradable firmware to sort out any issues that pop up...(or add features!)

[Mediacre]

The problem is the software.
Unless one could isntall a normalNLE software in these SBC computers. But I have no idea how these SBC work.

[Neil Rowe]

..it wouldnt completely bite if its not built in, but if not, I really really hope the camera ships with at least a 4 GB card so that you can still use an off the shelf drive to dump to after recording HD to the card out of the box. .. without that , it would raise the cost of actually using the camera to record HD to either what a 4GB card costs (at least) or what the firestore device will cost. and even if a 4GB card is just 1,000. thats still an extra cost that most people do not want to swallow on top of the cam price just to actually shoot HD with the cam. ..not saying its not worth it. but surely it creates an unwanted deterrent to people looking to purchase.

Jan, if its not planned already, and if theres any way possible, please.. IMHO pana should include at least a 4GB card with the camera. i predict alot of whooplah from people if they buy the cam and cant use it for HD without another chunk of change going into it.

[Daniel Skubal]

This is just speculation, but I have a feeling that the price of the cards will drop dramatically by the release date. I have a feeling that Panasonic is trying to get contract negotiations set up with major news corps to adopt the p2 cards. Once Pana gets some security from these corps, they will lower the price to somewhere in the hundreds.

[Luis Caffesse]

"Anyway, just for the record, it's easy to say "How hard can it be to implement a smart FW drive controller", but it's not necessarily true"

Just to be clear, I wasn't saying it would be easy...I asked how hard it would be because I have no idea.

[Neil Rowe]

... of course it would be great to see a lower price.. which i too am sure will happen at some point, but I still think one should come with the cam. :)

[pacificstreet]

What I find interesting is that, pretty much from the get-go, storage whether it be P2 or external HD has been the dominant factor in the purchase decision process by most potential buyers.

For the life of me, I can't understand why Panasonic haven't bulked up the initial cost of the camera to make a more dramatically reduced, or negative, margin on the included cards but get everyone hooked on the format. I know that the projected price of circa $10K is the bundle with two cards but, straight from the off, this is leading the debate towards "wow, these cards are over $2k a pop" and that is becoming the dominant debate.

Realistically, if the price of this camera was $7500 but you had to have the 2 cards bundled, then I don't think it would stop most of us buying it. The attraction is in what its capable of image-wise for under $10K is what is exciting us. What it would do though, is sell us on the great leap forward that P2 represents and from that point, we would all be hooked into buying more cards and, more importantly for Panasonic, hooked into the format. By that, I mean that we would all be a ready market for them to sell P2 field editors, P2>HD auto copiers etc. etc. Long term, I feel that this is better for Panasonic as, as it currently stands, if we don't bite at over $2K a card, we will bumble along with our frankenstein external drive scenarios, miss the attraction of P2 compeletely and its then likely that we won't be biting at all until they are about a quarter of that price. With low take up, it might never be able to reach that price point.

When I buy my mobile phone, I'm not stupid enough to believe that the phone company is manufacturing them for $0.00 and hence can sell them at that, I know that they want me to get into using it and then they'll make their money back over that usage period. Even when the phones are $0.00, we still need some inclusive air-time to get us to see the beauty of having a mobile phone and spend some more. I see it the same way with this camera and the P2 cards.

The advantage of solid state recording media is an absolute no-brainer once you have used it. If you put a dollar value on your time, the digitization time-saving will quickly make the media cost-effective but those sort of benefits will sadly be missed if the entry cost to ownership is so high.

With regard to external hard drive devices, again I have to look to Panasonic for a solution. If you or I tried to make this camera, how much would it cost ? A LOT more than $5995 that's for sure. In the same way, how many of us think, if we are being honest, that the Firestore devices are overpriced in comparison to similar functionality of mass market products such as the i-pod ? The answer in both cases of course is economies of scale, both in design, manufacture and sales. So why are we sitting with fingers crossed that someone like Focus is going to step into the breach and come up with a viable external HD ? Why on earth are Panasonic not showing us a ready to go enclosure for, say, $450.00 that we would all leap on ?

To me, they can't have it both ways. If the lack of their own HD enclosure is to guerilla market the P2 route then, fine, reduce the cost of ownership of P2 in the immediate purchase proposition. If not, then produce the HD enclosure so that we can realistically, from a cost perspective, be enjoying the full performance of this camera from day one.

For me, I'd rather go the P2 route and would be prepared to pay a like for like price with current SD cards, with the expectation for it to fall in accordance in the future. Taking B&H as a price indicator, that would equate to around $750 for the 8 gig card. Anything beyond that and it's hard not to feel that you are being taken advantage of and when Panasonic are trying to encourage me to get into P2 for the long-haul, thats not the best starting point.

[Neil Rowe]

i think they should bundle one single 4GB card with the camera. .. that allows you to shoot HD out of the box, and you can dunp to an externall HDD and could start shooting a dramatic feature or anything else requireing 4min or less of continuous take time out of the box..
..nobody likes "batteries not included"

ps. ..im not referring to the movie..

[David Jimerson]

Ya know . . .

At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )

I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .

And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.

I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)

[Mediacre]

Ya know . . .

At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )

I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .

And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.

I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)


Well, I wouln't do that. To pay basically the double of a DVX just because of 16:9 wouldn't be a good deal for me. I would just buy an anamorphic adapter if I really, really needed 16:9 and wait till P2 drops. Maybe by then, we would even have better cameras available.

[PaulC]

PacificStreet: You're 100% on the mark. My point in another thread is that if you had a cheap P2 Store that could do 70GB (instead of 60GB) and you had cheap 8GB (or, preferably 16GB) P2 cards, both of those items only slightly above cost of manufacture (which they **clearly** are not), then people would buy into the "P2 upgrade path" story. Fitting 4 of the 16GB cards into your 70 GB P2 Store (as opposed to only 3+ into the 60GB Store), would mean that you'd have people buying 3 or 4 Stores and 3 or 4 cards. With this setup, you could shoot for a day and be happy. As it stands now, someone not willing to lug a laptop or other non-portable powered storage system around is not likely to buy this camera, in my opinion.

If you can't get 4 hours of footage with just battery power without too great an expense, I predict that sales of this camera will disappoint very much.

[Neil Rowe]

Ya know . . .

At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )

I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .

And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.

I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)

me too... but i wouldnt enjoy it as much:laugh: ..somehow id enjoy it less. .. one can only justify so much money to their wife. constantly adding stuff makes jack the devil. lol

[David Jimerson]

Well, I wouln't do that. To pay basically the double of a DVX just because of 16:9 wouldn't be a good deal for me. I would just buy an anamorphic adapter if I really, really needed 16:9 and wait till P2 drops. Maybe by then, we would even have better cameras available.

I didn’t mean it quite like that. I meant that even if I can’t take advantage of the HD capabilities immediately (which is not to say I won’t be able to, but if), having a 16:9 DVX for about $1500 more than the price of a DVX and the 16:9 adapter (figuring $5500 street price vs. $4000 for the DVX/adapter combo), knowing that I will be able to take advantage of the HD later . . . not to mention the color space, etc., that I can take advantage of right away, without going to HD, it’s an outstanding value at the price. It really is three cameras in one, which can be used immediately no matter the P2 dilemma.

If I were deciding between it and the DVX (which I’m not), I’m pretty sure that calculus would tip the scales.

[braw]

And the thanks Panasonic gets for giving us this cool, unprecedented feature? Abusive beraters, who will try to cheat the system and then complain loudly and frequently when their cheat doesn't work. A compatible-model, high-speed hard disk might cost $80, but they'll find some slow, underpowered 4200-rpm drive on "special" at NewEgg for $39, and guess what -- it's too slow and won't work. And who will they blame?

My god Barry, you're sooo right on. No one is ever satisfied with anything. That's the nature of consumers though. Everyone wants liquid gold at frosty shit prices.

My take is along yours, Panasonic should make the architecture open enough for people or 3rd party vendors to create "hack cards" for the HVX. Like a P2 style card that controls an off the shelf drive. This way if it doesn't work Panasonic doesn't get the brunt of it because someone elses stuf is faulty. However, this opens the door for others to make kick ass products and make some money too. This would then make the HVX a "hackable" camera thus driving up sales as most "elite hackmasters" and cheapskate videographers and filmmakers think they're getting away with something.

Panasonic would win no matter what.

[kyle_doris]

A) that doesn't necessarily rule out USB2 control of a hard disk.

B) no other camera can do it, so if Panasonic does, it'd be unprecedented anyway.

C) I fully predict that if the camera doesn't allow for it directly, someone will engineer a device that plugs into the P2 slot and has a USB2 or Firewire port on it, which *will* allow you to record directly to an off-the-shelf hard disk. That device would take care of whatever electronics/intelligence that the camera needs to see and the drive needs.

In fact, we should probably start lobbying Focus to get them to produce exactly that product!

it's funny have been thinking this would be the route from day 1 before someone mentioned going direclty via the firewire/usb2.

[Bart_Boge]

For not much more than what a FireStore drive would cost, a person could buy a PowerBook and a makeshift RAID array with 200+GB space on it. The PowerBook could double as a large monitor as well (although the videoRAM would choke on HD and frame rates would be sporadic on the LCD).

For independent filmmaking, this would not be necessary, as the cinematic shoot workflow involves setting up and shooting shots of usually less than 60 seconds each. Offloading the P2 between set-ups would be no problem for an assistant. It is just a part of the process we'll have to ge used to, like loading film magazines for 16 & 35mm shoots. I am a believer in the Barry Green philosophy that this new way of working in video will be revolutionary. P2s are a good thing--even the small buggers. They allow us 1080p/24fps for less than $10k all in. Damn!

For us event videographers, a cobbled-together HD solution will be possible, I'm sure. We'll just have to test and retest our systems to make sure they can handle the data rate in the "real" world. A dual RAID array of 7200RPM SATA drives, each writen to by completely separate FW busses, captured via a PowerBook should handle the 100mbs data without hiccups. Or so I'm hoping.

[pacificstreet]

Ya know . . .

At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )

I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .

And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.

I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)


So, if my suggested $7500 bundle happens, can I buy your P2 cards for $750 a pop from you and we both get what we want ? ;)

[Gary_McClurg]

Originally Posted by Jubal28

Ya know . . .

At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )

I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .

And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.

I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)

Let's guess that the street price will be $5,500

We save $500 bucks there
The DVX 16.9 adapter is $800 bucks.
So that's $1,300 bucks total.

You can get the DVX for $3,400 that's only $400 bucks more for the HVX or $700 bucks adding in the rebate.

$700 bucks more for a camera that can shoot HD when you need it. Just rent the cards from EVS.

And please let's not get into the handing off tape debate. It's called business or life you figure out how to work around it.

I'll own this camera also. My only problem is I just wish it was the last quarter of the year.

[Neil Rowe]

i might be wacky here, but ..i think your math is off there. assuming its 5500 street.. 5,500 - 1,300 = 4,200 .. which is a 800.00 difference from the DVX. counting the rebate thats 1,100 difference. which as we are talking about presumably only lets you shoot in DV "naitive" 16:9. I " "ed the naitive because although the sampling from the chips is true 16:9 its downsampled to anamorphic 1.2 pixel aspect 720x480 anyway since there is no naitive 16:9 in the DV spec.. but of course its better to downsample than it is to upsample like squeeze mode.. which would be more aptly named "stretch mode"


but as we all know ..once you add shooting P2 for HD your cost difference goes up quite a bit again.(unless they include a 4GB card with the cam)

[pacificstreet]

For us event videographers, a cobbled-together HD solution will be possible, I'm sure. We'll just have to test and retest our systems to make sure they can handle the data rate in the "real" world. A dual RAID array of 7200RPM SATA drives, each writen to by completely separate FW busses, captured via a PowerBook should handle the 100mbs data without hiccups. Or so I'm hoping.

Bart, its the cobbled together part that I'm having difficulty with.

Its like buying a car and having to make your own petrol as far as I'm concerned. Yes, its possible but it brings in an element of inconvenience, and more importantly, unpredictability that I'm not comfortable with.

Make no mistake, I want this camera. In fact, I want more than one of these cameras. The workflow, no problem to me, I'm right behind it. Swapping several P2 cards to external copy devices is the same process as I use with a Digital SLR and this is fine. Except with the caveat that for particularly long takes, I would be concerned about camera disturbance when popping the cards in and out - has that been raised and answered before btw?

So, everything is fine but I really would like to see the following from Panasonic at launch:

1) P2 cards at comparable price per gig as SD cards + an overall, say, $100 for the card mechanism
2) Cheap (circa $200) P2>HD transfer caddy where I can fit my own drive
3) Dedicated DVX200 Firestore style device. This should be sympathetically designed to fit on the camera (under the base preferrably) and house a certified drive that gives approximately 90 minutes record time. Price for this for me can even be in the $1500 range but it should also double as a P2>HD transfer device.

Really, I'm saying that I want to spend around $7500 per camera but that out of the box I want to have either 2 P2 cards or the bolt-on drive so that I can shoot some meaningful amount of content. Then I would spend the additional $200 on the transfer caddy as an accessory. These prices seem fair to me in terms of comparable external devices and I would happily pay a premium in the case of the bolt-on drive for it to be Panasonic authorised. In reality, for my purposes, I would buy both solutions, which would give me a price of around $9000 all up.

So, do I want the world for $9000 and I'm being a whingeing consumer when this could reasonably still be considered a bargain at twice that price ? No, because when you announce the camera at $5995, you need to be realistic in the additional costs that you charge otherwise people will feel exploited. From the country where petrol is creeping over $7 a gallon, the running costs are often more important than the price of the car !

[Gary_McClurg]

You maybe be right I might have screwed up on my math. I might have added in the rebate twice or who knows what. Maybe I should get more sleep.

But here goes again.

Okay the reabate ends this month I think. So you have a few days to buy if not then this happens.

DVX $3,400 + $800 (16.9) = $4,200
HVX $5,500 ( a guess)

So, $1,300 bucks for a camera that can shoot HD is not bad, if you rent the P2cards.

Said this on another post.

But if I where Panasonic for the combo price that's been thrown around that's
$9,995.

Here what it should be.
The camera
2 8g P2 cards
and the (just forgot the name) dump station that you can dump the P2 cards to the 60g hard drive.

To me that would be a sweet heart deal. Now if they have a better deal than that I take it also.

Who knows that might even throw in a 4g P2 card with the camera.

[Neil Rowe]

lol ... your still mising the rebate off the DVX .. so its a 1600.00 difference.

..and my math was quirky earlier too because i was taking a variable from the HVX price and including it in the DVX price.. the 500 off the HVX.. what the heck is wrong with us? lol

so its 1600.00 difference all said and done. for a DVXA or barebones HVX.

[Gary_McClurg]

I was thinking the rebate ended this month so if you don't buy it in a few days. You'll pay that extra $300.

Which reminds me. I have to find out how much it costs to wire money. EVS has there best deal if you wire the money.

I need another DVX and I think I'll break even by October unless I have to get the matte box, etc.

Unless someone makes a kit to upgrade the matte box and a follow focus ring to be able to switch back and forth between the DVX and the HVX. Then I could use my old matte box and follow focus unit.

But I might turn around and sell the DVX to someone.

Which makes me think of something else. Of course we know little about the lens of the new camera.

And since I'm not a tech guru. I was wondering how well the DVX with the 16.9 would match up being a second camera on a shoot with the HVX in SD mode?

[Neil Rowe]

..good question. Jan has said that camera will outperform a DVX100A.. but what that means in factual and measurable terms is still in the air as far as us not in the panasonic development loop are concerned. although i would assume that it bois down to it making a technically better image. i would also assume that with some tweaking the cams could match closely enough though.

[David Jimerson]

4:2:2 colorspace.

[Neil Rowe]

..a good point of where the some of the differences may stem from- if you were shooting DVCPRO 50. ..which would be my choice.

they would match more closely if both were in DV/DVCPRO mode. but who would want to reign in the HVX to match?

[ChuckS]

Panasonic deserves some kudos for the development of the HVX200. :thumbup: It is intriguing that the first HD/P2 camera would be launched into the pro-summer market. Usually new technology is launched a little higher up the marketing food chain where customers aren’t quite as price sensitive over issues like the costs of a P2 card.

P2 is also interesting in that it isn’t video (no tape) and it isn’t film but data, forcing the user into an IT based workflow. So it should be no surprise to anyone that users are already trying to figure out a way to capture directly to a hard drive. Even if it costs more it omits a step and provides much longer record times. So conceptually the technology sounds great. :thumbsup:

BUT (and you had to know that was coming from me) :undecided , I have to agree with pacificstreet, Panasonic could have positioned this camera differently and avoided much of the debate regarding the costs of the P2 card. Also, by leaking out tidbits of information prior to NAB, which fueled wild speculation and raised expectation and then showing a mock up at the show that didn’t work, certainly took the wind out of my sails and provided the competition with the opportunity to couch their selling argument of camera vs. camera. This should not be a debate of the HVX200 vs. HD100 or Z1, the HVX is an HD camera and the others are HDV. So if people want to compare cameras they should compare the HVX to the Sony F900, Vericam and other HD cameras and when you make that comparison the price performance of the HVX should be very favorable and the cost of the P2 cards won’t seem so bad.

Panasonic has done a terrible job of marketing this product. Many people believe that even bad PR is good PR, but when I rushed over to the Panasonic booth to see the HVX that DID NOT WORK and then walked 50 feet to play with six JVC HD100s that did – I’m thinking that Panasonic did a great job of setting expectations that JVC was in a much better position to meet. Panasonic created a demand for a product that they could not fulfill – marketing 101… :cry:

[ullanta]

You know, I'm no electrical engineer, but I am a software one. I really don't believe that adding a controller system to the HVX so it can use Firewire drives, is really that hard. Maybe it's a bit expensive so they don't do it, but really, I don't believe it's that hard. There is code on the HVX to write to P2, so it knows about filesystems and if it was designed correctly, you'd think that there'd be a way to add a hardware system into it's current configuration to support firewire devices.

Aaron

Aza - you've got to think like an EMBEDDED, REAL-TIME software engineer. Knowing about filesystems is one thing. Knowing about low-level firewire hardware is another thing. Streaming data out according to one's own clock is one thing. Synchronizing ones internal stream with the operations of a variety of external devices is another. Providing guarantees for all this is much more complex.

Adding hard real-time capability to an existing embedded system is often non-trivial hardware or software-wise. Adding an additional hardware controller to a complex electronic product adds lots of complexity and cost.

Now, I'd love to see the OTS FW drive capability! And certainly it's "possible"... but I just want to point out that it certainly isn't trivial and may not be "feasible".

-Barry

[EShy]

iamloser, I get the feeling you want a P2 card to be included in the camera...
Panasonic must understand that selling this camera as HD means it must be able to shoot HD out of the box.

When you buy other cameras (either the DVX or any others) there's always a tape included
I even remember buying retail cd writers and there were both CD-R and CD-RW discs included so I can start burning right away.

If they want to scream HD, it must shoot HD out of the box
If they don't want to include P2 cards, they can include an external hard drive (a normal box+drive is 150-200$, they can price their drive at 250$ and have one included)

[jonahlee]

iamloser, I get the feeling you want a P2 card to be included in the camera...
Panasonic must understand that selling this camera as HD means it must be able to shoot HD out of the box.

When you buy other cameras (either the DVX or any others) there's always a tape included
I even remember buying retail cd writers and there were both CD-R and CD-RW discs included so I can start burning right away.

If they want to scream HD, it must shoot HD out of the box
If they don't want to include P2 cards, they can include an external hard drive (a normal box+drive is 150-200$, they can price their drive at 250$ and have one included)Well if you buy the combo with 2 8GB cards, it can shoot out of the box, but giving you the option of buying 4GB or even 2GB cards (For SD) they are actually giving you more options.

[RyanF]

Lobby Apple for an attachment to an iPod! Is that an "intelegent" device?

[David Jimerson]

..a good point of where the some of the differences may stem from- if you were shooting DVCPRO 50. ..which would be my choice.

they would match more closely if both were in DV/DVCPRO mode. but who would want to reign in the HVX to match?

It's true. I'm actually very interested in doing a lot of composite work, and the colorspace is one of the biggest draws for me.

[RyanF]

if people want to compare cameras they should compare the HVX to the Sony F900, Vericam and other HD cameras and when you make that comparison the price performance of the HVX should be very favorable and the cost of the P2 cards won’t seem so bad.

The problem with that is everything. This is a hand held camera, not a shoulder mount. Cameras like these were developed for affordability and portability. Well, you just took afordability out of the equasion. It's like saying compare a new VW Bug to a Porche and the cost of gas doesn't seem so high. Gas prices are still high, and P2 is out priced.



Panasonic created a demand for a product that they could not fulfill – marketing 101… :cry:

Ryan

[Unix]

dude the camera is not out yet so don't PANIC
I'm a 1000% sure that the people at Matsushita Electric Industrial are working on it and they WILL deliver something affordable, usable that will reinvent the whole industry as we know it.
HVX200 is the way to go REGARDLESS of the medium (hopefully the price of those cards will go down)
iPod seems promising


hopefully they'll release HD rack (or at least a codec update) on time and have all this issues solved
+ capturing,vectorscope, field monitor etc.

just start saving your money

[Mediacre]

I was talking to a Panasonic dealer in my area. I asked him if he thought the HVX would damage the sales of higher end Pansonic cameras in his opinions. He said something along those lines: "It defenitely will somehow. People that would stretch their budget to buy a DVCPRO50 camera and deck to get into 4:2:2 production will now seriously look at the HVX200 as an alternative. And just with the money from a DVCPRO50 camera you can get the HVX200 plus 6 P2 cards and still not reach the price of the camera alone. But Panasonic will compensate that loss and maybe even make more money with the many P2 cards they will sell to the prosumer market."

So, giving us other alternatives to record HD might not be in the best of Panasonic's interests.

[David Jimerson]

I think that's pretty cynical. If that were indeed their plan, I doubt Panasonic would be so gung-ho to license production of P2s.

[WestEnd]

It looks like the ipod cannot handle direct streaming. The ipod drives run 4200rpms with an average speed of 15ms. That basically means that it is sometimes running at less than 15ms which would be a problem.

[ullanta]

It looks like the ipod cannot handle direct streaming. The ipod drives run 4200rpms with an average speed of 15ms. That basically means that it is sometimes running at less than 15ms which would be a problem.

I don't know what you mean with the average access time numbers? Where do you get a 15ms threshold as important?

But basically, why're you and others so focused on the iPod? I mean, really! It's clearly not the ideal device for this, cost- or performance-wise.

[bilgami]

BiLGaMi Video Productions :beer:

On one of the postings somewhere in here someone posted a site that showed a possible hard drive that may work with 200. The site pictured a Sony cam with the hard drive mounted on the handle shoe mount if this rings a bell for any could you plz repost the link plz. thank you


bilgami@hotmail.com
http://www.bilgamivideo.com (http://www.bilgamivideo.com/)

[Mr. Blonde]

I would feel so gay running around with an i-pod on a real shoot.