HVX-200 streaming DVCproHD via FW400

[Barra]

I need a laptop for mobility as I travel a lot so can't consider the dual or quad G5.
Can anyone with experience (maybe from a DVexpo demo?) give me a clear, simple and definitive answer about the capture to laptop via firewire option -specifically to the Mac laptop pleeassee!!?

1. Will the HVX-200 streaming DVCproHD via FW400 (1394 output) capture through Final Cut Pro5 on the new Powerbook G4? - Specifically onto the new G4 Powerbook which can be upgraded to 7200 rpm drive (100gig) and 2gig of DDR2 SDRAM with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor/128MB of DDR SDRAM ?

2. Will the P2 card fit into this Powerbooks new PC card slot: the PC Card/CardBus slot accepts Type I and Type II PC Cards, and transfer through FCP5 (as P2 viewer/driver I think is only supported by Windows)?

Panasonics new brochure clearly states:
"Simple Solution
Using just an AG-HVX200 and a Laptop computer (PC or a Mac) you can record via the 1394 output to the Capture window of your NLE. You can record preview or edit."

However it does not specify that recording can be done like this in native DVCproHD highest quality streaming output.
Neither does it give details of laptop spec's required for this simple solution. I could presume that the new G4 laptop would therefore work as it's the best and that FCP5 would capture with this as its the best, but I'm always cautious, and neither Panasonic nor Apple can confirm to me that this will be possible.

Actually, I'm not really into all this technical bull****, I prefer to be out shooting and creating, and I think it's really incredible that neither Panasonic nor Apple employees whom I have spoken with and emailed about this - are unable to answer me. This is not new unreleased technology - DVCproHD and G4 - what the hell... unfortunately it's new to me but surely technical staff in the broadcast dept of Panasonic should know and so should top level Apple technical staff....holy cow!

My worry is that with Apple the MXF files have to be "ingested" and converted to Quicktimes - that this will prevent the continous capture of streaming DVCproHD at 1gig per minute due to the G4 power limitations ? - OR please someone tell me from experience that I will have plenty of power to capture streaming DVCproHD from HVX to the PowerBook.:undecided

[Jan_Crittenden]

Barra asked:
1. Will the HVX-200 streaming DVCproHD via FW400 (1394 output) capture through Final Cut Pro5 on the new Powerbook G4? - Specifically onto the new G4 Powerbook which can be upgraded to 7200 rpm drive (100gig) and 2gig of DDR2 SDRAM with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor/128MB of DDR SDRAM ?

This should work just fine.

2. Will the P2 card fit into this Powerbooks new PC card slot: the PC Card/CardBus slot accepts Type I and Type II PC Cards, and transfer through FCP5 (as P2 viewer/driver I think is only supported by Windows)?

Actually there is a driver that will be on the CD that comes with the HVX200 which will enable the PCMCIA slot to accept and mount like a hard drive the P2 card. This is one thing we did here.

>However it does not specify that recording can be done like this in native DVCproHD highest quality streaming output.

What else would it be? Of course it it is DVCPRO HD.

>Neither does it give details of laptop spec's required for this simple solution. I could presume that the new G4 laptop would therefore work as it's the best and that FCP5 would capture with this as its the best, but I'm always cautious, and neither Panasonic nor Apple can confirm to me that this will be possible.

Just make sure you have a fast drive, 7200 is perfect.

>Actually, I'm not really into all this technical bull****, I prefer to be out shooting and creating, and I think it's really incredible that neither Panasonic nor Apple employees whom I have spoken with and emailed about this - are unable to answer me. This is not new unreleased technology - DVCproHD and G4 - what the hell... unfortunately it's new to me but surely technical staff in the broadcast dept of Panasonic should know and so should top level Apple technical staf>f....holy cow!

And just who would that be? I can only say that you have not contacted me until about 4 minutes ago. Send me a private message with names please.

>My worry is that with Apple the MXF files have to be "ingested" and converted to Quicktimes -

The MXF wrapper is off of the P2 card. It does not go out of the 1394 port in a wrapper. It goes out looking just like the output of the AJ-HD1200 deck.


>that this will prevent the continous capture of streaming DVCproHD at 1gig per minute due to the G4 power limitations ? -

????? What power limitations?

> OR please someone tell me from experience that I will have plenty of power to capture streaming DVCproHD from HVX to the PowerBook.

It works just as if you were working in an edit suite, with an AJ-HD1200. The only caution is to upgrade the HDD to 7200rpm.

Best,

Jan

[Barra]

Thank you very very much Jan! I can now go ahead with all my equipment orders without worries - such a relief. You are indeed a STAR! And thank you for all your inventions and creations - it is a dream come true! Now we must compliment your efforts with great movies shot on the HVX200......

[mcgeedigital]

I edit uncompressed right now with a 17" powerbook, FCPro G-raid, Aja IO LA, and a Lacie FW-800 PCMCIA card .

I plan to shoot with the HVX, transfer the media over to the G-raid, and then import under File>import MXF in FCPro. Apple and Panasonic have worked VERY closely for just this kind of workflow and it will be a great solution!

Matt G

[Barry_Green]

For clarification, it is my understanding that when capturing through firewire, Apple natively writes the captured data as a Quicktime .mov directly. No MXF wrapper or ingest/import issues when capturing the live streaming data.

[mmm]

There won't be any 25p (PAL) issues in FCP 5 will there Jan? I doubt we know yet do we...? Is FCP ready for the PAL framerates?

Many thanks.

[jdv]

PLEASE correct me if I am wrong in reading this thread, but is what is being said mean that if you have a newer lap tap w/editing system that you don't need a P2 card at all (assuming you are willing to 'stream' the info the camera's gathering to the lap top)?

Or would you need at least one P2 card to download the information at its highest quality? This point has always confussed me (and I think a lot of others...).

Thanks for any help, John.

[evinsky]

"PLEASE correct me if I am wrong in reading this thread, but is what is being said mean that if you have a newer lap tap w/editing system that you don't need a P2 card at all (assuming you are willing to 'stream' the info the camera's gathering to the lap top)?"

This is correct.

"Or would you need at least one P2 card to download the information at its highest quality? This point has always confussed me (and I think a lot of others...)?"

No, the only unknown is the variable framerate, in other words the way FCP or other NLE will ingest the variable frame data into a particular time base.

[jdv]

No, the only unknown is the variable framerate, in other words the way FCP or other NLE will ingest the variable frame data into a particular time base.

So - why are people getting so upset about the P2 prices?

I can see why people who film "live" events like sports or docs might not want a lap top tied to the camera, but I was under the impression that most of us want the camera for narrative work...

If we really don't need a P2 card, well then, this camera just got a lot more attractive (and it was already pretty good looking).

Ideas? John

[Benton]

yes John,
This is probably what I am going to do for the beginning - I still think that the camera should be free for steadicam or roaming work
a firewire cable is only so long , but for the initial - getting to know the camera phase
I am thinking of this solution - until a firestore like solution comes out...

[Xenophon]

Since we only need 100mbit/sec or 12.5mb/sec at 1080p and only 100*24/60=40mbit=5mb/sec at 720p/special 24fps mode, we could use any superlight laptop or tablet pc with firewire and a bunch of cheap external usb2 2.5inch disks? That could mean 80gb at $100 for 106minutes and 265 minutes respectively:) Practically unlimited autonomy and quick backups/copies from one usb port to the next. The software could easily support streaming to two disks at the same time for backup although I doubt they would implement that. And we can probably mount an 1kg pc on a cheap DIY stabilisation system for storage and monitoring! Is DVCProHD streaming support positive?

What kind of monitoring does this connection provide? How much resolution and how responsive would that be?

[Barry_Green]

No, the only unknown is the variable framerate, in other words the way FCP or other NLE will ingest the variable frame data into a particular time base.
That's not unknown, it's known -- it'll function exactly like the VariCam tapes as fed to FCP via the 1200A deck. Which means if you want variable frame rates, you'd use the Apple Frame Rate Converter utility. It's an established workflow that's been working for about a year, right?

[Barry_Green]

Xenophon, if you find something, let us know. I've been thinking a small tablet PC could be kind of nifty, but I doubt there's any that would meet Avid or Canopus or FCP5 minimum requirements.

[Xenophon]

The advantage of the tablet pc is that it can function perfectly in "folded" form so it would balance and position a lot better than the typical open notebook. Some do not even include a keyboard in order to save weight and improve structure.

There are powerful tablet pcs but they usually are a kilo heavier,. Which could not be a big problem depending on the setup. The Acer TravelMate C200 is 2kilos (without optical drive) with 12inch XGA and can be a Pentium M 2.13 with 2gb ram and gigabit ethernet.

Streaming on HVX is supported in firewire AND usb2? What resolution is the monitor view? Is the latency ok? I have never done this on any camera.

If the streaming could work with something less powerful, perhaps we could use something like this:

http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_le1600.asp

It is fast enough and XGA.

or even this

http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_ls800.asp

which is only SVGA and will probably not work:)

And use cheap external usb2 disks of course.

A tablet pc costs about the same with a Firestore after all.

[Benton]

I love the talk along these lines...
I have a few bus powered 7200 drives ranging from 60 to 100 G's a piece

last night I did a test to make my mouth water... I threw my Apple 17"PB into a messenger bag
(I put a small roll of fabric at the top so it wouldn't close all the way and I could start and stop my NLE capture)
And I picked up my VX2000 on it's stabilization unit and walked around
and people let me tell you it felt FINE...

HVX200 & 'Unlimited' recording for 5500$...?
This seals the deal
I cannot believe it...I am waiting for the other shoe to drop...I will probably invest in P2 card later on when they get larger and cheaper

[Xenophon]

I would pay $3,000 for a Firestore that used 2.5inch disks on a cartridge. It would have to come with 10 cartridges that can be changed in 5 seconds of course:)

We don't even need 7200 drives. We are talking about very small rates. The cheapest 4200 disk disk can do 100mbits/sec in its entire surface if freshly (quick)formated and not fragmented.

I think P2 cards will not live enough in order to be cheap enough. Not many users need larger than 2gb SDs in their digital cameras and this will not change in a couple of years. And Panasonic P2 users are not enough to drive the prices down or increase production. Even if 4 or 8gb cards appear. The step from 1gb to 2gb took quite a long time. The industry will jump to hard disk solutions sooner or later.

A 2g SD is $100. 4 of them (8gb) is $400. How much is a P2 card? Panasonic is making about $1800 on a controller that probably costs $50. The same controller with 4 1gb SDs that cost less than $200 is $650-$200=$450. The same controller is sold for $450 and $1800 depending on what memory it comes with. I don't think anyone believes the high quality, individually selected SD card joke. It's just a way to make more money on interfaces, now that sales of consumables will decrease. I refuse to buy anything that has to do with the P2 joke. It's an insane idea. Slow, expensive, overpriced. Panasonic could just introduce a HDD module based on 2.5inch HDD instead of a dv tape drive. And sell the cartridges that mount the disks for $20 each or something. But they wouldn't do that as we know:)

Two of the HVX compatible Firestore units instead of 2 8gb P2s perhaps? I'd rather copy data in large ammounts and only if I have to. At least those should be upgradable with new cheap 2,5inch HDDs.

[Barry_Green]

There are powerful tablet pcs but they usually are a kilo heavier,. Which could not be a big problem depending on the setup. The Acer TravelMate C200 is 2kilos (without optical drive) with 12inch XGA and can be a Pentium M 2.13 with 2gb ram and gigabit ethernet.
12"? Yowza, that'd be huge for on-camera... but Pentium M 2.13 is probably plenty fast enough. Anybody make a good 7" model with XGA res?


Streaming on HVX is supported in firewire AND usb2?
No, only firewire.

[Xenophon]

Many tablet pcs do not have firewire and XGA is 10.4" and larger.

Acer TravelMate C110 is 10.4" XGA with 1.2Ghz PM, 2gb and Firewire, at 1.45kg or about 1.7kg with an external usb2 disk.

[im.thatoneguy]

I've been playing this concept around in my head of building a rig in such as way that I could have a small PC interface, say 5"-7" with a firewire cord running into a backpack which has the external hard drives.

Do we know whether or not the HVX will be able to tell the computer to begin recording? If a laptop could be remote controlled for record and stop, I could live with the built in viewfinder/LCD.

The dream setup in my mind would be a laptop in a backpack, with a 7" screen running on the new Longhorn Auxillary display technology that would provide an SD image with a touch screen, but be controlling the same laptop that you will edit with later in your pack.

[Oynk]

I think P2 cards will not live enough in order to be cheap enough. ...The industry will jump to hard disk solutions sooner or later.


I think the industry is jumping right past hard disk solutions.

You are only speaking to one aspect of storage - size. Storage also relates to battery life, response time and media durability. These areas are the weak links for hard drives.

I am no engineer, but imagine solid state storage must consume a fraction of something with constantly moving parts. Think of it this way: How long would a laptop battery last playing Mpeg 2 video (dvd) (4-8mb/sec)? What if it had to play 100mb/sec video? Of course it is powering a monitor, but the HVX has two screens plus powered mics, zoom etc. ( I just checked the Firestore. (http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/fs-4.htm).it has a 90minute battery) Hard drive technology is 'here', it just has too many drawbacks.

How annoyed would you be waiting for a hard drive to spin up and create a buffer big enough for HD video every time you punch the record button? If the solution is to always have it running then you will need to stock up on batteries.
At least with the P2s there is a Firestore workaround. A hard drive based camera would demand a lot more power. That fact would not improve over time.

Obviously I do not know how robust P2s will be, but I have to imagine that if they are selling them to news crews etc. (irreplaceable footage) they must be prettty resilient against bouncing, running cameras, vibration, etc. On a rough day jogging I can run out of buffer for _audio_ on a hard disk based iPod.

I am excited about P2. Unfortunately, for documentary shooting I will need a firestore for now, but P2 (solid state) is the step forward I want to make.

I guess that's why there are 31flavors.
:huh:

[im.thatoneguy]

Operating shock tolerance of most SD cards is around 2k Gs. If you experience 2k Gs, the least of your concerns is the survival of the data. :)

[Xenophon]

There are larger bateries for Firestore.

A modern HDD can start writing quite fast. It's not like we are waiting for film to get to speed:)

A modern high capacity 2.5inch disk uses 0.2watts idle to 2.5watts when maxed out writing. It's not that important. An HDC27 VariCam eats about 32watts typically. Even cameras that only use P2 use about 20watts. And the consumption of a tape transport is a multiple of the HDD consumption. HDD will be in everything eventually. The cost of memory is insane. All consumer cameras and all professional cameras will eventually use a HDD. Some already do.

A P2 uses 4 sd cards I believe. It uses about 0.4watt + consumption of the controller. We are not talking about a huge difference in consumption.

4x1gb 133x SDs are $300. 4x2gb 120x SDs are $500. 4x4gb 133x SDs are $1200. The P2 cards are a little expensive for what they provide. 80gb on SD cards costs $5000 just in SD cards and about $22000 if it comes in Panasonic P2s. The 80gb HDD is $100. How can something 220x more expensive be a better solution in the digital age?

And everything will switch to liquid fuel eventually:)

I think the future is removable hard disks in cartidges. About $500 for 5x80gb ones or 500minutes 1080p DVCProHD. I think it's a logical cost. If somebody does not provide it soon enough I will hack it out of an existing hard disk based solution one of these days. It will cost about $2500 which is still not expensive. Compared to $110,000 for a P2 based solution it makes sense:)

[Xenophon]

btw, 2.5inch HDD can take 900 G/1ms when they are not in power compared to 1500G for P2s. And 1.8inch HDD can take 1500G/1ms which should be the same with P2s. Panasonic does not even document the shock properly. 1500G how many ms? It is not operating shock since the connection or the camera would not be able to take it. Sounds like marketing to me which an insanely expensive product would surely need. Their P2 download units use a HDD also so they are not that safe? :) In a proper cartridge HDD could take a lot more than 900G/1ms. When you are using them in a camera they can take a lot less (250G/2ms for reading), but you really drop the camera off buildings while shooting? Most cameramen I know are so emotionally connected with their camera they wouldn't even give it 2Gs:)

[mmm]

I think P2 should have allowed the use of HDD and solid state in the same "card format." I could have eased prices until solid state prices fall.

However, I think HDD are actually on the way out now. I think everything will be going solid state. Give it maybe 10-15 years.

[Xenophon]

PCMCIA today can only fit 0.65inch hard disks at 5gb with 1/3 the speed DVCPROHD needs. 2.5inch is a much safer bet. 120gb already, cheap and quite fast.

Memory recording is a mid market thing. The high end (uncompressed HD) is already on hard disk today and the low end (consumer camcorders) has already taken steps to hard disk recording with some new models this year.

I believe P2 will die much sooner than we expect. Optical media recording could survive for a few years.

[Konrad]

I believe P2 will die much sooner than we expect. Optical media recording could survive for a few years.

Did you read the tech section of the NYT on NAND today? What's NAND? NAND is the memory chip in a P2 Card. The big boys are betting over $38 Billion that NAND is not going away.

"Chang-Gyu Hwang, chief executive of Samsung's chip business, caused some eyebrows to rise in skepticism in September when he predicted that the chips would soon hold enough data to make hard-disk drives obsolete"

Samsung is the iPod Nano memory vendor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/technology/12flash.html?pagewanted=1

[Xenophon]

A 4gb sd card is $700 and can do 20mb/sec. An 80gb hdd is $100 and can do slightly better speed in its slowest point. This is 20x more storage at 1/7 the price. 140x leaps in price/performance do not happen within one or two years.

I have a desktop raid here that is 2TByte and does 500mb/sec when it is empty and about 280mb/sec when it is full. It cost $1300. A lot less than an 8gb P2.

You can do a 32gb storage solution for laptops using SD. It will even outperform a normal HDD. But I don't think I will find one on these in my next laptop when the cost is $6000 at least compared to $100!

A 12gb CF card is $5000 and quite slow. The price of this dropped 66% in 14 months, but the drop was from $15,000 to $5,000:) It will take 6 years till it reaches the cost of a normal HDD at this rate. How large/fast/cheap will hard disks be by then?

Samsung will probably make more flash and sram memory to meet demand and even produce less normal memory since it does not pay that well these days with all the competition. That doesn't mean much really. Perhaps they will intoduce a NAND based HDD in cooperation for microsoft. They actually did a prototype at 1gb. But that will actually be a HDD. With plates, heads and eveything. They are working on ways to improve hdd using memory. The principle is simple. It is a normal HDD that uses a NAND buffer that is part of the storage. It does not need to be written to hdd. This will drive consumption down since it might reduce access to the disk in some typical uses.

NAND and other memory technologies will certainly not go away. But they will cover the consumer sector. Small size, low weight, high price. Mp3 players and digital cameras. These applications don't need much memory and are happy with a few gigabytes. I don't see any future in these technologies in professional video or servers. It will take more than 15 years till this becomes a possibility. The pro video market is very small and tends to develop at the minimum of speed. I can't think of a reason Panasonic would make such a big marketing mistake with P2. They just wanted to be different than Sony and all the others I believe. Somebody wanted a new technology and they "invented" one.

[Jarred Land]

I think your wrong on a few points Xenophon.. but most importantly the reasons behind Panasonic's P2 creation reasons.

P2 cards came out in the SD world on the SPX as a fast way to go from no digitizing on the field in remote applications for almost instant capture to air. The "container" needed to be incredible rugged.. hard drives wouldn't cut it out in the desert in the blowing sand and heat or in the middle of some hostile ENG situations. Optical solutions would just not hold up. P2 was marketed as an incredibly strong storage medium with zero capture times, and when it was used to store SD DVCpro the runtimes on 4gb cards fit into most people workflow without problems.

As for using SD cards.. it was brilliant. Panasonic could leave the development of larger, faster SD cards to the consortum, and focus on other things, like the HVX. Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba along with 700 other companies in the SD association (open standards mind you) insure a healthy R&D.

P2 cards, with demand from the consumer market will continue to expand in storage capacity and lower in price. SD cards wont go anywhere for along time.. it has replaced compact flash and Smartmedia cards as the storage standard.

If anything P2, with this HD implementation is just a little ahead of its time.. its creating a camera and storage system that will just mature rather than become extinct. Its kinda like all these HD televisions being sold with HDMI inputs.

4gb cards are out now.. which when put into P2 form will allow for 30 minutes of 1080 DVCpro HD recording when used it 2 slots. Remember, HDCAM camera tapes are 40 minutes.. so the playing grounds even out, and the cost factor disipates when you consider the re-use factor. tape doesnt get cheaper either.. it never has. P2 cards will though, as every year passes.

[Xenophon]

4gb P2 contain $250 worth of Sds and cost $650.
8gb P2 contain $700 worth of SDs and cost more than $2000.

I don't think the 16gb P2 will be cheaper than $5000 since the SDs cost about $2800. We are talking about $10,000 for 30 minutes.

I don't see the "few points in which I'm wrong". I gave some facts on price/performance and speculated about the future. If you think I'm wrong it has to be on facts and not on speculation, I believe. Anyone can speculate and your speculation is as valid as mine. So, is there something wrong with the facts?

[Jan_Crittenden]

4gb P2 contain $250 worth of Sds and cost $650.
8gb P2 contain $700 worth of SDs and cost more than $2000.
I don't think the 16gb P2 will be cheaper than $5000 since the SDs cost about $2800. We are talking about $10,000 for 30 minutes.
I don't see the "few points in which I'm wrong". I gave some facts on price/performance and speculated about the future. If you think I'm wrong it has to be on facts and not on speculation, I believe. Anyone can speculate and your speculation is as valid as mine. So, is there something wrong with the facts?

I don't know if calling your "facts" wrong is the right word. I will say that your post would lead people to believe that your information is based on fact, although it is based on fluff. Saying that the 16GB card has to cost $5000, is frankly speculation and attempts to launch another fear induced thread about how expensive the P2 cards are. The 8GB cards were initially introduced at NAB at $2750, now they are at $2200, they too will go down again just as the 4GB cards have. Since the value you have for the price of the SD media within the cards is suspect (since I don't believe you are in our procurement office in Japan) you are going with the pop-culture version of what you think to be true. Think again. Your pricing is speculation and not facts.


Best regards,

Jan

[Xenophon]

The 8gb P2 cost $2750 in May and they cost $2200 now. It's so generous of Panasonic to do a 20% cut after half a year. The prices of 2gb SD went down by that amount also. What's your point? If the 8gb card went down 20% every six months it will still cost $1408 a year from now.

Panasonic is selling an 8gb P2 that costs $2200 and I can buy 8bg in 2gb SDs retail for $700. That's 314% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact.

Panasonic is also selling an 4gb P2 that costs $650 euros and I can buy 4gb in 1gb sds for $250. That's 260% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact also.

The 16gb card is a product from the same company and will be priced by the same people. I speculated that a 16gb card will probably cost more than $5,000 because the cost of memory is $2800 today. I should have said that since it will be the top of the line card, like the 8gb is now, and using short supply memory chips, it would cost $2800*3.14=$8792 at least if it was released tomorrow since companies do not change profit margins easily when demand is so high. On the contrary.

Isn't the Panasonic markup quite large on P2 cards? What makes you think panasonic will release a 16gb card really cheap? If you have a better guess or inside information you should share it with us. My estimation is based on the pricing of the 4gb and 8gb cards since that's the only thing I can use as a guide. I dunno how much cheaper the cards are to Panasonic. Perhaps you could help us there. But if panasonic is making even more profit on P2s (P@s) to cover the marketing campaign, it's Panasonic's problem and not mine (if I don't buy a P2 that is).

This post will remain here till the 16gb P2 card will be released and I will gladly repost it to the front page when the card comes out. We will all see how much it will cost. Your response will remain here also.

Btw, you should read some books on marketing. Your cheap 16gb card viewpoint is not helping 8gb P2 sales. You are supposed to market the P2s as a cheap and effective new format, not reduce sales.

And my final estimates so when we can compare later on:)

Panasonic 16gb P2, january 2006: $5000, July 2006: $4000.

[ransom]

I thought the SD memory in the P2 cards were more expensive than the standard SD cards you can buy retail because performance specs were tighter?

[Jarred Land]

I thought the SD memory in the P2 cards were more expensive than the standard SD cards you can buy retail because performance specs were tighter?

yes.. everyone knows this Ransom, except Xenophon. Xenophon will also have you believe that ECC memory is just the same price as Non-ECC memory, Elvis lives in his basement and that his gramma's Pigs fly 3 times a year.

And I love how in his price comparisons and price drop rates he conveniently skipped right over the fact that the 4gb cards has dropped 70% in price since April.

Way to bring those facts home skippy!

[Xenophon]

yes.. everyone knows this Ransom, except Xenophon. Xenophon will also have you believe that ECC memory is just the same price as Non-ECC memory, Elvis lives in his basement and that his gramma's Pigs fly 3 times a year.

And I love how in his price comparisons and price drop rates he conveniently skipped right over the fact that the 4gb cards has dropped 70% in price since April.

Way to bring those facts home skippy!

Since you are already working for Panasonic in my eyes Jarred Land, this is very unprofessional of you.

Panasonic want us to believe we are getting something special. It is just a simple controller with 4 sd cards. Any EE can tell by the requirements of the application. The format needs only 12,5mb/sec. Any sd cards on the market can be used. They are not using 150x or anything. They don't have to.

Four 2gb SD 150x cards WITH ECC SUPPORT cost less than $700. Some brands are only $500 (A-Data ones). A single good 150x SD card can do DVCPROHD. Those are at your local photographic equipment shop these days. There is nothing special about the sd cards in P2, because nothing needs to be special when you can use 4 cards and engineers do not increase the cost just for kicks.

The 70% price drop on 4gb sds was simply scheduled. 1gb sds are a very old and cheap technology (not for p2 users of course). The camera was not out. 4gb P2 cards were not available in stores. They could say anything about the price. That is just a cheap way to push the aging 1gb SD technology. Even after the price drop the profit they make is similar in % with the one they are making on 8gb cards. You were glad to announce the 4gb price drop followed by a few exclamation marks on this site just in time with the first videos. I bet that produced some 4gb card sales and Panasonic are very happy with your performance.

Anyway, this is getting boring. I'm out of here. I deny to accept marketing addressed to technically challenged persons. And I feel like I'm playing your (Panasonic's) game when contributing. You can continue pushing something the members of this board will regret buying (P2). You will keep pushing the camera without releasing any tests or uncompressed frames on any short. Jan will continue her definition of "marketing" and keep the low number of pixels on the ccd confidential and so on.

Greetings to everyone reading this:)

[johnc]

If it is all that simple, please make them for the members here and make your self a bundle. Otherwise understand that they are not that simple, are not using off the shelf components that you can get at Fry's, CompUSA, etc., they took some R&D to develop and are priced at what Pany thinks is a fair price while still getting a return on their investment. And I believe anyone that wants to make 3rd party P2 cards are welcome to do it as long as they meet Pany's strict reliability and ruggedness requirements. If they do it cheaper than Pany and meet Pany's specs all the better for us.

$.02

johnc

[esperman]

I agree the P2 is overpriced. New technology usually is. Remember when firewire cards cost $400? But don't worry, prices will come down, and there is always the option to rent cards.

The fact is, 50% of corporate and narrative work can be shot using 1 or 2 P2 cards, and transfered easily to external drive or firestore type device. For a camera that gives us a proven HD format with sooo many recording options (P2, Firestore, Live stream, uncompressed D4 output) I can live with the systems shortcomings.

If you want real cheap HD, there are plenty of viable HDV offerings.

[Barry_Green]

4gb P2 contain $250 worth of Sds and cost $650.
Compare apples to apples, please. A 4gb P2 card is a 4gb device, and is the fastest memory card on the market. If you compare against a fast 4gb card like the SanDisk Extreme III, you'll find that the Extreme III 4gb card carries an MSRP of $599. It's 4gb, it's the fastest compactflash card out there, and it retails at $599. The P2 card is 4gb, it's 4x faster than the Extreme III, and it costs $51 more. Sure doesn't seem overpriced to me.

As for the 8gb card, obviously those are quite expensive, a single 8gb card costs more than three 4gb cards. My recommendation is: don't buy the 8gb yet. A year from now the 8gb will probably be under $700, at which point it'll make a lot more sense.

[Barry_Green]

Panasonic want us to believe we are getting something special. It is just a simple controller with 4 sd cards. Any EE can tell by the requirements of the application.
Xenophon, others are being impatient, and I understand why. I am attempting to be patient, but please, you simply do not have the facts and you are off-base when you make proclamations like this. You're making wild assumptions that are not, in any way, based in fact.

For example: read what Spec-Comm says the P2 card is. "a simple controller"? hardly. These guys are engineering a device that works in the P2 slot, so they have to be fully versed in what the P2 card is and what it does and what the camera expects of it.

The long answer is, the P2 card is not a simple RAM device but a microcomputer that responds to hundreds of instructions from the camera. We have to address all of those individually, so we have to write software and test each and every one to achieve full functionality.
(taken from Spec-Comm's post at http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=372184&postcount=31


The format needs only 12,5mb/sec. Any sd cards on the market can be used. They are not using 150x or anything. They don't have to.
"any SD cards" is simply not true. There's one, and only one, SD card (that I know of) that has the sustained data rate to support DVCPRO-HD transfer rates, and that's the Extreme III. Even the high-speed Ultra II is too slow, it has a sustained write rate of 10 megabytes per second. DVCPRO-HD (and its audio and associated metadata files) requires something on the order of 14 megabytes per second. Only the Extreme III can handle that; it's rated at 20 megabytes per second. And an Extreme III card by itself costs about the same as a same-capacity P2 card. Keep in mind we have yet to see "street price" on P2 cards -- they may be substantially less than $650.


A single good 150x SD card can do DVCPROHD. Those are at your local photographic equipment shop these days. There is nothing special about the sd cards in P2, because nothing needs to be special when you can use 4 cards and engineers do not increase the cost just for kicks.
If you honestly believe this, then I think there's a good entrepreneurial slot for you to leap in and make your own cheap P2 cards. I'll even suggest a name: "CheaP2". If you can produce P2-compatible cards at 1/4 the price of Panasonic's, I would guess that you'd sell a lot. Of course, I think that once you start delving into it you'll find that it's a *lot* more complex than you're thinking, just like Specialized Communications is now discovering.

[Barry_Green]

And I believe anyone that wants to make 3rd party P2 cards are welcome to do it as long as they meet Pany's strict reliability and ruggedness requirements.
Actually, they don't even have to do that. If they want to call it a "P2" card, and put the "P2" logo on it, then yes they'd have to comply. But if they just want to engineer some cheap solution that takes a plug-in SD Extreme III card, and they don't call it "P2", they probably don't even need Panasonic's permission at all.


If they do it cheaper than Pany and meet Pany's specs all the better for us.
Anyone who did that would find a huge fan club among HVX users! :thumbsup:

[Xenophon]

Please don't loose your patience on me just because I understand electronics enough to know that P2 is not a miracle of engineering::cry: That would be a traumatic experience I bet:)

Anyway, my "assumptions" are based on facts.

Electronics is what an engineer does for a living. It might seam like infinitely complex work to most people but it everyday work for an EE. All the components are pretty standard. SD, controller, PC card etc. The cost of the P2 solution is not justified to me since the cost of the components is very low compared to the retail price. From an engineers' point of view it is an $100,000 indie film marketed with a $20m budget.

I said any SD card because 4 of them are used. I think that was obvious. They can be the cheap type we find at very low prices. 66x is a lot faster than the requirements. Perhaps those were not that common a few years ago, but now they are already outdated. The typical SD card available TODAY can be used with the P2 controller since it exceeds the requirements.

I understand most people haven't got a clue on what electronics cost to develop. I have heard insane arguments on how much more expensive 2/3inch sensors or super 35 sized ones would be. People should start thinking for themselves instead of buying company marketing. On the example above, 2/3inch HD sensors are cheap enough to be included on single chip $500 or 3xccd $800 camcorders. Why do we still get 1/6 or 1/3inch cameras? Because we still buy the ultra cheap small sensors anyway even though they increase the optics requirements by magnitudes. The result is many prosumer hd cameras with sd optical performance in the corners and tons of problems on the output. Chromatic abberations, smear, ghosting/flare, glowing, bad low light performance, you name it.

[stabwound]

On the example above, 2/3inch HD sensors are cheap enough to be included on single chip $500 or 3xccd $800 camcorders.

Camcorders? I've never seen 2/3 hd sensors on cheap camcorders....

Surely you mean P&S still cameras.

[Barry_Green]

Anyway, my "assumptions" are based on facts.
The assumptions you've been using are based on an incomplete set of facts. You're saying that someone could just use off the shelf SD cards and voila, they have a P2 card. Specialized Communications is finding out that there's an awful lot of complexity in the card, and the LSI is basically a microcomputer, and each P2 card is basically like a mini-firestore, having intelligence on-board to deal with the information that's fed to it. So how do you factor the cost of that LSI into your equation? And how do you amortize the R&D costs into building your theoretical P2 replacement? And how do you amortize the fabrication costs and assembly costs of building these cards -- especially when one considers that, as electronics items go, it's an extraordinarily low-volume item?

And again, taken as an aggregate, a 4gb P2 card is barely any more expensive, yet 4x as fast, as a 4gb Extreme III card.

I'll go along with you saying that the 8gb card is exorbitantly expensive. But sorry, I think the 4gb card is totally appropriately priced, given what it does and that the only remotely comparable product, the 4gb Extreme III, costs just as much. And, further, we don't know what street price is, so the $650 is the *most* it'll cost; actual street price could be $500 or $400 or so.


I said any SD card because 4 of them are used. I think that was obvious. They can be the cheap type we find at very low prices. 66x is a lot faster than the requirements.
Yes, but then you're talking about a different class of product. You'd be talking about a much slower overall product. Would it work to record? Sure. Would it work as well in post, when offloading footage 5x faster than realtime, or when editing six streams of DVCPRO-HD live off the one card? Not a chance. So if you want to make cost comparisons, you have to compare apples to actual apples. A "cheaP2" card that only supports a maximum of, say, 15 megabytes per second (vs. the real P2 card's 80 megabytes per second) could and should cost less than the 80-megabyte-per-second card does. I mean, that's a "duh" there. It does less, so it should cost less. Just like a VW Beetle does, and should, cost less than a Maybach. But that's not what Panasonic's building, so you can't use 15-megabyte component pricing and then conclude that an 80-megabyte end product is overpriced! That's not a reasonable comparison.

Compare it for what it is. Compare it against other products that do the same (or at least vaguely similar) job. It ain't that expensive.

[stabwound]

I've seen el cheapo sensorss become available ($99.00 for a 10megapixel apc size single chip... on the net somewhere... forget the name of the company) and I've always wondered why someone Like Panasonic didn't use something like that say on an HVX200 type and simply blow everyone else away.

Possible answer: Pulling data off such a chip for still photography is much easier than for video.... as video has to deal with much more data.

I suppose Panasonic could have used 2/3rd chips instead of 1/3 chips on the HVX200 at the same price, but that would kill it's varicam line.

Using smaller chips could have been a marketing decision, not an engineering one.

(Edited so reader won't think I'm responding to Barry's post above... I'm responding Xeno's post about usage of small chips.)

[Jarred Land]

I smell a banning coming on :)

[bgundu]

I smell a banning coming on :)

I think there's already a fire in the kitchen. :thumbsup:

[Jarred Land]

ha ha ha ha.. Maybe he works for Canon :)

[Cees Mutsaers]

But will a powerbook G4 have enough "POWER" to do NLE with FCP studio in a smooth way !!!! Anu thoughts/experience at Panasonic Jan????



Barra asked:
1. Will the HVX-200 streaming DVCproHD via FW400 (1394 output) capture through Final Cut Pro5 on the new Powerbook G4? - Specifically onto the new G4 Powerbook which can be upgraded to 7200 rpm drive (100gig) and 2gig of DDR2 SDRAM with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor/128MB of DDR SDRAM ?

This should work just fine.

2. Will the P2 card fit into this Powerbooks new PC card slot: the PC Card/CardBus slot accepts Type I and Type II PC Cards, and transfer through FCP5 (as P2 viewer/driver I think is only supported by Windows)?

Actually there is a driver that will be on the CD that comes with the HVX200 which will enable the PCMCIA slot to accept and mount like a hard drive the P2 card. This is one thing we did here.

>However it does not specify that recording can be done like this in native DVCproHD highest quality streaming output.

What else would it be? Of course it it is DVCPRO HD.

>Neither does it give details of laptop spec's required for this simple solution. I could presume that the new G4 laptop would therefore work as it's the best and that FCP5 would capture with this as its the best, but I'm always cautious, and neither Panasonic nor Apple can confirm to me that this will be possible.

Just make sure you have a fast drive, 7200 is perfect.

>Actually, I'm not really into all this technical bull****, I prefer to be out shooting and creating, and I think it's really incredible that neither Panasonic nor Apple employees whom I have spoken with and emailed about this - are unable to answer me. This is not new unreleased technology - DVCproHD and G4 - what the hell... unfortunately it's new to me but surely technical staff in the broadcast dept of Panasonic should know and so should top level Apple technical staf>f....holy cow!

And just who would that be? I can only say that you have not contacted me until about 4 minutes ago. Send me a private message with names please.

>My worry is that with Apple the MXF files have to be "ingested" and converted to Quicktimes -

The MXF wrapper is off of the P2 card. It does not go out of the 1394 port in a wrapper. It goes out looking just like the output of the AJ-HD1200 deck.


>that this will prevent the continous capture of streaming DVCproHD at 1gig per minute due to the G4 power limitations ? -

????? What power limitations?

> OR please someone tell me from experience that I will have plenty of power to capture streaming DVCproHD from HVX to the PowerBook.

It works just as if you were working in an edit suite, with an AJ-HD1200. The only caution is to upgrade the HDD to 7200rpm.

Best,

Jan

[mmm]

...each P2 card is basically like a mini-firestore, having intelligence on-board to deal with the information that's fed to it.

Why didn't Pany build the controller electronics into the camera, making the cards far cheaper. Is it just so the cards will plug straight into a laptop?

[mmm]

I smell a banning coming on :)

It seems a little communist to ban someone for insulting Panasoinc. The guy isn't being very offensive. I think it is healthy to have different opinions here.

But, hey, it's your house, I just hang out here:thumbsup:

[Jarred Land]

i wont ban anyone for insulting Panasonic as a company.. but he was walking the line on insulting me, and a couple members.

Nothing is wrong with a little Passion, and you can express your views. we let people get away with alot here, but the one real rule we have is dont insult your neighbor.

Everyone knows I insult Panasonic Canada all the time... so it has nothing to do with that.

[mmm]

i wont ban anyone for insulting Panasonic as a company.. but he was walking the line on insulting me, and a couple members.

Nothing is wrong with a little Passion, and you can express your views. we let people get away with alot here, but the one real rule we have is dont insult your neighbor.

Everyone knows I insult Panasonic Canada all the time... so it has nothing to do with that.

Cool, like I said, it's your house.

I just get worried about the rep DVXUser gets as a Pany shrine.