CinePorter vs P2

[500lb Productions]

Ok....

I can buy 8GB P2 cards for $1600, or I can (wait a short while) and get a 160GB Cineporter for $2200.

Aside from the weight and physical aspects, it does (will do) the exact same job (so far as I can tell). And the added bottom weight just makes it more stable when hand held.

Other than the fact that the Cineporter is not yet released... and a hard drive has some small miniscule, but real, chance of failing, If I don't need HD today... if I can shoot DV for just a few more weeks / months...

THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BUY ANY P2 CARDS?

What am I missing here?? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, some big gotcha.

Also, is the CinePorter authorized to use / implement the P2 specs? This isn't going to be another Blackberry case is it?

[AshG]

Options.... people want opitions. For me, I think it is insane to buy a P2store. You can get a great small laptop set-up for cheaper with the ability to burn DVDs, review footage, etc. All in a package smaller than most production binders. Others, SWEAR by the P2store... so... you get what you like and fits your needs...




ash =o)

[andy_starbuck]

We seem to have an imperfect and early market with respect to the peripherals that surround and support the HVX. At the same time, the HVX is so flexible and will fit into so many workflows and applications that almost *any* peripheral makes sense in some circumstance.

Although the P2Store seems like a whacko price to pay for a 60GB drive, it has been a great field device for documentarians who can use it while they continue to shoot. Portable. Rugged. Standard batteries. Easy to use.

Compare that value with a laptop and a USB2.0 drive which, for the same price, gives you about 250GB, and all the flexibility of a PC. With the right software it can double as a monitor, and editing station, and you can write production notes on it. With the right software you can capture HD over firewire and break the recording time limits of the P2. But then your camera is tethered to a PC.

The utility of these different options -- the P2, the PC, the Cineporter, the Firestore, the P2Store are so varied that it makes sorting them out difficult, and really dependent on your workflow and your application.

[ozduc]

[QUOTE=500lb Productions]Ok....


THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BUY ANY P2 CARDS?

What am I missing here?? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, some big gotcha.

When you consider that you lose about 10% of the drive space for the header blocks etc. you will probably get a little over 2 hours 20 mins worth of footage on a cineporter in anything other than 720pn mode. So what do you do if you want to shoot a continuous concert for 3 1/2 hours?
If you have two 8gb and one 4 gb card you could continually record until your camera battery runs out, or for that matter hook it up to AC power and keep going for....!
You would just need a laptop and some external hard drives.

[THoff]

If the Cineporter were to support both RAID1 and RAID0, it would double the storage capacity of the 320GB model. Also, larger capacity hard drives than those originally spec'd out are also not out of the question.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

When you consider that you lose about 10% of the drive space for the header blocks etc. you will probably get a little over 2 hours 20 mins worth of footage on a cineporter in anything other than 720pn mode. So what do you do if you want to shoot a continuous concert for 3 1/2 hours?
If you have two 8gb and one 4 gb card you could continually record until your camera battery runs out, or for that matter hook it up to AC power and keep going for....!
You would just need a laptop and some external hard drives.
Ozduc,
First of all you want to shoot a continuous 3.5 hour concert in HD?.... You can't even record continually on tape for that long, so this is not a P2/cineporter/firestore negative. Your best bet with a concert is to directly feed live footage to a computer.

The good news is, you can record for over 3.5 hours once the cineporter is released. What you forget is the cineporter is just like a p2 card, and the HVX has two slots :) What does that mean? That means you can have TWO 320gig cineporters in an hvx for a total of 640gigs!! When one fills up, the other should jump right in. I know a computer/external harddrives are less expensive than 2 cineporters, but the cineporters offer more advantages regarding recording.

[HVXguy]

So what do you do if you want to shoot a continuous concert for 3 1/2 hours?
If you have two 8gb and one 4 gb card you could continually record until your camera battery runs out, or for that matter hook it up to AC power and keep going for....!
You would just need a laptop and some external hard drives.

How are you going to playback a 3.5 hour concert in HD?
Once Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are more entrenched, maybe.
Most network shows are max 2 hours with 16 min of spots.

[dregenthal]

. . . If I don't need HD today... if I can shoot DV for just a few more weeks / months...

THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BUY ANY P2 CARDS?

What am I missing here?? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, some big gotcha.

Also, is the CinePorter authorized to use / implement the P2 specs? This isn't going to be another Blackberry case is it?

If you don't need HD today you are probably better off with a DVX100.

I certain don't speak for Spec-Comm, perhaps David can answer that . . . but I would guess given the time, effort, and dollars already invested into the project, that something has been worked out (or is close at hand) agreement-wise.

Regarding the other post on the P2Store vs. Laptop:

They both have their place (I use both). I'm not sure how much additional storage you actually gain with a laptop . . . mine totals 80 gigs before operating system and a few necessary programs. Odds are there a larger drives available.

I use my P2Store when dragging a laptop (and perhaps an external firewire 800 drive) around are not practical. I stuff the P2Store in a fanny pack and off I go. Nice that it and the camera run off the same batteries.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Ha ha he could play back the concert through his HVX I suppose. :)

[500lb Productions]

If you don't need HD today you are probably better off with a DVX100.


What if you need HD in 2-4 months? the prices won't change enough to make the DVX disposable in that short period of time, and maybe the cineporter will ship by then. If not, I guess P2 and P2 store. ugh. $$$$$

[dregenthal]

Hmmm. Well I guess you would evaluate your needs, what's currently available and the market at that time. Don't get me wrong . . . I'm #47 on the pre-order list for a CinePorter and will be glad to receive it when it becomes available but it's still a hard drive. I won't be parting company with my P2 cards at any time in the near future. I could conceivably buy more after the next price drop. The reality of it (for me) is that the P2's only represent a small fraction of my total investment in this technology/workflow.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

If you don't need HD today you are probably better off with a DVX100.

You make a good point, but I would say if you are not in need of HD today still buy the HVX. The DVX100a/b is a great camera, but the HVX is simply a better SD cam hands down. It would be best to buy the HVX and shoot SD, and when you need HD, you wont have to buy another camera.

[Barry_Green]

Not if you're shooting 480/60i though. The DVX delivers a better 480/60i image than the HVX does, and brighter too. The HVX is king in a lot of ways, but not all.

[ozduc]

Prodigy and HVXguy you both missed the point of my post. It was offering 500lb a hypothetical suggestion, in response to his asking why on earth he would need P2 cards, for a scenerio where working with P2 might have an advantage over a cineporter or being tethered to a laptop. There are many workflows and scenerios out in the field and that is the beauty of all the available equipment. Some people may have a use for a certain piece of gear that someone else may find totally useless as they work in different conditions and circumstances.

[HVXguy]

Prodigy and HVXguy you both missed the point of my post. It was offering 500lb a hypothetical suggestion, in response to his asking why on earth he would need P2 cards, for a scenerio where working with P2 might have an advantage over a cineporter or being tethered to a laptop. There are many workflows and scenerios out in the field and that is the beauty of all the available equipment. Some people may have a use for a certain piece of gear that someone else may find totally useless as they work in different conditions and circumstances.

I think you missed my point. All recording options are viable. P2, hardrive, tape.
The point I was making is this, even if you could record 4 hours of HD footage on any form of recording device, how are you going to distribute it? Lets say for grins that your old VHS tape deck recording at EP will capture HD for 4 hours on one tape.......To distribute anything for sale it must fit into the current chain of distribution. Which would mean some form of HD playback that will hold your 4 hour concert. I am just looking at Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, will those hold 4 hours of HD video? Most producers are still struggling with getting 2 hours of decent footage on a DVD. And the biggest hurdle to overcome is sales, ah yes the marketing & distribution of your 4 hour concert is the key. Without that it does not matter if you could fit 24 hours of footage on a Credit Card sized video display device!

[HVXguy]

Not if you're shooting 480/60i though. The DVX delivers a better 480/60i image than the HVX does, and brighter too. The HVX is king in a lot of ways, but not all.

Barry 60i should be buried, I have not shot 60i in about 3 years. And the last time I did I think I ended up de-interlacing the footage anyway.

[Barry_Green]

Oh, agreed -- the HVX was on the market for four months before someone pointed out that the 60i image had some funkiness going on. I think that goes to show just how many people are shooting 480/60i with it!

[HVXguy]

Once everyone started playing DVD's on their laptops the time of 60i passed.
I did have the ocassional client who was still using regular TV's but far and wide now all I see at companies are computers, flat panels, LCD and plasma displays.
Unless they play back through DVD software that will de-interlace the footage the interlace nastys will pop-up on 60i footage.

[DavidBeier]

Do you think the 60i image is bad on the HVX200 because it's chips are naturally progressive and thus they have to be interlaced and downrezed to be 48060i?

[Reactor88]

Heres a question they make a PCIMA card that allows you to put a Compact flash card at the end and i think they make one for SD cards also....whats stopping us from putting this pcima card into our HVX's and recording to a much cheaper medium? If this cineporter is doing it what stops this setup...has anyone tired it....i know they make a mini HD Compact flash card that holds 8gb and i know they make SD card that hold 4gb alone....any thoughts, and has anyone tired this and can you if you havent can you try and see what happens?....i've asked this question before but no one responded.
if a P2 card is just a pcima card with SD's inside of it why no thave a pcima card and plug a SD card into it of 4 gb and record to that?

Thoughts questions answers?

Thanks,
-Doc

[Barry_Green]

if a P2 card is just a pcima card with SD's inside of it
Because it isn't. A P2 card is a PCMCIA card with four SDs in it, and a RAID controller, and a processor that has to receive and interpret about 40 different commands that the camera sends it. Heck, P2 cards even have their own firmware updates.

A simple memory reader doesn't work.

[palmerman]

Once you shoot and edit in HD.. you will almost never want to shoot SD again. When I jumped up to HVX... it needed to have the same freedom for production as the dvx. NO WIRES, CABLES etc. Needs to be able to travel and have me shoot it alone. I swear by my P2 Store. Without it the camera is useless unless you are shooting in a studio. That is not often for me. Three 4GB P2 Cards and a P2 Store... 4 batteries... and I can shoot 18 cards worth or roughly 180 minutes without downloading. Beat that.

[Indy]

THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BUY ANY P2 CARDS?

Its my opinion that you've hit the nail on the head as to why all these hard disk solutions are so expensive.... compared to the sum of their parts. If HDD solutions were priced according to their costs it would KILL P2 cards stone dead, as such the prices are being artificially hiked to ensure P2 survival. I personally wouldn't be using P2 if there was a reasonably priced HDD solution.
Regards

Indy

[dregenthal]

. . . If HDD solutions were priced according to their costs it would KILL P2 cards stone dead, as such the prices are being artificially hiked to ensure P2 survival . . .

Well I'm not so sure about that.

I dropped one of my P2 cards the other day . . .
Let me see you do that with a hard drive.

Solid state rules!

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Well I'm not so sure about that.

I dropped one of my P2 cards the other day . . .
Let me see you do that with a hard drive.

Solid state rules!

Haha, and P2 is supposedly water proof. You wont see me testing that one out. :)

[Barry_Green]

If HDD solutions were priced according to their costs it would KILL P2 cards stone dead, as such the prices are being artificially hiked to ensure P2 survival. I personally wouldn't be using P2 if there was a reasonably priced HDD solution.

Try one first. You may change your mind.

Besides, history would disagree with you. Microdrives (compactflash-equivalent hard disks) were developed to overcome the tiny sizes of solid-state memory. As soon as solid-state got big enough, people fled microdrives. Solid state is so much better than hard disks in every possible category except two: price per gig, and total # of gigs. Hard disk recorders are at the very best an interim solution fraught with their own sets of issues. They do some things P2 doesn't, and P2 does a whole lot of things they don't. But sooner or later P2 cards will get "big enough" (probably never as big as hard disks, but "big enough") and when that happens, I think you'll find that hard disk recorders are what gets killed "stone dead". It's already happened with compactflash and microdrives, and history will again repeat.