Panasonic AG-HPG20: an AVC-Intra P2 Gear

[Pierre N Petit]

I found this pic.
http://panasonic.biz/sav/news/081027/081027_02.html

[ecking]

As far as recording to CF card, no way. I wouldn't want to put careers at stake on a $50 card that has not parity checking, no error checking and frankly isn't up to even my demos. ;-) If you have seen the abuse I had out to P2 cards, then no comment is necessary. But I only do what sometimes accidently happens to the cards under normal accidental use. And please this is not the place to have a very worn out discussion about whter CF would handle what we do, because if CF could have, then that is what we would have done 6 years ago, but it doesn't. It certainly would have been easier.

Not this again. Sorry Jan I respect what you do and what you guys offer but this is an exaggeration to nth degree. CF cards are not flimsy little things made out of wax paper that just go up in flames or break into dust at an instant. It's been more than proven now that they can and have been battered, abused and used in professional situations. Tell the photographer in the Serengeti or the photojournalist in Iraq that CF cards can't take abuse. Tell those of us who have shot RED CF cards in a RED ONE that CF cards aren't quick enough and don't have this and that to ensure that data gets recorded.

I firmly believe you guys could have just made faster, tougher CF cards charging a bit of a premium if panasonic wanted to, instead of the strange pricing that after all this market penetration still hasn't gotten anywhere near what people (and you yourself have alluded to) think it should be at. People are starting to notice and wake up to the fact that some raided flash chips aren't anything insane and high technology as they use to be, and that's it's largely unnecessary. You guys could have made an extremely competitive product that would have forced more manufacturers to come on board with what your doing and much more quickly at that. Having these things "made by hand in Japan" is overkill (if it's even true), technology has caught up, utilize the advantages (you guys probably already are and just no one knows) and move forward with your customers, not against them, constantly defending why things are the way they are.

As someone who has used a lot of P2 products in a lot of ways I respect what it's about, and as someone who has sold even more P2 product than I have used I can honestly say more of the same isn't working on nearly as many customers anymore, and I'm sure your own internal market data and projections have shown that your competitors are doing much better than anticipated in the same space. This board is proof of that, look around at how long standing members are choosing more than ever to more heavily consider alternative options because these days it seems you guys would rather defend than change.

Now what I'm and others are saying probably doesn't matter too much because with ABC, or NBC and other broadcasters throwing you guys dough I understand that this market segment is a small and probably relatively insignificant piece of the Panasonic broadcast portfolio. However, this doesn't change the fact that the truth is cards cost too much. The HMC150 won't be the DVX of this generation and shouldn't have to be, the HVX and HPX should have been. You guys are unnecessarily handicapping yourselves in the 15k and down space, and other attractive options are starting to pop up and people are listening.

That's enough from me for now, I'm not going to bother getting into how I think all 3 cameras would be better and sharper if the new chips in them were 1280x1080, but that's another day.

I think I'm done pouring gasoline on myself.

[Kholi]

Can't say that the point about RED + CF and Photographers + CF is wrong, at all. There are people entrusting thousands of dollars of time and assets to CF Cards at this very moment.

One things for sure, with the way it's moving right now a "real" sub 10k Competitor is going to come along and squash Canon, Pana and Sony in one blow. Whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

[mgalvan]

Additionally the Convergent Design is using long GOP from an MPEG2 codec, this is a very old codec that doesn't come close to the quality possilbe in an I-Frame codec like AVC-Intra.

But doesn't the Flash XDR also record in the higher end level of the codec, which is 160mb I-Frame? And it'll also provide 10-bit true uncompressed recording as well.

The 100mb from the XDR looks very near visually uncompressed to me.

Does this Panasonic recorder have a AVC-Intra encoder in it? Will it take an HD-SDI signal and encode it to the P2 cards in that codec? That would be interesting.

[Sumfun]

As far as recording to CF card, no way. I wouldn't want to put careers at stake on a $50 card that has not parity checking, no error checking and frankly isn't up to even my demos. ;-) If you have seen the abuse I had out to P2 cards, then no comment is necessary. But I only do what sometimes accidently happens to the cards under normal accidental use. And please this is not the place to have a very worn out discussion about whter CF would handle what we do, because if CF could have, then that is what we would have done 6 years ago, but it doesn't. It certainly would have been easier.

I have to second what Ecking said above. Six years ago, CF cards probably were not fast enough to handle 100mbps reliably, but they are now. The recording data rate for the Red camera is over 200mbps, and every Red owner stakes his/her career on CF cards every day. In fact, recording to CF is considered the safest way to record on Red (vs. recording to disk).

With regards to durability, professional still photographers have been staking their careers on CF cards a lot longer than P2 cards have been around. And many of them go through rougher conditions than videographers do.

The HPG20 is obviously targeted to the lower end cameras in the Broadcast division, because the high end cameras already have AVC intra built in. I understand that Panasonic wants to maximize profit, but they also need to realize that the low end is more price sensitive and there are cheaper options available from other vendors. I would even venture to say that if Panasonic had allowed recording to CF they could steal the whole market from Convergent Design - including the Sony EX owners.

[weixiang623]

the HPG20 should be able to transcode anything that has a firewire/usb/sdi/hdsdi, i.e. you want your hvx200 transcoded to avc-intra, it'll probably work through firewire. also, if you want to transcode your EX1/3's mpeg2 long-gop 4:2:0 to AVC-Intra 100 4:2:2, it will work.

i guess it's more of a mini p2mobile hpm110, kinda like convergent design w/ its own LCD screen and metadata handling equipped.

[LuckyStudio 13]

I couldn't agree more with Ecking, Kholi and Sunfum. Too bad Canon is a real conservative conglomerate, otherwise the stage is widely set for them to come up with a real indie film camera (a video camcorder of the 5D). Canon dont have high end camera and lenses to protect unlike Panasonic or Sony.

[Joe Lawry]

I for one like the fact that i know i can completely trust my p2 cards.. and so do all the broadcasters around the world that use p2.

I know panasonic might be known to make some great small cameras.. but last time i checked the indie drama camera market isnt exactly panasonics main market, even if they do support it.

CF might be good enough for a lot of people.. but in a broadcast ENG/EFP environment who knows.

In my 2 years of shooting p2 i've never had a problem.

But whatever.. each to their own.

[Spartacus]

The sad part is not P2 being too expensive, the sad part is this constant primitive sales rethoric insulting my common sense.
Guess what Panasonic: I can totally live with you trying to make profit.

[ecking]

I for one like the fact that i know i can completely trust my p2 cards.. and so do all the broadcasters around the world that use p2.

I have no problem with P2 cards existing, I'm not calling for their replacement with CF cards at all. All I am saying is this whole "P2 cards are expensive because they're hand made from the finest flash chips, they're the only quick cards, nothing else can do what they do, blah blah blah" just isn't true anymore. There are competing products that are built tough and are quick that could easily do what a P2 card does, and they do it for cheaper. Which means at this point Panasonic could do it for less as well.