P2 Cards a horrible wallet invention

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t-h-e-w-h-o

t-h-e-w-h-o

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I want to purchase an HVX200 but the P2 cards appear like a retarded child priced them. $599 for 4mins of the highest quality video? Thats a bit stupid in my opinion. How often do you ONLY record 4mins... when doing a film/project you need to have multiple takes that can span over 4mins easily, and unless you have an army of P2 cards, esentially isnt that a bit impractical? Am i the only one who feels that way? If they had a P2 card for $800 that could hold 40min-60min, perhaps then i would be down for the cause, but i just find it 100% un-resonable. Its not the fact that i couldent afford a bunch of P2 cards, its just the fact of the matter.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Honestly, it probably costs them $20 to make a p2 card. I know the CEO of Kingston memory and someone very high up at corsair memory, my friend at kingston said it costs them roughly $5 to produce 1GB of DDR2 ram at 677mhz.
 
Not really, whats stupid is a $100,000 camera that shoots HD on a tape and then you need a $40,000 tape deck to digitize the footage in. Hundreds of shooters have picked-up the P2 workflow and for less than $10,000 you can shoot HD video that will cover about 80% of the situations of the $100,000 camera.
I am an old time 16MM film shooter and the P2 workflow is similiar to film style shooting without the changing bags. Every new technology will have growing pains but I suggest you try renting an HVX set-up and see for yourself.
 
Why don't you ask your friend at Corsair or Kingston to produce some cards then? I'm sure we'd all be thrilled to have a cheaper alternative. If they honestly think they can produce cards at that price, what's stopping them from entering (and dominating) the market?

Until that time, consider that a 100' load of 16mm film has a total runtime of 2:45, a 50' load of Super8 had a maximum runtime of 3:20 (at 18fps) or 2:30 (at 24fps), and a 400' load of 35mm film has a maximum runtime of about 4:30. 4 minutes is completely practical for many shooting circumstances, but obviously not for all. If someone is used to the "spray and pray" approach often employed by video shooters (i.e., spray the camera everywhere, and pray you caught something you can salvage in editing) then no, the P2 workflow might seem impractical (at current card sizes).

But considering I used to shoot on a B&H Eyemo (35mm camera with a maximum film size of 100' loads, for a total runtime of 60 seconds) the 4-minute (or 10-minute in 720/24pN) runtimes are comparatively luxurious. :thumbsup:
 
This sounds a little bit like trolling to me.

If you asked how everybody works with it, or what is the best workflow, you get a lot of responses and suggestions.

If the idea of p2 technology doesn't suit your fancy, then buy something else.

We've shot two long form 60 minutes events this week with one 8 Gb and two 4 gb cards.

Worked fine.

best wishes
 
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LOL. Barry hit it on the head already, but ill DRIVE it home, that Film stock is EXPENSIVE and is limited to around 4 minutes like he said. And guess what, you gotta develop that film, its HUGE and HEAVY, and its not reusable. Then to get it in your linear editor, you have to digitize it, aint free either. Ill take my 4gb P2 card with 100,000 + write cycles to it any day. Thanks for trollin' though.
 
I don't think he's trolling, just frustrated and not yet able to (mentally) buy into the P2 promise.

I had the same reservations, a few weeks ago I pondered the HVX200 as a MiniDV camera until long-duration recording options other than the FS-100 became available. I have since bit the bullet and bought the HVX200 and two 8GB cards.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about the price of P2 media and the limited capacity, but I love everything else about them.
 
And how much does it cost them to cut my hair? Nothing! Yet they charge for silly things like time and overhead on a building, tools, etc. What's up with that?

Me? I pay it because I don't want to have a Flowbie style haircut.

BTW, you can get an 8GB card and record 8 minutes - two of them and record 16. That should be enough for any film style project. If you want 40 minutes for $800, we can do that too. Only problem is that you have to wait 4 years for Moore's law to get us there. Unfortunately, we will all be shooting 4K resolution by then and you are back at square 1.
 
Sorry, I dont get the film reference for more than the limited shooting time. Ultimately the achilles heal of tapeless workflow is on the IT end which can be very expensive. I love the frame rates and easy import but for MANY jobs, P2 is absolutely the wrong choice. With BR burners, etc. coming lots of issues will be solved but dont discount the additional expense of equipment on the backend of acquisition and surely dont discount the time to do so.

I dont see a TRUE tapeless solution until solid state is as cheap as tape... maybe 10-15 years? Masters are good.

ash =o)
 
t-h-e-w-h-o said:
How often do you ONLY record 4mins... when doing a film/project you need to have multiple takes that can span over 4mins easily, and unless you have an army of P2 cards, esentially isnt that a bit impractical?
Click to expand...

Walk into your local video store, and pick a film. It doesn't matter which. Then bring it home and watch it, and see how many 4min + shots you see. I can't think of any. Usually there are several cuts a minute -- but a single 4min+ shot without changing angles? That would be incredibly boring...

Yes, P2 is expensive. But so is the camera. And the computer you'd be editing on. And the software. Etc... This is not a cheap hobby camera that you stick on a tripod, press record, and never touch until the tape runs out. It is a professional device for creating professional works. And like most professional goods, you pay a premium for its abilities. If P2 is too expensive for you, the HVX is prob. not for you.
 
Mike Poindexter said:
Only problem is that you have to wait 4 years for Moore's law to get us there.
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I just read an interesting story over here about flash memory which mentions what is termed the "New Memory Growth Model". The NMGM is an accelerated version of Moore's Law -- the former calls for a doubling of storage capacity every year, whereas the latter calls for a doubling every two years.

If this does turn out to be an accurate prediction, then P2 is going to become alot more viable. Panasonic has also announced its intention to support an interframe compression codec based on H.264 on upcoming P2-based cameras, which would further increase recording capacities.
 
I've been loving every minute of the P2 tapeless workflow. I have 5 4Gig cards and rarely have an issue.

I'll be doing some editing soon that was shot on a DVX and the thought of having to capture footage in realtime is curdling my stomach. :)

If you're the kind of shooter that hits the record button for an hour and extracts the good shots of of it all, then the P2 workflow isn't for you.

Once you get a taste of the P2 workflow, you wonder how you got along without it.
 
t-h-e-w-h-o said:
my friend at kingston said it costs them roughly $5 to produce 1GB of DDR2 ram at 677mhz.
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Yes but Kingston also needs to recoup the millions of dollars it put into R&D to develop the RAM in the first place. Raw material isn't the only cost in business.

Just look at all of the people in the DIY section who try to sell their homemade dolly/whathaveyou and only factor the cost of materials at Home Depot into their price. Those kinds of ventures never last for long.

Obviously, people wish P2 cards weren't so expensive. But the workflow really isn't so bad, depending on the situation (I can't see someone doing a wedding with two 4GB cards).
 
A word from someone who's going to talk his company into buying the HVX and all accessories:

If you're going to buy it, I hope you're buying it to make money. And if you're buying it to make molney, then it pays for itself.

Unless you're not confident that you're going to get your money back?
 
I suppose we can always find something to argue about but, all things being equal, new technology comes into existence because it's better . . . not because it's cheaper--pricing will eventually fall into line as demand and/or competition increases. Will P2 prevail or be replaced--the jury's out on that one. Perhaps not right around the corner but anyone who thinks that tape or film are going to be main stream 5 to 10 years from now must surely be living in a vacuum.

Too bad we don't have someone with Gene Roddenberry's vision and Jim Jannard's drive to help us through this period of transition.

Beam me up!
 
dregenthal said:
Too bad we don't have someone with Gene Roddenberry's vision and Jim Jannard's drive to help us through this period of transition.

Beam me up!
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I agree, Jim is truly a visionary.

EDIT: and driven:)
 
TwistedLincoln said:
Walk into your local video store, and pick a film. It doesn't matter which. Then bring it home and watch it, and see how many 4min + shots you see. I can't think of any.
Click to expand...

....ummm lemme see.... Goodfellas has at least one.... Touch of Evil has one.....:thumbsup: :thumbsup: .....just playin.
 
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