NEW P2 Store 100gb, 120gb or 160gb version at the current price

tourneestudio

tourneestudio

Member
Wouldn't that be great? Yes, it certainly would.

Hoping for an upgrade very soon to this important and location-convenient Panasonic product that barely has enough storage capacity at this moment and will certainly have less than enough by the end of the year when Panasonic will want us to fork over more $$ for the 16gb P2 cards. It doesn't seem like a difficult upgrade to accomplish.

This product needs an upgrade so we can have the time to fit it in our budgets along with 16gb P2 cards. If they come out together, many people will not be able to buy both at the same time.
 
I think we would all second that; I have been waiting for the Cineporter but I may have to invest in the P2 option. I would definitely be more inclined to invest in P2 if I could store say 3-4 hours HD footage on a P2 store. I wonder how much extra work would be involved in getting a larger drive in the current unit. I think the icing on the cake would be quicker offload of P2 cards to the unit and a high speed firewire offload method to computer. This would definitely encourage undecided customers to invest in P2.
 
I agree. I like the options of the FireStore and Cineporter, but the P2 Store is a solid performer, records all native formats, uses a convenient battery system, and verifies the transfer. I don't think P2 card transfer or direct from the camera transfer is going to speed up significantly anytime soon... just get used to it. I just think we need a more useful and logical storage capacity out of the P2 Store.

Our HVX was on a commercial shoot at a hospital all day Wednesday and we shot 720PN for 8 hours. We had 77gb of footage... (imagine if we used a less efficient format?) we had to have a PBG4/ext. HD/P2 Log and P2Genie on set to make sure we could transfer the overflow.

As I said, I think the P2 Store IS A GREAT TOOL (one of the best P2 tools for efficient and verifiable transfer in ALL native formats)... it just needs to grow up!
 
I don't want to put any funny (and warranty-voiding) ideas into anyone's heads, but it shouldn't be difficult to replace the hard drive in the P2 Store with a larger one. You can buy a perpendicular recording technology 160GB 2.5" laptop drive for about US$ 200.

The question is what the P2 Store firmware will think of that -- will it look at the drive geometry to determine the capacity, or is the capacity hard-coded?
 
I don't own a p2 store, but would like to know if on the go harddrives can backup the p2 store. It would be great to copy the footage over to a OTG, clear the p2 store and start loading it back up again!
 
If I'm not mistaken the original (and only until now) P2 Store was released a long time ago (almost 2 years) as part of the Varicam package.
For me is the best tool to increase your storage on the go.
As a documentary filmmaker I do a lot of handheld camera work, and the P2 Store + 3 x 8 Gigs cards allows me to shoot almost as much as I want for the day.

I’ve been waiting for an upgrade on the HDD and I'll certainly buy the next one, until then I’m renting. But, like the cards, Panasonic is lagging on the new releases.
The hardware used is the same form the Toughbook laptop line and they already offer a 80 gigs HDD.
 
Isn't one of the problems with larger hard drives the partioning issue? From what I understand the P2 Store creates a new partition for each card and the max number of partitions is 15 per drive--Hence the 60gig size was perfect for 4gig cards. 8gig cards could make use of 120gig and 16gig cards would take advantage of as much as 240gigs. If this is correct, putting a 200gig drive in now wouldn't do any good for someone with 4gig cards. Having said that, if they came out with a new model sporting AT LEAST 120gigs with a FW800 port, it would be a whole lot more tempting.

Scratch that, coming out with a way to store all P2 transfers into one collective folder AND upping the drive size to 120gig or more AND adding a FW800 port, now that would be a deal sealer.
 
Firewire 400 or 800 would be great. currently I can only get 14 megabytes per second out of my p2 store- sometimes much worse for no reason- and i can get 28 megabytes per second from the pc slot. I assume that is determined by the p2 card or slot, but a firewire 800 on a hypothetical p2 store would not be held back by that as it is not using the p2 slot as an interface at that time- it would be just drive to drive, with possible transfer speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second! Just think, a 60 gig p2 store copied in ten minutes!!! Even with speeds at half that, boy would I be happy.
 
for_mlove said:
Isn't one of the problems with larger hard drives the partioning issue? From what I understand the P2 Store creates a new partition for each card and the max number of partitions is 15 per drive--Hence the 60gig size was perfect for 4gig cards. 8gig cards could make use of 120gig and 16gig cards would take advantage of as much as 240gigs. If this is correct, putting a 200gig drive in now wouldn't do any good for someone with 4gig cards. Having said that, if they came out with a new model sporting AT LEAST 120gigs with a FW800 port, it would be a whole lot more tempting.
Click to expand...

Well that’s the problem then isn’t it? Why in the world should there have to be separate partitions for each card in the first place? I can understand reserving space or standardizing the “container” the data will be placed in but to my “un-technical” way of thinking it should not be necessary to have individual partitions . . . folders or directories should accomplish the same purpose, i.e., what the “P2 Genie” does when it transfers information from the P2 cards (or P2Store) to my computer.

There may be a host of reason why not like, heat, size, vibration, yadda yadda yadda, in addition to market control but I would like to hear a definitive answer. I would not be adverse to paying for an upgrade for a larger drive although if it were out of reason I would (will) probably purchase a second P2Store when the need arises.


Scratch that, coming out with a way to store all P2 transfers into one collective folder AND upping the drive size to 120gig or more AND adding a FW800 port, now that would be a deal sealer.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
Dudes, what the P2 store really neads is some way to view the footage on the drive. A small built in LCD screen that lets you go through the thumbnails like you can on the camera. That would make me feel alot better -- being able to see the footage on the drive.
 
That looks like a great field option. Now compliment that with a 2/3 or 12mp single-imager solid-state camera to warrant using it.

e
 
I am sure they can work around it but right now I believe the issue is that the P2 Store must be in FAT32, which is limited to 4GB file size and limited to 15 partitions. IMHO it needs to be twice and big and have an LCD and playback for $1500.

I just use a laptop and a battery powered external drive. Together than gives me 200GB of storage, DVD burning, P2 Viewing, etc. for less than a P2 Store costs...




ash =o)
 
Individual files under FAT32 are limited to 4GB, but partitions can be up to 2TB. No hard drives on the market today are beyond the reach of the FAT32 file system.

Panasonic needs to rethink their P2 file storage design, it doesn't make sense to create a new partition for every offload.
 
THoff said:
Individual files under FAT32 are limited to 4GB, but partitions can be up to 2TB. No hard drives on the market today are beyond the reach of the FAT32 file system.

Panasonic needs to rethink their P2 file storage design, it doesn't make sense to create a new partition for every offload.
Click to expand...

unless you are trying to control the market (which may be the underlying problem).
 
I know it is just a sample image but funny where the 2006 is.... right after the 16gig, and onto the 32gig. :(

img03.jpg
 
THoff said:
Individual files under FAT32 are limited to 4GB, but partitions can be up to 2TB. No hard drives on the market today are beyond the reach of the FAT32 file system.

Panasonic needs to rethink their P2 file storage design, it doesn't make sense to
create a new partition for every offload.
Click to expand...


I know partitions can be larger but it doesnt matter because you need to assume that everything is one take... therefore one large file... therefore the partitions created cant be bigger than 4GB. I only use 8gb cards in rental situations but I am pretty sure the P2 Store backed them up in two 4GB chunks... I agree, the way around this is a change in the system to avoid creating a new partition.



ash =o)
 
Prodigy, according to that chart we should be expecting the release of the 64gig card by the end of this year.

Panasonic should take the chart out of their site.

It doesn't look good.
 
yeah but then people will be crying about it being "removed" . . . conspiracy theory, yadda, yadda.

I'm not going to wait for the bigger cards--gonna make my own and sell 'em for $100 each. I'm just waiting for that next load of balsa wood to arrive (damn suppliers!).

;-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top