the ram rip

M

mike f smith

Member
I own a DVX100a and have loved the camera. I would like to add a hvx to my tool set but i have to say that the idea of having to pay over a grand for 8 gigs of ram is a complete and total rip and an outrage. I would like to see some smart guy come up with an adapter to camera ram or other ram sticks. It's frustrating to me because i record hour long events and it seems the hvx is pretty much useless for this.
 
A complete and total rip and outrage?

You have to be kidding. Price tape based DVCProHD cams, and come back with your views.

There are solutions for long form acquisition.

p2 cards are not RAM. Far from it.

And in that vein, RAM for the Xeon Intel MacPros runs about $850.00 for 4 Gbs.
 
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If you think of P2 as a transfer device that eliminates ever having to buy tapes again and also eliminates moving mechanical mechanisms as a system in your camcorder that will eventually wear down (tape moving across heads and heads wearing down or needing replaced), then it really starts sounding like a great idea and more of a bargain than an unjustified expense
 
With the P2 system you avoid spending $25,000 on a tape deck. And considering that DVCPro HD tapes are just over 80 cents per minute, the P2 option is very competitively priced.

Even using hard drive storage with backups the cost per minute is about the same or very close to that of a P2-based system.
 
David S. said:
A complete and total rip and outrage?

You have to be kidding. Price tape based DVCProHD cams, and come back with your views.

There are solutions for long form acquisition.

p2 cards are not RAM. Far from it.

And in that vein, RAM for the Xeon Intel MacPros runs about $850.00 for 4 Gbs.
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Maybe I'm just "reading" your tone wrong, but it seems to me like a lot of your posts are unnecessarily hostile. Nobody can know everything or be right all the time.
 
dvx_yaaaaaay said:
Maybe I'm just "reading" your tone wrong, but it seems to me like a lot of your posts are unnecessarily hostile. Nobody can know everything or be right all the time.
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I get that vibe too. Of course part of that might be because he's right!

I know it sounds petty, but those of us who visit these forums every day get a bit frustrated by seeing the same posts like this three times a week:

"OMG! HVX needs P2??!?!? Now I gotta sell my kidneys on eBay to pay! Why would anyone want this crap! OUTRAGE! Call BBB! DOOM! DOOM!!"

I'm sure no one here wants to be hostile or uncaring, but when someone comes here and slings insults towards a product that much of this community uses, it is hard not to take it personally.
 
mike f smith said:
I own a DVX100a and have loved the camera. I would like to add a hvx to my tool set but i have to say that the idea of having to pay over a grand for 8 gigs of ram is a complete and total rip and an outrage. I would like to see some smart guy come up with an adapter to camera ram or other ram sticks. It's frustrating to me because i record hour long events and it seems the hvx is pretty much useless for this.
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Actually the HVX is the ONLY HD handheld Camcorder capable of recording for more than 1 hour without being tethered to a tape deck or other recording device. As long as the camera is being fed power, it can record indefinitely (or as long as a battery lasts) without having to stop and reload a tape. You just swap out cards and it keeps recording. The P2 cards are not cheap, but being able to record DVCPro HD to a solid state, file based, recording device that can then be dragged and dropped into an NLE for editing is a step towards the future of digital recording.
I was able to record a 2+ hour event non stop, which would not have been possible without several tape decks and a video switcher, but with a few P2 cards and a laptop for offloading, the show could be captured without a stop.
The cost of P2 is only a part of the costs involved with getting into HD. The price will come down, as it has already, so if you find you can't afford it right now, you may only have months or a year to wait for it to be at an affordable price.
If you are the type of person that points and shoots with your DVX and you burn through 3 or 4 tapes a day, only to get home and find yourself sifting through 4 hours of footage to end up capturing 40 minutes worth into your NLE, you will be happy to know with the HVX and P2 you can check the clips in camera and delete them if they're not up to par, so as to free up space on the cards.
The world of high defintition acquisition is not cheap but it is certainly not as expensive as it was just 2 years ago.
 
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David S. said:
And in that vein, RAM for the Xeon Intel MacPros runs about $850.00 for 4 Gbs.
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That doesnt count because Apple is a complete ripoff for real ram, and most other products.
 
To mike. You might do a forum search .You need to understand more how p2 works before making such a statement. I guess thats what might cause people to have a hostile reaction.
Dont forget these are only tools to help your creation, choose whats best for you. Complaining wont make the price go down anyway.
Peace.
 
dvx_yaaaaaay said:
Maybe I'm just "reading" your tone wrong, but it seems to me like a lot of your posts are unnecessarily hostile. Nobody can know everything or be right all the time.
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What are your views of the OP's original comments?

Perhaps if they might be provoking the responses received?

My observations weren't hostile at all. I simply asked if the OP had priced tape based DVCProHD cams.

But the use of hyperbole in the OPs post really set the tone: "is a complete and total rip and an outrage."
 
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MiniMan13 said:
That doesnt count because Apple is a complete ripoff for real ram, and most other products.
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That RAM price is not from Apple. In fact, the prices for PC-based Xeon's DP RAM is about the same.

Probably not a good idea to start a platform war here.

I have to observe, though, that the dual boot capabilities of Apple's Intel Macs make those computers probably some of the best values currently available.

For example, you can get a core2 duo laptop that will run Final Cut Studio, with its excellent support for DVCProHD, and Adobe's DV Rack HD 2.0 on the same machine.

To me that is value, not a rip off.
 
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Bear in mind that if you purchase a computer from a any manufacturer like Apple, Dell, etc, you will pay more for RAM and hard drives than you do from after market dealers like Other World Computing, Crucial, etc. That's just a fact of life. The computer industry has always been like that from day one.
 
Ben exactly right here.

Interestingly, PC Magazine thought that the MacPro was the fastest Intel machine TO RUN WINDOWS in its testing. Faster than a comparable, and higher priced Dell.
 
Coupla things:

First of all, Happy Holidays!

Second, as to the rest of the topic:

P2 is not "RAM". It's much more like a disk array, except it's soild state. A p2 card contains four memory modules conifigured as a RAID (which if I remember correctly stands for "Redundant Array of Independent Devices). A RAID uses controller software to access the memory of all connected devices simultaneously, which correspondingly multiplies the speed at which it can read and write.

So an 8 GB P2 card contains four 2 GB memory chips and a controller chip, enabling it to simultaneously read or write to ALL FOUR chips at once. This is necessary for DVCPRO HD video since the bandwidth is so high (100 Mb/sec). Thus a P2 card, far from being RAM is in fact an exotic, specilalized high speed solid state memory device, designed especially, and only, for Panasonic HD camcorders.

This means they're not going to be bought in truckloads for cell phones, PDAs and the like. So take the combination of exotic technology, limited applications and a one-manufacturer marketplace and you have the recipe for a "not so cheap" product.

Lastly, as other have pointed out, memory for many popular computers isn't much cheaper. The best price I've seen for 2 GB of memory for a Mac G5 dual 2.7 (likely to be my next "new" used computer because it's the last G5 to use PCIx cards compatible with my Digidesign audio system) is $250. That's $500 for 4 GB, about the same as a 4GB P2 card.
 
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Mike, I totally understand your thoughts. When I saw P2 at NAB a couple years ago I thought the same thing, and maybe worse!

But after opening my mind of 30 years in broadcast, I realized, it's different that's all. Look at it differently and openly.

The main thing that helped me open my mind was Panasonic giving us a true HD camera, (not HDV), that could record ANY flavor of SD/HD video that was well under 20-40 grand. A few thousand for P2 cards made PLENTY of sense.

I told Panasonic that I saw them nearly "Giving this camera away" to make people open their minds to the P2 technology that boldy stood by. Well, it's worked and there are a lot of us who have moved way past our initial shock.

Personally I'll be going with the Cineporter for longer record times.
I wish you luck Mike. There isn't any anger towards you, just frustation that others havn't yet seen what we have realized a while back! :D But then again, it puts us ahead of the game re: HD and workflow.
 
Yeah, I have to echo in, I've seen posts on other sites talking potty talk about the P2 thing and how much Panasonic rips us off with these simple memory cards. They don't get that they are not standard memory cards. Their RAID, their held up to the highest quality standards, there's so much more than folks realize to one of those tiny little wafers.
 
Converted

Converted

It seems the only people upset about the P2 workflow are the people who've never used it. Sure it can be a little cumbersome at first dumping all your footage to a laptop but how nice is it at the end of the day to not have to capture and log footage. How nice is it to capture 100mbps dvcprohd instead of mpeg2. As an added bonus dvcprohd is the easiest hd format to work with in post.
P2 is almost like a return to film. It puts a stop to 50 and 100-1 dv shot ratios. It forces the creators to be focused, economical, and efficient. Long recording times have bred a lack of discipline or most likely hindered it's development. The bummer is that before long card capacities will grow and people will soon have hours of useless footage to sift through just like they do now with tape.
If we're going to complain about anything it should be the 6 weeks it takes the FREE 8 gig card to arrive, I mean come on, why can't they just put that little gem in the box. I'll tell you why, because nobody can wait 6 weeks to use it so they have to buy at least a 4 gig just to plug it in. end rant
 
to mike, i agree whole heartedly with pierre that you should READ THE FORUMS before making a post like this. this isnt the hvx haters site. if you had done some more research you would have seen how people have adapted to p2 and found it to be superior to tape in many ways, and with the right helper on site far better. i have made an investment in p2 no doubt, but already in the short time ive had this camera saved $HUNDREDS$ from not buying tapes.
 
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