Question for Jan about a AVCHD DVX

[John Trent]

Read the article. Seems with prosumer HD, it's always two steps forward, one step back.

I swear if Panasonic announced a 16:9 DVX today, I'd buy it and happily forget about this HD mess for awhile. Jan, didn't so no. Any chance at all?

If Panasonic makes ACV-HD work, Jan says it'll be I Frame only (AVC-Intra). That can only be put to P2, right? No independent frame stuff for SD cards, right?

Thanks.

 

[Barry_Green]

If Panasonic makes ACV-HD work, Jan says it'll be I Frame only (AVC-Intra).

Where? When? She didn't say that, in fact she said the direct opposite -- she said that they will do an AVC-HD product at some time.

AVC-Intra is not a form of AVC-HD. It's an entirely different product aimed at a different level. AVC-Intra is a high-bitrate, frame-discrete compression system at 4:2:2 with probably 10 bits of precision. AVC-HD is a low-bitrate, group-of-frame compression system at 4:2:2 and 8 bits. Totally different.

AVC-Intra has been announced by the broadcast division and will be produced for the big 2/3" HPX2000 camera. AVC-HD has only so far been shown by the consumer division, in a little consumer camera. But just like miniDV was used by both consumer and broadcast divisions, so also will AVC-HD.

That can only be put to P2, right? No independent frame stuff for SD cards, right?

AVC-Intra could be recorded on anything they wanted to. It's a tapeless system. They could record it on P2, on SD, on hard disk, on optical disk, they could record it on anything that's fast enough to support the data rate of 50 megabits per second.

AVC-HD is targeted towards SD cards because the bitrate is so low; 18 megabits at the most, and perhaps as few as 5 megabits.

 

[tnle2]

Where? When? She didn't say that, in fact she said the direct opposite -- she said that they will do an AVC-HD product at some time.

It is a little confusing. In this post she says this:

AVCHD is still very much in its infancy. There are a number of things that have to happen before it really blossoms for the indy. The first is an iteration that allows for I frame only recording. (Long GOP recording does not do 24P any favors.) This is the AVC-Intra that we have been talking about. NLEs have to pick it up and work with it, I mean really work with it and that means, that it is really doubtful that it will be this year. Next year maybe.

Since Panasonic's position has long been they don't like GOP based recording for professional aquistion you would think they would only do AVC-Intra for all of their professional recording including a DVX type camera.

But then in this post she says this:

I did not say we would not release an AVCHD camcorder. We will. We will not be releasing an HDV camcorder. What it will be in AVCHD we will have to wait and see.

So now I'm not sure what the heck she is saying.

Btw, Sony also believes that in the far future they will eventually move to an AVC-Intra type format: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/f/products/7179.html

Hugo Gaggioni, chief technology officer for Sony Broadcast and Production Systems, was complimentary of AVC technology in general, but told attendees Sony would stick with existing MPEG-2 solutions while waiting for interframe AVC to mature — specifically as far as single-chip implementation. He did say that he expects AVC to reach that maturity faster than MPEG-2.

“Today we feel MPEG-2 long-GOP [encoding] is at its highest profile in size, power-performance, and picture quality,” Gaggioni said. “We are completely behind AVC. It is a superior algorithm, but very complex. It is just beginning to be implemented in a single IC. AVC is making inroads in boards and big boxes, not single-chip solutions. We will reach the same level of maturity [with AVC codecs], but we don’t see it right now.”

 

[harddrive]

If Panasonic makes ACV-HD work, Jan says it'll be I Frame only (AVC-Intra). That can only be put to P2, right? No independent frame stuff for SD cards, right?

No, that's not right, and it might be worth reminding ourselves of some basic specifications. If we look at the Sandisk site, and the specs for their Extreme III SD cards ( http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1049)-SanDisk_Extreme_III_SD_Cards.aspx ) you can see that their quoted MINIMUM read/write speeds are 20MBs. Note that is BYTES, not BITS, and the figure equates to 160Mbs. Hence over 3x what is considered necessary for AVC-Intra, and for that matter over 1.5x what DVCProHD needs!

AVC-HD is targeted towards SD cards because the bitrate is so low; 18 megabits at the most, and perhaps as few as 5 megabits.

True enough, but isn't the prime reason cost? Extreme III cards are about 10x fast enough to handle AVC-HD at it's highest bitrate - but compared to P2 they cost about a quarter as much per GB.

Even more interesting is to look at the next grade down on the Sandisk site - Ultra II. ( http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1051)-SanDisk_Ultra_II_SD_and_SDHC_Cards.aspx ) Here the minimum quoted write speed is given as 10MBs - 80Mbs - so no longer fast enough for DVCProHD, but still 1.6x that required for AVC-Intra! And look at the price, $219.99 for 4GB (list price), and compare that to P2. Especially good looking when you consider that you can get as much 50Mbs AVC-Intra on a 4GB card as 100Mbs DVCProHD on a 8GB card.

But the next question must be why use SD cards? Compact Flash is an industry standard in the pro still market, with proven reliability there, so why not use them for video? (As Grass Valley are doing with the Infinity.) Just look at the Sandisk page for Extreme III CF - http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1024)-SanDisk_Extreme_III_CompactFlash.aspx - 16GB cards for $1,049.99, min read/write 160Mbs, and available now. Wow.

Quite simply, P2 is no longer necessary for "independent frame stuff". It may have been when Panasonic first started to develop a solid state video recording system for professional and broadcast use, but it's not any more. Expect future cameras to be based around SD, CF or maybe MemoryStick if Sony, but not P2.

 

[Jan_Crittenden]

It is a little confusing. In this post she says this:

Since Panasonic's position has long been they don't like GOP based recording for professional aquistion you would think they would only do AVC-Intra for all of their professional recording including a DVX type camera.

But then in this post she says this:

So now I'm not sure what the heck she is saying.

Btw, Sony also believes that in the far future they will eventually move to an AVC-Intra type format: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/f/products/7179.html

Hi,

I do not mean to be confusing. We will produce for a part of our market plain old ordinary AVCHD camcorders just as we do today, we make very nice professional cameras, like the DVC60 or the DVC7. For the other part that needs and desires the Intra-Frame recording we will produce AVC-Intra Cameras. The AVCHD cameras will use SD cards as this is a standard in the Still photography industry as well as the Compact Flash but it is smaller in size and thus can be implemented with less geography required than the compact flash card. Since there are over 700 manufacturers making products that revolve around the SD card, and yes P2 is one of them but Palm pilots would be another, the SD card has a very sure growth path.

I hope this helps,

Jan

 

[harddrive]

The AVCHD cameras will use SD cards as this is a standard in the Still photography industry as well as the Compact Flash but it is smaller in size and thus can be implemented with less geography required than the compact flash card.

I've no disagreement with any of that, but what I find interesting is that whilst you confirm that AVCHD (so consumerish, by and large) will use SD, the question remains of what AVC-Intra (professional, by and large) will be recorded to in general?

Surely P2 is now unnecessarily expensive compared to Compact Flash, especially now the latter is available in twice as large a size as the largest P2 card? (And 4x that of the largest SD card.) And in pro cameras doesn't the geography argument also suit CF - smaller than P2, but not too small? And whilst P2 will no longer fit natively into most modern laptops, CF will?

 

[Jan_Crittenden]

I've no disagreement with any of that, but what I find interesting is that whilst you confirm that AVCHD (so consumerish, by and large) will use SD, the question remains of what AVC-Intra (professional, by and large) will be recorded to in general?

It will be P2, the first camera to utilize it will be the AJ-HPX2000.

Surely P2 is now unnecessarily expensive compared to Compact Flash, especially now the latter is available in twice as large a size as the largest P2 card? (And 4x that of the largest SD card.) And in pro cameras doesn't the geography argument also suit CF - smaller than P2, but not too small? And whilst P2 will no longer fit natively into most modern laptops, CF will?

Frankly the P2 card is not passe as you seem to believe and no it is not overpriced. When you look at how the entire system has to work in the professional domain the requirements, as an example, for just a small thing like a spanned clip, one card runs out and the clip has to roll over to the next card. This is not a technology that is a part of the Flash or SD memory cards, but is very much a reality in the P2. This is only one small thing; there are other reasons for the P2. Right now the P2 card is the fastest part of the system, 640Mbs. The Flash and SD cards are fine for today in the consumer/still photography domain. SD will work for the AVCHD but for the professional user there is a need for Intra-Frame, as another example. Additionally, there is a plethora of P2 users out there and when they go to move from SD to HD, it will be a welcome thing not to have to buy all new recording cards, but to continue to use the P2 cards that they bought 2 years ago.

In most modern laptops and I have one on my desktop, it is a PC, it has a slot that fits P2. It came off of the production line 2 weeks ago. you are correct in that in the MAC domain in the first Intel machine there is not a PCMCIA slot but I think that this is mostly due to the fact that that machine was designed primarily by Intel and the mother board was configured for the Express Card slot. If you look at the sheer numbers of computers sold, PCs out number Macs. So the statement that on most modern laptops it is no longer included, no that is not entirely true, on PC you can have them configured with PCMCIA, and you don't know, maybe there will be another Mac with one, we don't know.

There seems to be some misunderstanding that what is on the P2 card is strictly a bit bucket and that is also not true. It is a Raid 0 array and utilizes the highest quality of chips which are not even sold in the marketplace to the public, this is vastly different than just a memory chip. There are cards coming that will increase time and capacity, and along with that the needed engineering to make that happen with customer confidence. And the last time I unloaded my CF card from my Coolpix, I used my PCMCIA adapter to read it on my PC.

Best,

Jan

 

[harddrive]

It will be P2, the first camera to utilize it will be the AJ-HPX2000.

Frankly the P2 card is not passe as you seem to believe and no it is not overpriced.

Firstly Jan, thanks for your in depth reply, and the confirmation that the HPX2000 will be P2. I guess my question was more looking beyond that, more towards currently unannounced cameras such as an HVX200 replacement. Regarding pricing, I very deliberately used the words "unnecessarily expensive" rather than "overpriced". This was intended to reflect that although the high pricing may fairly reflect the extra complexity over a CF card, then why pay that much if something much cheaper gets the job done? Why wear designer clothes to do the gardening, if you like?

When you look at how the entire system has to work in the professional domain the requirements, as an example, for just a small thing like a spanned clip, one card runs out and the clip has to roll over to the next card. This is not a technology that is a part of the Flash or SD memory cards, but is very much a reality in the P2.

Like many others, I recently came face to face with Grass Valley and the Infinity at IBC, and what you refer to appears to be just as much a reality there with CF as your products with P2. Infinity seems a prime example of CF being perfectly adequate for the job - at a much lower cost. Better in some ways - smaller size, and currently available in 16GB. Any comments about that?

The Flash and SD cards are fine for today in the consumer/still photography domain. SD will work for the AVCHD but for the professional user there is a need for Intra-Frame, as another example..

Yes, the professional user has a need for Intra-Frame....... and Grass Valley seem to be offering that with CF. Just as you presumably could with AVC-Intra and CF. P2 is quite simply not neccessary for Intra frame recording!

Additionally, there is a plethora of P2 users out there and when they go to move from SD to HD, it will be a welcome thing not to have to buy all new recording cards, but to continue to use the P2 cards that they bought 2 years ago.

A lot of current P2 users seem to be looking forward to buying more/bigger cards anyway, and surely you must be targeting broadcasters with the pro range, probably upgrading off tape based systems? Who mostly won't have any cards at all.

In most modern laptops and I have one on my desktop, it is a PC, it has a slot that fits P2. It came off of the production line 2 weeks ago. ............... So the statement that on most modern laptops it is no longer included, no that is not entirely true, on PC you can have them configured with PCMCIA, and you don't know, maybe there will be another Mac with one, we don't know.

Maybe "P2 will increasingly no longer fit natively into modern laptops" would have been better phrasing on my part, and I believe that will increasingly apply to PCs as well as MACs. My understanding is that the Cardbus slot (on which P2 is based) will eventually give way totally to the ExpressCard - possibly in less than a year? Sorry, but there isn't a kind way to put it - P2 is based on a form factor which must be seen as obsolescent.

It is a Raid 0 array and utilizes the highest quality of chips which are not even sold in the marketplace to the public, this is vastly different than just a memory chip.

That I don't dispute, but it brings us neatly back in a circle.

WHY bother which such a complicated and expensive arrangement if something much cheaper will do the job? The arrival of Infinity, effectively proving that CF WILL do the job, means the question is no longer academic.

What real life, practical advantages will P2 give the HPX2000 that CF will deprive the Infinity of?

 

[Jan_Crittenden]

Firstly Jan, thanks for your in depth reply, and the confirmation that the HPX2000 will be P2. I guess my question was more looking beyond that, more towards currently unannounced cameras such as an HVX200 replacement. Regarding pricing, I very deliberately used the words "unnecessarily expensive" rather than "overpriced". This was intended to reflect that although the high pricing may fairly reflect the extra complexity over a CF card, then why pay that much if something much cheaper gets the job done? Why wear designer clothes to do the gardening, if you like?

I am not at liberty to discuss any camera other than the 2000.

Secondly, you really do not know that the CF Card works now do you in all of the potential applications and situations? Does it have software and engineering to rollover to the next card without missing a frame, from here it looks like there is only one card. Is there redundency to make sure that the card captures everything? You are making assumptions that do not bear out in the application as the camera you are referencing is not even delivering. Yes the Infinity is promising, but recognize that they have yet to deliver a single camera. And your choice of unnecessarily expensive versus overpriced indicates to me, the same thing and that is that you do not know that every card is hand made and is tested 4 times before it is finally assembled and put in a box for sale.

Like many others, I recently came face to face with Grass Valley and the Infinity at IBC, and what you refer to appears to be just as much a reality there with CF as your products with P2. Infinity seems a prime example of CF being perfectly adequate for the job - at a much lower cost. Better in some ways - smaller size, and currently available in 16GB. Any comments about that?

It is not a delivering camera as yet. 16GB in DVCPRO HD would be 16 minutes, what happens after that? Is there a second slot for the CF card. And what algorithm were they using and what is the sustained data rate for the HD algorithm they are using, and which platform is ready to edit that?

Yes, the professional user has a need for Intra-Frame....... and Grass Valley seem to be offering that with CF. Just as you presumably could with AVC-Intra and CF. P2 is quite simply not neccessary for Intra frame recording!

Well as long as you are happy with 16 GB at a time, I suppose that would be fine but most of the folks I talk to think that 16 minutes, and perhaps on the GV Infinity it may equate to 20 minutes of record time on that 16GB card, is just not enough time. With no rollover to the next slot, how do you stop the interviewee when they are on a roll. The P2 system is designed for larger data rates and faster transfers and longer record times. On the HVX200 that interview can go out to a "capture now" window on a Mac or PC as it is a standard algorithm available on either platform. In the long term, the P2 card will grow to 32GB, 64 GB and then ulitmately 128GB.

A lot of current P2 users seem to be looking forward to buying more/bigger cards anyway, and surely you must be targeting broadcasters with the pro range, probably upgrading off tape based systems? Who mostly won't have any cards at all.

Actually there are a good a number of broadcasters that have P2 cameras, and at this point an even larger number of production customer that have P2. And so the point is if they do not have cards they will want to be able to enjoy a data recording system that accounts for the fact that sometimes you need more that 16GBs on a card and it rolls over to the next card without missing a frame. Point is that P2 is a very flexible memory based recoding system that can be hotswapped as well.

Maybe "P2 will increasingly no longer fit natively into modern laptops" would have been better phrasing on my part, and I believe that will increasingly apply to PCs as well as MACs. My understanding is that the Cardbus slot (on which P2 is based) will eventually give way totally to the ExpressCard - possibly in less than a year? Sorry, but there isn't a kind way to put it - P2 is based on a form factor which must be seen as obsolescent.

With that logic Beta SP is dead too, yet I know of folks right here in Manhattan that use Beta SP every day. The express card may not have the mass appeal that you feel that it has, drivers have to be written for it and where does that CF card fit into a Mac? or PC? Keep in mind that up until this current PC my PCs came with a floppy drive. And as I pointed out in my previous post, the Flash Memory card is read on my PC by virtue of a PCMCIA adapter, there is not a direct slot for it at all, unlike the SD card which does seem to have a slot in a good number of the PCs today. The reality is that if indeed the P2 slot went away on all PCs, that does not invalidate the form factor there are readers for it which oddly enough also give the CF card a place to be read as well.

WHY bother which such a complicated and expensive arrangement if something much cheaper will do the job? The arrival of Infinity, effectively proving that CF WILL do the job, means the question is no longer academic.

Infinity has not arrived as yet, they have postponed delivery yet another four months. And perhaps they will be fine with it, not for me to say, but frankly I feel that P2 is still the most reliable and ultimately the fastest method to record and offload material. Its quality assurance is in our hands, not some other uninterested third party.

What real life, practical advantages will P2 give the HPX2000 that CF will deprive the Infinity of?

Faster offloads. Spanned clips. Longer record times by virtue of multiple cards, probably others if I think about it.

Best,

Jan

 

[Barry_Green]

True enough, but isn't the prime reason cost? Extreme III cards are about 10x fast enough to handle AVC-HD at it's highest bitrate - but compared to P2 they cost about a quarter as much per GB.

But -- a manufacturer can't look at it that way. The market doesn't work that way. You can't go specifying Extreme III or Ultra II or whatever. If it's SD, it's SD. And that means it has to work with the slowest, cheapest, crappiest SD card on the planet. Because people will use those. If someone has an SD slot on their camcorder, a customer is going to pick up an SD card and put it in there. It may turn out that the camcorder requires Extreme III, and the customer picks up some $20 Best Buy SD card and sticks it in there, which is woefully unable to keep up. So the customer has a miserable experience. Will he blame the SD card, or the camcorder manufacturer? (and if you have to ask, then you haven't been reading these forums much!) They'll scream and wail about how "that Panasonic camcorder doesn't work" even though they are the ones who stepped outside the bounds of acceptable use. Especially with a format that will find its way into (if not, in fact, dominate) the consumer arena over the next several years.

The only benefit anyone's going to get from using a higher-speed SD card in their AVC-HD camcorder is that they're going to be able to copy the footage off the card into their computer at a faster data rate.

But the next question must be why use SD cards? Compact Flash is an industry standard in the pro still market, with proven reliability there, so why not use them for video?

Because Panasonic makes SD cards, would be my guess. (as do many other manufacturers, but the point is, Panasonic makes their own SD cards so why not use what they already have?)

 

[meta4]

If the P2 cards have some crazy complex raid 0 array with fancy schmancy card spanning capabilities...

Why not incorporate that into the camera and just give us two SD card slots? While slot B is being used, remove full card from slot A and replace with fresh card, when card B is full the camera will do the fancy switching back to slot A where the fresh card is?

Seems like we're paying for P2 array circuitry multiple times, and it's only needed while the cards are in the camera, P2 arrays SD cards anyway so aren't we talking the same thing, just wheher or not it's proprietary?

Two SD card slots with the P2 array circuitry built into the camera spells - leapfrogging endless recording with cheap medium (SD).

Some people buy cheap DV cassettes which have dropouts. But if you specify a speed of SD, then people will follow that. I mean, if we're talking dumb people and what they do, can I put any pcmcia card into the HVX? Maybe a pcmcia network card and have wireless recording to my home wifi network?

We can't say "avoid SD, because there are so many options it would confuse the customer", that is rubbish and an argument by a proprietary P2 side, which from my searching has lost panny some sales.

But yes, P2 ensures that we buy the SD cards that panny makes. If they incorporated the P2 array circuitry into their cameras for our benefit...that benefit would be our option to buy SD cards from another manufacturer.

just my .02

 

[Barry_Green]

We can't say "avoid SD, because there are so many options it would confuse the customer", that is rubbish and an argument by a proprietary P2 side, which from my searching has lost panny some sales.

Did anybody say that? All I said was, if you're going to make it SD, you can't just specify that only a certain type of SD card is used because people won't do that. So they make a format that is as "bulletproof" as they can make it. AVC-HD can be used on SD cards because any SD card can work at the data rates that AVC-HD uses.

How is that "rubbish"?

And who's saying to "avoid SD"? Panasonic is the one company that's actively pursuing SD. Sony and Panasonic jointly introduced AVC-HD, and Sony said they would make it using spinning optical discs. Panasonic issued a separate press release that said "we'll be using SD cards". And now they've gone and shown a model at CEATAC that uses SD cards. So -- sorry, I don't follow you...

 

[meta4]

I meant no harm Barry, please understand that I respect your opinion more than my own.

All I was saying was that, in regards to this SD for AVC intra discussion, it can be used...maybe it ought to be, for the benefit and increased options afforded the consumer.

I was merely responding to Jan's (whom I also respect a great deal) comments that P2 exists in order to provide array-like features with SD memory. I merely stated that this could be done 'in-camera' while allowing us to choose our SD manufacurer.

If someone has an SD slot on their camcorder, a customer is going to pick up an SD card and put it in there.

I don't think this is true. That mentality would have never developed recordable CDs or DVDs. Otherwise consumers might have thought that they could take their old DVD movies and re-record onto them merely due to the fact that the media 'fit into the slot'.

I think that specifying a card speed isn't unreasonable. I'd certainly put up with it to keep from having to pay P2. So would most others.

Isn't there going to be a simplified system of SD card speeds, actually rated on the packaging. Finding the right SD card speed will soon be as simple as choosing a DVD-r spin rating.

I just think that if SD can work as far as speed, and panny can implant the array/spanning technology in the camera. Then the product would work with a more widely accepted medium...SD.

If this situation were the case, P2 would have no benefits to 'fast enough' SD cards.

My vote is for two SD slots rather than two P2 slots.

 

[Barry_Green]

I merely stated that this could be done 'in-camera' while allowing us to choose our SD manufacurer.

We don't know that though. We don't manufacture and design cameras or cards. They do. For whatever reason, they felt the appropriate decision was to make them the way they do. I don't know why there's such complex circuitry in each card that the cards actually take firmware updates -- that's kind of hardcore. But it's there. At the bare minimum we know there's a RAID controller in there. It couldn't be done the way they wanted to do it had they just supplied a single chip and let a computer or something else do all the work.

Now, here's the funny part -- to me, at least. You and harddrive are both pointing out how rapidly SD/CF memory has advanced, and how there are already 16gb CF cards on the market. The HVX hasn't even been on the market a year yet. Is there any doubt that the future is solid state? How backwards would it be to stick with something like an optical disc? Do you want to be toting around a 23gb optical disc (and need a $10,000 deck to play it) when someone comes up next year with a 32gb SD card?

The future for solid state is bright. Whether it's SD, or CF, or P2, or whatever... it's just gonna get bigger, faster, and cheaper.

I think that specifying a card speed isn't unreasonable. I'd certainly put up with it to keep from having to pay P2. So would most others.

I keep asking for developers to come up with a P2 substitute, a P2-form card that responds to appropriate commands and whatever, but has a CF or SD slot on it so the end user can plug in whatever memory they want.

No takers yet though.

I just think that if SD can work as far as speed, and panny can implant the array/spanning technology in the camera. Then the product would work with a more widely accepted medium...SD.

And that's the way they're going with the (much larger) consumer market. You are, in large part, preaching to the choir.

Just please keep in mind -- that just because you don't see why something can't be done, that doesn't mean it can't be done. They may have their reasons. I don't know what they are, nobody knows what they are, maybe they're technical limitations, maybe they're financial reasons, maybe they're something else. But if it can be done, it will be done. If not by Panasonic, then by someone else. You can bet that if Sony went around putting HDCAM on a compactflash card, and met with success in the marketplace with it, Panasonic would answer.

If this situation were the case, P2 would have no benefits to 'fast enough' SD cards.

Says who? You can't just make a blanket proclamation like that unless you know all the angles. How fast is "fast enough"? Right now the very fastest SD cards are *barely* fast enough to handle the necessary data rate for 100 megabit data. What happens when you want to edit from it? A P2 card has the capability to support six streams of DVCPRO-HD 1080 simultaneously. Does that SD card? No, it can barely squeak out one stream. What about offloading -- with the P2 card I can easily make two copies simultaneously. Probably could make three copies simultaneously, I should try that. The SD card might barely get one copy done. I can archive P2 to at least two, and probably three, devices in the time that SD card can get one done. What about archiving? The SD card could maybe archive an hour's footage in an hour. A P2 card could theoretically archive an hour's footage to an LTO3 drive in 10 minutes.

No benefits? Seems like plenty of benefits.

Now, if that "fast enough" SD card were 640 megabits, well... that's a whole different ballgame! So we have to determine what "fast enough" means.

My vote is for two SD slots rather than two P2 slots.

I'd vote for both.

 

[harddrive]

Does it [Infinity] have software and engineering to rollover to the next card without missing a frame, from here it looks like there is only one card. ................

It [Infinity] is not a delivering camera as yet. 16GB in DVCPRO HD would be 16 minutes, what happens after that? Is there a second slot for the CF card. And what algorithm were they using ..............

Well as long as you are happy with 16 GB at a time, I suppose that would be fine but most of the folks I talk to think that 16 minutes, and perhaps on the GV Infinity it may equate to 20 minutes of record time on that 16GB card, is just not enough time. With no rollover to the next slot, ................

Regarding all the above, I think you need to read up on the Infinity before you publicly comment on it, Jan. It's fairly common knowledge that it has two CF slots, not one, as you seem to believe. And for about a year it has been publicly stated that it WILL rollover to the second slot, and will also seamlessly swap between CF and RevPro - just read what is said at http://www.nzcrews.tv/infinity_on_horizon/ for example. (Scroll down to "Ed: And you can hot swap the Compact Flashes?")

Regarding recording time, then I believe they are talking about JPEG2000 at about 75Mbs (?) for HD, in which case 2 16GB CF cards will last for over 42 minutes by my calculations. Comparable to a P2 pro camera with all five slots filled with 8GB cards running DVCProHD at 100Mbs - about 40 minutes.

With that logic Beta SP is dead too, yet I know of folks right here in Manhattan that use Beta SP every day.

No doubt........ but they're not BUYING it now are they!?! Or designing new cameras based around BetaSP!!!

Infinity has not arrived as yet, they have postponed delivery yet another four months. And perhaps they will be fine with it, not for me to say,..................

Well, all manufacturers have their delays, and I'm sure Panasonic is no exception. Can you put your hand on heart and say all Panasonic cameras have always delivered when they were promised?

But Infinity as a whole is still as yet unproven, I won't dispute that, and the next few months should be very interesting. What is relevant about it though is that it has proved that CF is feasible for a solid state pro camera, at a fraction the price of P2. If Panasonic ignore that fact, it's at your own peril.

Faster offloads. Spanned clips. Longer record times by virtue of multiple cards, probably others if I think about it.

Offloads seem to be limited by the speed of the other devices in general, not the memory card. Spanned clips I understand CF will support as well as P2. (see above) CF will also support multiple cards and record time doesn't seem too much an issue. 16GB P2 cards may well arrive next year, but 32GB Compact Flash are likely at the same time. So my question still stands.

.........a manufacturer can't look at it that way. The market doesn't work that way. You can't go specifying Extreme III or Ultra II or whatever. If it's SD, it's SD. And that means it has to work with the slowest, cheapest, crappiest SD card on the planet. Because people will use those.

I did say the "prime" reason was cost, not the only reason, and for AVC-HD, and by implication "consumer" you may have a reasonable point. (And I don't think anyones disputing AVC-HD and SD are a good combination anyway, regardless of which SD card.)

I'm much more interested in a camera like the HPX2000, and AVC-Intra, used by professionals. Here specifying a particular speed of card shouldn't be any more of a problem than the requirements of top end DSLRs, which also won't just work with any old card. That doesn't seem any problem for photographers.

My vote is for two SD slots rather than two P2 slots.

Exactly. Or maybe four? And five CF slots on the 2/3" cameras.

 

[harddrive]

At the bare minimum we know there's a RAID controller in there. It couldn't be done the way they wanted to do it had they just supplied a single chip and let a computer or something else do all the work.

My understanding was that the complexity was due to it being the only way that solid state video recording to a memory card was possible AT THE TIME P2 first started to be developed. Simple as that, and it just got overtaken by technological advance. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, here's the funny part -- to me, at least. You and harddrive are both pointing out how rapidly SD/CF memory has advanced, and how there are already 16gb CF cards on the market. .......Is there any doubt that the future is solid state? How backwards would it be to stick with something like an optical disc? ..........The future for solid state is bright. Whether it's SD, or CF, or P2, or whatever... it's just gonna get bigger, faster, and cheaper.

I, for one, have never disputed that the future for solid state was ultimately bright. The debate is really about timescales for viability for different users, and the messy "in-between" years. And I'm impressed with Infinity in this latter respect, and it's use of RevPro AS WELL as CF. It enables such as a freelance cameraman to give away their rushes in a physical, consumable form NOW, whilst it may well be increasingly usurped by CF in the future life of the camera.

 

[StMad]

I hate to troll, but I really wish company reps would refrain from speaking negatively about other companies products. The whole "Tosh" fiasco was disgraceful, and Panasonic should have learnt from that.

 

[John Trent]

Jan,

Barry Green, in another thread, was talking about how great a AVCHD DVX would be (and sell) and how it might record long GOP to cheap SD cards. It got me to thinking about this camera again, and how much I still want one. So, I thought I'd re-re-open this old thread.

The quote below, always gave me the impression that Panasonic wasn't interested in making a long GOP 24p camera, that they were only interested in making 24p cameras with I frame recording to P2 cards. Maybe I'm mis-reading or mis-understanding this. But even if I got it right, I thought maybe Panasonic might have changed it's mind.

AVCHD is still very much in its infancy. There are a number of things that have to happen before it really blossoms for the indy. The first is an iteration that allows for I frame only recording. (Long GOP recording does not do 24P any favors.) This is the AVC-Intra that we have been talking about. NLEs have to pick it up and work with it, I mean really work with it and that means, that it is really doubtful that it will be this year. Next year maybe.

Could you please clear this up for me.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Jan_Crittenden]

Hi,

At this point in time there is not a 24P AVCHD camera in the works. There is work being done on the AVC-Intra which I mentioned in the quote below. but as far as a little camera with 24p, not sure about that.

The first generation of AVCHD cameras need to be out there first.

Sorry,

Jan

 

[Barry_Green]

Bah. Perhaps you could be so kind as to explain to the engineers, with extreme prejudice and perhaps a stiff thrashing, to put an AVC-HD DVX on the fast track!

Oh well. Disappointing, but thanks for the update.