Aron Peterson
Active member
Is there any reason to choose P2 over an FS-100?
Update on 16 GB and 32 GB Cards
- Thread starter David Saraceno
- Start date
Kasper Rye Petersen
New member
Hi Aron
I've worked with FS-100 a couple of times and there's some trade offs compared to P2 cards. The firewire connection between the FS-100 and HVX200 isn't very stable (to my experience) so I've gotten some drop outs. Further more if the FS-100s been shut off it takes quite some time for it to power on again. This is a problem when you are on a location where you have to run the camera and Firestore on batteries (so you have to power off when you can to save power) but you still want to be able to turn it on in a hurry, when needed. That's why I prefere the P2 cards. They are faster to work with and you don't get drop outs.
- Kasper Rye
I've worked with FS-100 a couple of times and there's some trade offs compared to P2 cards. The firewire connection between the FS-100 and HVX200 isn't very stable (to my experience) so I've gotten some drop outs. Further more if the FS-100s been shut off it takes quite some time for it to power on again. This is a problem when you are on a location where you have to run the camera and Firestore on batteries (so you have to power off when you can to save power) but you still want to be able to turn it on in a hurry, when needed. That's why I prefere the P2 cards. They are faster to work with and you don't get drop outs.
- Kasper Rye
Aron Peterson
Active member
Kasper Rye Petersen said:
I know. I really mean, for the money you save isn't it worth dealing with these FireStore issues until an updated FS or other HDD product comes out? Furthermore, why doesn't Panasonic just stick a bay there for removable 2.5" hard drives instead of trying to force filmmakers to buy expensive low capacity P2 cards?
For firestore, If you are in PAL land, it means no variable frame rates, since there~s no pulldown software for 720p50. What I suggest? A firestore for shooting your movie, and 1 or 2 8gb cards for the slowmotion or fast motion stuff. You won't need more than 16 minutes of slowmotion in a movie, would you?
Niels Neeskens
Well-known member
SPZ I haven't even thought of that, so simple but so true...
tmnt
King of Australia
I, for one am very disappointed that a 32gb card is the highest capacity card Panny will release by the end of the year but is it very likely they're now being overly cautious with their release schedule?
Does anyone know of any press releases from Panny specifically in regard to the slow card capacity rollout?
Has there been official talk of other manufacturers producing p2 cards?
Does anyone know of any press releases from Panny specifically in regard to the slow card capacity rollout?
Has there been official talk of other manufacturers producing p2 cards?
manglerBMX
Veteran
any word on pricing?
Barry_Green
Moderator
There is EVERY reason to choose P2 over an FS-100. The FS-100 doesn't do many things that a P2 card can do. Primarily in clip playback -- P2 lets you sort clips by "good" or "no good" marker, pick which clip you want to play back by graphic thumbnail, play back clips while showing the slow motion or fast motion effect, and play back 720pN clips with audio. FireStore can't do any of those things. P2 lets you play back clips to an HD monitor so you can review your clips in HD. FireStore can't. P2 and FireStore can both record 24p in "pN" type modes, giving you 2.5x as much storage, but only P2 lets you use other frame rates and still get that benefit (i.e., if you put it in 12fps then P2 gives you 5x as much storage as normal, FireStore can't do pN mode on any frame rate other than 24 or 30).Aron Peterson said:
Last edited:
Barry_Green
Moderator
Spend 10 minutes with both, and you'll understand very quickly.Aron Peterson said:
Barry_Green
Moderator
32GB at the end of 2007 is exactly matching their release schedule. The only change to the schedule has been the slower rollout of the 16GB card; by their original "roadmap" we were supposed to have that a couple of months ago, so it showing up in May puts it 5 months behind schedule. But the 32GB at the end of 2007 is right on schedule.tmnt said:
Nothing official, but someone posted something here about SanDisk supposedly talking to them about licensing the tech and producing cards. Might be a rumor, or there might be something behind it.
Aron Peterson
Active member
Barry_Green said:
That doesn't answer why Panasonic doesn't build a HDD bay into their cameras instead of P2 slots. Variable frame rates can be recorded to HDD and if the HDD were powered directly by the camera the sleep issue with the FS-100 is eliminated. Just need a larger battery too for extra entethered power.
Barry_Green
Moderator
It does answer the question: spend 10 minutes recording to a hard disk and you'll answer your own question.
Hard disks are fragile, noisy, power-hungry devices with spinning parts. No professional camera records to hard disk, and for good reason. None likely ever will. Ikegami tried it with the EditCam, but I don't think they've managed to have any market penetration with that.
Panasonic went as far as their reputation would allow -- they worked with Focus to give Focus the information they needed to develop the FireStore. They let Focus carry the burden of having to build and support a hard disk recorder. But Panasonic put a hard disk in their own camcorder? Never gonna happen. Ever.
E-ver.
Hard disks are fragile, noisy, power-hungry devices with spinning parts. No professional camera records to hard disk, and for good reason. None likely ever will. Ikegami tried it with the EditCam, but I don't think they've managed to have any market penetration with that.
Panasonic went as far as their reputation would allow -- they worked with Focus to give Focus the information they needed to develop the FireStore. They let Focus carry the burden of having to build and support a hard disk recorder. But Panasonic put a hard disk in their own camcorder? Never gonna happen. Ever.
E-ver.
because its not as reliable. reliabilty is more important.
VenezuelanD said:
*ARE* moving away from PCMCIA? Try finding a new laptop with PCMCIA; they are few and far between now. Only a couple of the big names seem to have them anymore. I don't know when the Express Card started appearing, but it has pretty much taken over now. It would be nice not to have to deal with an extra attachment (about which, I'm wondering: has it been *proven* to work with P2? I certainly wouldn't want to make a purchase based on the availability of the adapter, without such proof.)
VenezuelanD said:
I've been trying to find a *cheap* laptop for dumping P2 cards, not editing or anything else. Hard to find anything under around $800 for the very lowest-powered machines (and we're talking about refurbished or off-lease here!), especially now that all the laptops have Vista on them. I'm expecting that in the future I'll get a Sony Vaio with a Blu-Ray burner, but need to wait until the price drops a little on Blu-Ray and Vista is more widely supported. I feel sorta stuck in the middle right now.
I can't find a quality or lower quality PC laptop with a PC Card slot.
I know the recommendation is some cheapo, but I think that is being a little misguided.
Why trust off loading to a cheap laptop?
I know the recommendation is some cheapo, but I think that is being a little misguided.
Why trust off loading to a cheap laptop?
capt chuck
Well-known member
I agree completely. The biggest complaint people have about P2 seem to be capacity and cost. Then news comes out that capacity will be going up and that cost will likely be going down, and a number of responses are negative to that news. I don't get it. For those who prefer the firestore, guess what, this is probably good news for you too, it puts more competive pressure on focus... maybe their prices will lower because of it. Is there anything other than price/capacity that firestore has over P2? So as P2 gets larger and cheaper focus will need to get cheaper or get bigger disks to stay competitive (either way we win).
ozduc
Well-known member
I think most of the people complaining about P2 costs and capacities have come from the mini dv camp where they are used to putting a $5 tape in the camera and shooting for an hour to acquire DV footage.
Just to put it in perspective, think about what it would cost and the workflow involved in acquiring DVCPro HD footage from a Varicam or a HDX900. Tape stock is about $1 a minute. Then you will need a $25,000 tape deck to offload the footage.
So even if you dont buy P2 cards, you can rent an 8gb card for a day for the same cost as it would be to buy one tape that will get you 32 minutes of footage.
I have four 8gb cards but there are days where I still rent more as I would rather have the convenience of being able to keep all the media required for a full day of shooting in my pockets than having to lug around a Firestore, P2 store, a laptop or a bunch of bulky tapes for that matter.
On a recent shoot that would have been impossible anyway.
There are many different shooting scenerios and some will be more suited to people than others. If you have a need for P2 technology, then do the math. If you are using it a lot it may be worth it to buy cards. If not, you can always rent them.
For those that want to sit around a ***** and moan about P2 and it's associated costs, then maybe you should think back about 18 months and you will realize that to acquire the images you now can with the HVX, it would have cost you about $100,000 just to get started.
Just to put it in perspective, think about what it would cost and the workflow involved in acquiring DVCPro HD footage from a Varicam or a HDX900. Tape stock is about $1 a minute. Then you will need a $25,000 tape deck to offload the footage.
So even if you dont buy P2 cards, you can rent an 8gb card for a day for the same cost as it would be to buy one tape that will get you 32 minutes of footage.
I have four 8gb cards but there are days where I still rent more as I would rather have the convenience of being able to keep all the media required for a full day of shooting in my pockets than having to lug around a Firestore, P2 store, a laptop or a bunch of bulky tapes for that matter.
On a recent shoot that would have been impossible anyway.
There are many different shooting scenerios and some will be more suited to people than others. If you have a need for P2 technology, then do the math. If you are using it a lot it may be worth it to buy cards. If not, you can always rent them.
For those that want to sit around a ***** and moan about P2 and it's associated costs, then maybe you should think back about 18 months and you will realize that to acquire the images you now can with the HVX, it would have cost you about $100,000 just to get started.
yea seriously a dvcpro tape alone costs like 70$ a tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!
danny d
Carbonite Member
TRUE
[
UNTRUE. No you do the math, for the price of 4 8gb p2 cards you can rent about 30 cards. well unless you are a hobbyist shooter and wont get paid for your work.
no professional would spend one hundred thousand dollars on equipment that is not proven to create returns many times more. I dont get your argument.
in los angeles you can rent the hvx and add ons for bout $200 a day. unless you use the camera every day of the month for non profitable events no sense in spending $14,000.
danny d
Carbonite Member
Tim and Cook I am actually on your side, I totally understand the cost of R & D and i totally appreciate the existence of both technologies ie fs100 and p2. Like I said I am a big proponent for P2, but all I care about is the technology and the money I have to shell out to purchase stuff. I have only ever truthfully shot two DV projects, two were with the vx2000 and one with a Genesis. I never had any gigs or chances to shoot DV. I have always been into the rental game and only with film equipment. Yes i know the cost of S16mm and 35mm. Thats why I bought an HVX a few weeks from a cool dude on this site. It still sits in my closet. I have not even shot with the DV part yet. This is my second personal camera. My first was a eclair 16mm converted to a super 16 gate.
sold it on Ebay like 4 yrs ago. So yes much like the mini Dv guys I am a new B. I have worked with most 4:2:2 video formats in post but never in acquisition. So buying cards, drives, working with realtime etc is all new to me. I am from the school of avr 25 offline / online. The only time I saw highres anything was at the lab period. Now everyone in Los angeles has some fancy high speed super realtime Mac or some xeon intergalactic PC right in thier bedrooms or some big smoke, scratch or DS SYSTEM in their dark bat cave like studios. I feel comfortable buying the hvx because people like the guys at dvfilm.com , redgiant.com and now even adobe (CS2 production studio) are making affordable products where I can pick up a pc for $399.00 work offline /online for a fraction of what the cost was just two years ago.
what was my point again? I got lost in the rant
sold it on Ebay like 4 yrs ago. So yes much like the mini Dv guys I am a new B. I have worked with most 4:2:2 video formats in post but never in acquisition. So buying cards, drives, working with realtime etc is all new to me. I am from the school of avr 25 offline / online. The only time I saw highres anything was at the lab period. Now everyone in Los angeles has some fancy high speed super realtime Mac or some xeon intergalactic PC right in thier bedrooms or some big smoke, scratch or DS SYSTEM in their dark bat cave like studios. I feel comfortable buying the hvx because people like the guys at dvfilm.com , redgiant.com and now even adobe (CS2 production studio) are making affordable products where I can pick up a pc for $399.00 work offline /online for a fraction of what the cost was just two years ago.
what was my point again? I got lost in the rant