64GB P2 Card announcment

ABC, NBC, BBC and these broadcasters are not on this forum, and since it doesn't look like they pay attention to this forum,..... I'm not talking to them or about them

I'm talking about the people here in this forum who read and respond to everything that's being said,... just as you are doing. Why would anybody here pay $2600 for 64 gig card? I just don't understand how you people are saying that this is a reasonable price?
 
Dvxusers were able to hault the production line at panny (thanks, barry, dino & jan) so lets hope they do listen to us, after all the hvx market is 100,000 camera's strong.

It makes me feel like even more of a piss ant for buying into thier system that every article when the hvx came out said the size of P2 and cost will dramaticly be reduced in the future. There are SD cards in them and panny made it a point to say that in all thier sales brochures so shame on us for expecting P2 prices to fall like SD prices.

If panny made more than 1000 64 gig cards a year we would not be paying $2600 therefore more people would buy them and the prices would decline faster.

What a slap in the face when this new uncompressed HD UK camera can record onto 80 gig cards at 220MB/s at a retail price of $900 per card. Or Red in 4K to a CF card.

Barry,

I know you'd like to see the prices come down as we all do, what do you think about having a pettetion here to let them know where we stand or are people to fed up with panny to waste thier time?
 
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It's reasonable in that it's cheaper per gig than the other cards.

And you're right, the BBC and ABC etc are not members of this forum. Which is why I said, what we say here isn't going to amount to much more than peeps and mutters. The loud speech is going to be done by the huge buyers. So to say that my statement (pointing out that the 64GB card represents a price drop per gig) is somehow betraying DVXUser by keeping the price "high" is just... well, I reject the premise of the objection.

Would I pay $2600 for a 64GB card? No, not unless I needed it. So far, I don't. I can't foresee a time when I would. But if I needed it, I'd charge the client for that job and then I'd buy it. In business you buy what you need to have to do the job, and then you do the job. And it'd be free to me from then on until the end of time. No big deal.

If memory price is a huge concern or, in fact, a primary concern, I reiterate that you can get an HMC150 for not much more than half the cost of an HPX170, and you can get 16GB SD cards for about $50. Those whose focus is mainly or solely on price have a highly viable alternative available to them. Those whose focus is on the P2 workflow now have 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB cards available to choose from.

I'm not thrilled or happy with the current pricing, I would have expected the 16GB card to drop to maybe $550 by now, and the 32GB card at maybe $1100. But that's not what we got. Even so, if the price had plunged, I still wouldn't be buying any more cards because I don't need them. For those who do have a current need, it should be at least mildly comforting that they now have a lower-cost-per-GB option available to them.
 
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A "reasonable price" is dictated by the marketplace. If Panasonic has priced them too high, even the corporate clients will balk, forcing Panasonic to rethink their pricing structure.

And remember, when Panasonic released the HPX170, it was obvious that they HAD listened to the comments of the users of this message board. Refining a product based on the needs of your user base is smart business. Letting them dictate your pricing is not smart business. The market will decide if the pricing is fair or not. It just might not be fair to you.
 
ChipG said:
It makes me feel like even more of a piss ant for buying into thier system that every article when the hvx came out said the size of P2 and cost will dramaticly be reduced in the future.
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Are you saying this hasn't happened???

Three years ago an 8GB card was $2200. That's $275/gigabyte. Today a 64GB card is $2600. That's $40/gigabyte. That's a price drop from $275 to $40 in three years. The price per gigabyte has fallen by 50% three years in a row.

If panny made more than 1000 64 gig cards a year we would not be paying $2600 therefore more people would buy them and the prices would decline faster.
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First of all, I have NO IDEA how many cards they really sell, the 1,000 was a wild guess. It could easily be 10x that much, I don't know. But what I am very sure of is that they'll never be a mass-quantity item. They'll never be selling ten million cards per year, like laptop manufacturers or ipods.

what do you think about having a pettetion here to let them know where we stand or are people to fed up with panny to waste thier time?
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I am sure this will be an unpopular stance but... what good would it do? As I understand it, we are not the customer for the 64GB card. I have no intention of getting one; I don't need it, and I don't know many who do need it. The BBC's Factual Studios, yes, they might crave it. Discovery HD, sure, they'd need it. But small companies and indies? Who would need it? So therefore, if we (who are not the customers) are complaining loudly with a petition, what good would it do? What matters is what their actual likely customers think.

There is no employee of Panasonic, from the service techs to the top-level management, who hasn't heard the complaints about pricing of the cards. Every Panasonic person I know has bleeding ears from hearing us gripe. But if there's nothing they can do about it, and if their customers (the big customers) aren't complaining, then why would they change?

I've thought about lobbying them for a cheapo P2 system like a KxS solution, but that's a total non-starter for two reasons: 1) hack-job cheapo recording flies in the face of everything P2 is all about, and 2) they've already given us AVC-HD for recording on dirt-cheap memory. So it really is, in their opinion, a fairly moot issue as near as I can tell.

If someone needs cheap memory recording, they gave us the HMC150. An hour of footage on a $20 card. Today. Next year, that card will be $10. So as far as the company's concerned, they have already listened and given us (the DVXUser indie/small co. user) exactly what we'd want.

I want cheaper P2 media, as does every P2 user or prospective P2 user. But I can also say that if the 64GB card had come out at $500, I still don't know that I'd run out and buy one because I don't need it. And I can also predict that if the 64GB card had come out at $500, people would still scream because they'd wish it had been $250.

The market will dictate pricing. For those who want cheap pricing, the HMC150 fills that gap pretty darn nicely. For those who need all that P2 is and does, then the price is what it is and will hopefully drop further, sooner than later.
 
Wow, so many emotional replies.
I paid $1,500 each for my first 2 8gig cards. Paid for in less than 2 days of using them. On my first gigs I made a bundle charging for dumping and backing up those files instead of just putting the tapes in the cabinet.

8 gig cards for $1,500, now 64 gig cards for a thousand more, heck, that's a bargain.
For all those that NEEDED more recording time, it's a great improvement.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that you should see it as "YOUR" solution. But it's far cheaper than what I paid per gig and I'm still loving the gear and workflow.

FWIW, I probably won't be getting a 64giger any time soon. But I'll be grabbing up a couple more 16gigers that will undoubtedly fall in price soon.
Best of luck to you all.

And don't forget, this price will drop as did the 32, 16 and 8 gig cards.
 
Aren't we part of the "market place"? Are you guys loosing sight that we all collectively have an influence on the price and not the manufacturer?

And I'm aware that I can buy HMC150 for about the price of a 64gig card, and that's part of the reason why $2600 is crazy!

When the the 16gig card came out, it was priced at the same price of the 8gig card and the 8gig went down. When the 32gig card came out it was priced at the same price of the 16gig card and then the 16gig dropped too. But then comes the 64gig and not only did it increased the trend but also kept the 32g and 16g card as the same price.

Maybe it's just me and I'm the only one who's seeing this
 
Angelcyk said:
When the the 16gig card came out, it was priced at the same price of the 8gig card and the 8gig went down.
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Not true. The 16GB card was priced LESS than what the 8GB card was. The day before the 16 came out, the 8 was $1200. Then the 16 was introduced at $900, and the 8 dropped to $700.

When the 32gig card came out it was priced at the same price of the 16gig card and then the 16gig dropped too.
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Completely not true. The 32 was introduced at $1650. The 16 stayed the exact same price, $900. The introduction of the 32 was nearly twice as much as the 16, and had no effect on the 16.

But then comes the 64gig and not only did it increased the trend but also kept the 32g and 16g card as the same price.
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Which is exactly what happened when the 32 was introduced.
 
Angelcyk said:
Aren't we part of the "market place"? Are you guys loosing sight that we all collectively have an influence on the price and not the manufacturer?
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Yes we are part of the marketplace. All I'm saying is that, proportionally, we are a very small part of the market.

And I'm aware that I can buy HMC150 for about the price of a 64gig card, and that's part of the reason why $2600 is crazy!
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Yet the 8GB card was $2200. That seems "crazier" to me. :) Yet it's what it was, when it needed to be.

Nobody's happy that P2 cards cost what they do, and nobody will be happy until they cost as little as DV tape. But as Ted just pointed out, for most of us, they *do* cost less than DV tape because we don't have to buy any more. We job-cost them when we buy them, and then we keep re-using them for free.
 
Angelcyk said:
Aren't we part of the "market place"? Are you guys loosing sight that we all collectively have an influence on the price and not the manufacturer?
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Sure, we're all part of the market. We're just not as big a part as you might think, and our decisions to buy or not buy 64GB cards may not affect Panasonic's decision with regards to how they price them.

A vocal minority is still a minority. If corporate clients buy them in quantity, then Panasonic's pricing is justified and in their view, the market will have spoken.

EDIT: I hate it when Barry beats me to the punch.
 
Barry_Green said:
Are you saying this hasn't happened???

Three years ago an 8GB card was $2200. That's $275/gigabyte. Today a 64GB card is $2600. That's $40/gigabyte. That's a price drop from $275 to $40 in three years. The price per gigabyte has fallen by 50% three years in a row.
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No, I'm not. Panny promo'd the P2 cards having SD cards in them so for most of us who bought into thier system we expected prices to fall faster, not as fast as SD's HUGE price decline but more so than this. Shame on me.

I am sure this will be an unpopular stance but... what good would it do? As I understand it, we are not the customer for the 64GB card. I have no intention of getting one; I don't need it, and I don't know many who do need it. The BBC's Factual Studios, yes, they might crave it. Discovery HD, sure, they'd need it. But small companies and indies? Who would need it? So therefore, if we (who are not the customers) are complaining loudly with a petition, what good would it do? What matters is what their actual likely customers think.
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Ok, no prob. You'd be the one to best advise on this.



I've thought about lobbying them for a cheapo P2 system like a KxS solution, but that's a total non-starter for two reasons: 1) hack-job cheapo recording flies in the face of everything P2 is all about, and 2) they've already given us AVC-HD for recording on dirt-cheap memory. So it really is, in their opinion, a fairly moot issue as near as I can tell.
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You know I have always thought that was a good idea, in a previous post I made a while back I said panny could hedge the market and ad one cf card slot to the hvx / hpx while keeping the P2 slots. It would allow the people who love P2 to continue with it and the other people to have an alternative. Panny would not lose camera sales to sony do to the sd hack and still have a P2 camera for those that want it. Right now Red can record 4k to a CF card, do you know how fast they will be in a year? Faassttt


I want cheaper P2 media, as does every P2 user or prospective P2 user. But I can also say that if the 64GB card had come out at $500, I still don't know that I'd run out and buy one because I don't need it. And I can also predict that if the 64GB card had come out at $500, people would still scream because they'd wish it had been $250.
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I'd buy many cards for $500 and not have to think about buying new cameras and gear.
 
All I'm saying is that I don't understand why people are siding with the broadcasters in terms of $2600 price when they are not the broadcasters at all. If you "are" ABC or BBC or Discover Channel then I can understand your point, but if your not then whats the point with siding with them?
 
As a long time Apple computer user I have to point out that this group TOTALLY reminds me of the professional Mac crowd. Emotional responses about proprietary closed systems that don't meet expectations. Clearly we'd all be better off working on projects that would pay for the dang card instead of debating economic minutiae but hey, what fun would that be.

The people with more than 2 slots in their cameras are obviously the primary intended market at that price. Which leaves us hoping for table scraps, i.e. a price reduction on the older smaller and slower cards. Dogs get no table scraps, bark real loud. woof-woof

Maybe we all bark together, they throw us a bone
 
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It's pretty simple.

I said I won't be buying 64GB cards at the current price.

I'm not siding with anyone. This isn't a war. I vote with my wallet, and I'm not buying. If enough people (and networks) pass on them at this price, they'll lower the prices.

My 16 and 8 GB cards still work as well as they did yesterday.
 
Steve Smull said:
As a long time Apple computer user I have to point out that this group TOTALLY reminds me of the professional Mac crowd. Emotional responses about proprietary closed systems that don't meet expectations. Clearly we'd all be better off working on projects that would pay for the dang card instead of debating economic minutiae but hey, what fun would that be.

The people with more than 2 slots in their cameras are obviously the primary intended market at that price. Which leaves us hoping for table scraps, i.e. a price reduction on the older smaller and slower cards. Dogs get no table scraps, bark real loud. woof-woof

Maybe we all bark together, they throw us a bone
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Well said!

Charge the broadcasters $3k per 64 gig card and sell the 16's for $300 to us dogs.
 
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