64GB P2 Card announcment

I'll retort that in the case of the scenario where panasonic allowed "open source" drives for recording I or others might make the best choice possible for our open source drives, but others may not, and failures in that case can sully the whole concept of file based capture.. I don't fault panasonic in any way for controlling the recording medium. At least at that point what happens in the camera has been thoroughly tested and proved and known to work within certain parameters.
What happens after is post.

It was only 2 years ago that this list was rife with posts of people going off half cocked with no understanding of the P2 workflow, no prep or testing time, about to embark on month long documentary shoots in Africa, and the concomitant horror stories,or frantic posts for help.

Imagine what it would be like if the recording medium was a "commodity" storage with the user left to find out what worked and what didn't. Actually the result would be like being a RED owner, except I'm sure panasonic would be thoroughly thrashed for allowing untested combinations to be used in their gear instead of being revered like RED.
 
Using fear, to talk poeple into doing the "right" thing, to be on the "safe" side is a pattern religions (and politics - wich is a form of religion) employ.

It keeps the folks from beeing open minded because "you know what can happen to you" and some brave heretics that gave it a try and got biten "we told ye so" are creeping back to the flock and become the hotest missionarys.
"As long as you stick to what we say, you are safe" Yeah, right! Tell that to the guys that lost all the footage on P2 cards.

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prophecy mode ON:

I predict that P2 is doomed to extinction if they don´t bring the prices down to the level of similar memory. Solid state drives are getting faster, bigger and cheaper every day - it´s only a question of "when" and not of "if" it will be comon to use those drives on cameras.

The idea of having a cartridge that I have to unload to a laptop and than again bring the material to my workstation is absolut silly.

The next step will be that you have a swapable solid state drive, that you can insert into your workstation and edit from there. And the drives will be cheap and plentiful as a CD-RW today.

The only place where P2 is surviving for a while will be the broadcasters cause they spend so much on it, like they used (way to expensive) Avids for a long time, even though faster, cheaper and better systems where aviable.

History is ever repeating and men do learn nothing.

prophecy mode OFF

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Frank
 
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Leaving religion out of it for a moment, something that a manufacturer brings to the table is a thoroughly tested, vetted product that performs reliably as they describe. I don't mind a bit paying for that value. If by some chance I want to go offroad and use some other recording medium, its on me to test & verify before I charge somebody else when I use it. .

How would you feel loading some film in a camera that wasn't Fuji or Kodak, & you didn't know how it would perform from roll to roll. Just so happens you've got a crew of 30 and there are a couple of cheap models being paid 15 large plus 20% P+W to look good for 8 hours. Is this the time you want to figure out if the CHeap & Good Film company has all their sprocket holes cut to spec or the product will perform consistently roll to roll? I love to experiment but I not going to be experimenting with Cheap & Good film stock in this case. Same thing for memory i put in my file based camera.

If you have an argument with what somebody charges for their product, don't buy it.

If recording to one medium and then dumping those files to another is silly then I take it you have the same beef with RED, Silicon imaging, sony SxS, and any othr system that does file based capture.
 
I look into the future and see things that come as a logic next step.

And yes copying files multiple times instead of working of the recording medium is silly in my book - RED, Silicon and the rest will go that route to, sooner or later.

But you may have enough time and money on your hands, that´s nice for you.

Frank
 
Interesting examples!
They probably, almost certainly, do not fit the standards here presented, but let's say even at 4 times the price it will be way cheaper than what we have so far with the P2 cards.

The question of alternatives is quite simple, as soon as someone figures out a viable option the market will take care of the rest.
There're a lot of people ready to try new ways and share their experiences here and elsewhere.
We'll know very soon.
 
It is interesting that Sony has at least somehow allowed for the SD card hack for the EX1 and EX3 camcorders. I have met few pros using those cameras who will risk dropping frames or other operational issues when using SD cards. In some tests I ran, I did consistently drop frames at anything 36fps or above. My boss who owns the EX1s said, "no way will we use this hack, we have too much riding on the line to save a few bucks by shooting to SD cards". That was his opinion, not mine. But he has to answer to the studios and clients if something does screw up with a shoot. So they are sticking with the SxS cards.

As far as P2, nobody has figure out a hack to be able to use alternate forms of media like Frank has presented. P2 is a closed system and whether Panasonic is making a ton of money off of P2 cards or whether they are losing money selling them, it is their business strategy.

Whether or not all of us feel that P2 cards are overpriced, I agree with Barry, it doesn't really matter. We DVXers are but a tiny little slice of the market for P2, how many cards do most of us own? Two or three? I own four and most of the other P2 owners I know who use HVXs and HPXs don't even own more than two cards. Panasonics pricing strategy will hinge upon orders and feedback from their broadcast clients who purchase hundreds or thousands of cards at a time, not us. Hopefully there will be some backlash at the high end because that will benefit all of us down here at the low end of the foodchain.

I people want to give up the benefits of tapeless workflow or go with a lower end product that shoots to SD cards, they will. I don't see a mass protest of exodus from P2 cards and P2 cameras happening. At least now yet. For better or worse, right now if you want the benefits of using P2 cards, you have to pay the price. I am willing to mainly because I already own enough cards for most of my projects and when projects come up that need more, my clients either rent me more cards or I charge them and buy more. That's how business works.

Best,

Dan
 
I bought a HVX-200 soon after it was released from Panasonic. I have to say that between then and now, I have become disillusioned with Panasonic and the HVX-200 camera series because of the P2 card "scam" as I call it. It reminds me very much of the Epson line of printers that would not print black if any of the color cartridges were empty (and now I never buy Epson). Three are simply too many options beginning to flood the market in terms of HD non-linear tapeless recording, and the Panasonic pricing scheme is ridiculous. Either they need to lower these prices, or they need to figure out how to make them for less.

I don't consider myself to be Joe-Sixpack. I'm fairly knowledgeable on solid state memory hardware out there, and NOTHING on the market compares to the proprietary P2 card system in terms of pricing versusu storage capacity. Either Panasonic needs to stick to making cameras and let 3rd parties provide the memory cards, or they need some sort of steep discount, because short of flooding the market soon with cheaper P2 cards, I see users like myself jumping ship from the P2 format to other systems, espcially with the idea of tapeless recording becoming more common by the day. Perhaps that is okay with Panasonic, but in many ways this sort of pricing model reminds me of Avid. Avid overpriced their proprietary systems for so long and refused to budge -- so the market responded, embracing FCP. I now cut features, TV, commercial, music videos on FCP. A couple of years ago I was still bashing FCP as a Fisher Price version of Avid. No longer. Companies embraced it, and now it is here to stay, most likely overtaking the Avid domaniance out here in Hollywood.

So Panasonic, whatever you decide to do with your system, keep in mind that the market is getting more crowded, and BUDGETS ARE SHRINKING.
 
Word!

I order that italian Firestore Mod. where you can swap huge, cheap (compared to P2) eSata HDDs and solid state drives in and out. More than enough recording space for several days, no slow footage dumping, no extra laptop, editing straight of the recording medium at a much better price.

No P2 for me. No Sir! To expensive, to low capacity, to slow.

I trust HDDs to store and edit my footage from, why should I not trust them for recording?

Frank
 
P2 cards are solid-state RAID cards, using an array of 4 memory banks to achieve a throughput speed of 640 Mbps. ( 800 Mbps for the 64 GB card )

Can any of these alternative memory devices handle a stustained 80 or 100 MB per second data rate ?
( assuming that Panasonic is telling the truth on the memory speed )

My guess is that most of them would not.
 
What for? The camera is not delivering more than 100 Mbps?
And as we know, even the old fashioned HDDs in the Firestore or even a single laptop drive (via OnLocation) can handle that.

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
What for? The camera is not delivering more than 100 Mbps?
Click to expand...

I'm assuming the extra speed is mostly useful for offloading using Cardbus slots, not for the actual recording (at least not with DVCPRO-HD).

Personally, I still have to offload via USB 2.0, so the extra speed isn't too helpful, but I since most people offload with a notebook, it's likely a selling point for most.
 
I´m glad that with my swapable drives there is no offloading at all for me.

But I get your point.

So with 800 mbps on the new cards the offloading time is 8 times as fast as the footage duration right?

Let´s say you got 64 minutes of DVCPro HD footage, then dumping time is 8 minutes to the laptop?

....well If you find a laptop that can read/write sustained 100 MBs. Otherwise it´s a waist.

Frank
 
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Postmaster said:
What for? The camera is not delivering more than 100 Mbps?
Click to expand...

Futureproofing...

Makes you wonder what Panny has in store for us in the future. I suspect some snazzy 200mb/s and 400mb/s recording codecs. Full raster? 4:4:4? Who knows? The extra speed on the cards opens the door for a lot of options.
 
Guys, the way I see it, the cost of larger capacity P2 cards are not so different from the cost of hard drives through the years. My first Avid Media Composer (circa 1991) came with 2 650MB drives that cost $3500 each! That first gen. Avid cost $90,000 new and you could barely make out the image. But boy did we make a lot of money! Suddenly, we could charge $250/hr for editing (1991 dollars), up from $100/hr. for film editing on a KEM or Steenbeck.

As videographers, we need to charge our clients enough to make back the cost of this equipment within 12-16 months. When technology changes so rapidly, investing in the latest, greatest gear necessitates charging top dollar for services. If your client base will support your investing in 64GB P2 cards, do it. If not, use smaller capacity cards and dump to your laptop more often. Buy the tools you need and are economically feasible. Rent the bigger P2 cards when needed. I still use my 8 yr-old DSR500ws because that is fine for my clients and it is totally paid off. When I shoot HD, I rent and charge that back to my clients.
 
They have already invented the P2 controller inside the P2 case.

They have had a head start of a year or two selling these P2 cards, so that technology has likely paid for it's investment.

They basically had sd cards in a raid controller to allow faster data.

Can't hey just re-arange the sd cards so you can put them in into a new designed P2 case whereas they could slid into the end like a card reader?

I know the P2 CARD has a controller in there...so leave it in there, just modify the case to accept sd cards in the end of the unit....that way they can sell you that interface while bringing the P2 implementation cost down.

That's how I feel about the whole excuse of Them saying the cost for the P2 is "not just a simple memory card"...I think by now we know that.

By the way, they and them = Panasonic.

My point is if class 6 sd cards are not fast enough to do DVCpro HD, then 2 of them in a raid solution should be. Just make a P2 interface where you can put 2 SD cards in it..controller remaining in the card. Or lower the price like everyone else has, that darn controller THEY speak of, has obviously amoritized by now :-)
 
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