128 GB P2 card in advertisement!

Im not sure if i agree that is it so ahead of itself.

Consider this work flow.

Shoot on P2 for an entire day offloading to a laptop with a usb drive connected. Assume about 1 hour of footage which is 30-80 gigs depending on frame rate (numbers might be off). Then at the end of the day do a quick and instant review of the footage and realize that only half of it is usable. Delete the bad footage. Then before you go to bed write that footage out to data tape probably never to be looked at again. (smart archiving - fancy term panasonic uses).

Think of the time saved in not recueing tapes to review and in minimizing the kept footage.

This wont work for all projects because all projects are different - some MUST save all footage - but i think many will realize that they waste a lot of space will unusable stuff.

just my 2 cents
 
It takes a while to cut the crap out from an hour of footage... not a five minute job.

Also, there are so many times I have saved an edit by using an outtake or something that I would never have dreamed of using on the day. I prefer to keep everything, even if it is only for the sake of outtakes. Deleting is VERY dangerous, especially after a 12 hour shooting day when you are knackered. I would be very surprised to go through a feature with a workflow like that and not delete something that you would have used.
 
I agree. I don't delete anything till I am done. Good logging when you shoot is the most important thing in my book. saves lots of time later.
 
P2 are predicted to double capacity each year or so though, so 64GB should arrive around 2008. Then we'll be getting somewhere.
 
2008? That's an eternity in this business. From what I hear Panasonic is having trouble getting to the 16gb level so 64gb? It's an awful lot to base your entire campaign on a format that you don't even have nailed down yourself. I love Panasonic and the DVX was a great camera, but I would strongly suggest folks wait to buy this to see how it all pans out in a year or you might end up with what happened to Panasonic in the eighties wen they tried to invent their own format called M2. It was a disaster and that was on a pro level.
 
If you are shooting features the 8GB cards are sufficient - even more so if you are shooting 24P - then you have 16 minutes per card load - its a better situation then film in terms of load frequency - actually an awful lot of time per load. While bigger cards might be better - the present ones will work well.
 
I think that is a good point. Folks are always talking about bigger but this system is for dumping somewhere else so you can do fine with an 8g card as long as you have something to dump to. And with random access you can simply delete stuff as you go along that isn't good. Many of you have never used thumbnails before so don't understand that with this you can simply kill stuff you don't want better utilizing the space.
 
now i'm not claiming to be kreskin or anything, but here is a simple fact, P2 will replace tape.
tape is much more prone to error once the manufacturing process is ruled out. tape heads get dirty, it expands and contracts, timecode get's screwy, you may have to end up replacing your heads (900$ so i hear). the manual for the dvx even says that you should replace the heads after 1000 hours of use. the transport drive can fail. the tape could get degaussed. i just spent 4 hours under a steady cam rig and there's something clogging the head so all that time was wasted...and my shoulders are sore anyways. i'd be alot happier if i had a P2 card that was alot more reliable -and- i could delete all the shots where i had to walk through a room full of mirrors and didn't walk and pan perfectly so i'm visible in the shot. oh, and not having to really worry about how hot or humid it is will be a bonus in florida that's for sure...

this camera was designed first and foremost with -cinematography- in mind. this means that generally there is alot of time and money going into setting up a shot, much more so than actually shooting the shot in some cases. do you want to use the most reliable means of storing that shot, or the one where you have more time to flirt with the lead actress(or actor) under the guise of directing them becuase you don't have to spend 10 minutes downloading? do you want to use the media and format that is about to be outdated, or the one that is about to take the reigns? i here a lot of event videographers complain about the cost and storage of the P2. great go get a sony then, if you want to step into the world of -digital-cinematography- then save up some money, nothing worth doing is cheap... :evil:
 
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