8GB P2 Price Drop and Order Serendipity

R

rfxs

Member
Just talked to Professional Video and Tape in Portland and they said they
just had recieved a bulletin that the 8GB cards were going to come down in price by around $800 to a street price of around $1,200. Good news for those who waited a bit. They said it would be 24 - 48 hours before Pansonic posts this info. Has any other dealer heard this?

A bit of serendipity allowed me to call in an order last week and the camera is shipping my way today. Yep. About a week from inquiry to actuality. Crazy! I don't mean to make those that have had the camera on order for months any more frustrated than need be, but I am freaking out that I somehow will have the camera by this time next week. I did pay premium based on demand. Can't really fault PVT for wanting to capitlize on the fervor of this product. No state tax helps. 5700 for the camera only. Not the best deal, but no complaints.

I initially called with the expectation that it would be a few months before I saw a camera. However, a rental house decided they didn't need two cameras and I was the fortunate recipient. If anyone needs anything shot in Montana I am probably one of a few people in this incredibly large state to have one. I have a job coming up in two weeks and am going to try and shoot it on DVCPro50 if the client is willing to pay for the extra cost of me dubbing it to BetaCam. I am going to rent a few cards for the job, or just shoot the interviews using a G-Raid, my powerbook and FCP5. Any hints on this workflow would be great. I still don't totally understand the issue that FCP5 has with DVCPro50.

Rick
 
You lucked out, Rick! Most of us will be waiting a . . . while.:cry:

That's good news on the P2 cards.

Hopefully, any issues between FCP and DVCPro50 were resolved with 5.04
but I'm not positive since I'm still shooting BetaCam until the HVX is available.
 
New Price is reflected at panasonic.com $1400. I also got my camera today, good thing they didn't have the P2 cards in stock.

Joe
 
joeher133 said:
New Price is reflected at panasonic.com $1400. I also got my camera today, good thing they didn't have the P2 cards in stock.Joe
Click to expand...

Very cool! What'd be even cooler would be if the 4gig cards would take a similar drop in price (again).
 
Thank goodness I changed my order to 4gb cards when I prepaid in Dec. Id be pretty pissed if I had paid the high price for the 8gbs
 
Ouch. Bye bye $1200. It was nice knowing you. I wish I could have used you for something else, but that's now history. Unless I return my HVX200+(2) 8GB cards to BHphoto that's on it's way today. :)
 
rfxs, do you think PVT has an HVX on the floor to check out, or do they not have a retail store? I'm not sure about your DV50 to Betacam SP workflow. To preserve the DV50 detail, I think you would want to output to a rented DVCPRO50 deck or to Dbeta.
 
I am pretty sure PVT has a floor unit to look at. They have that Cascade Mountain Video Show coming up and I am sure there will be lots of goodies to play with. I am pretty sure they have a retail space and also rent out gear. I looked into that workflow and sure enough not a good one. I really need accesss to a DVCPro50 deck or need to have a computer with a card that outputs component. I might shoot it
in DVCPro50 and then dub to minidv for the client. All they want is miniDV, but I would like some stuff for my reel.
 
This is great news. When they drop down to 650 I will buy one. I'll be ok w/ one 4gb p2 for awhile. Although, you really need 2 p2 cards for a proper production
 
I got to thinking about what Jan had said at DV Expo West, that 8GB cards would be in limited supply. OK, that's logical, if limited supply, there's a high price, right?

4 GB for $650 = $162.50/GB

8 GB for $2200 = $275/GB Old Price

8 GB for $1400 = $175/GB New Price

Lower price = more sales of 8GB cards. Just dropping the price without additional supply is stupid, because that will piss off additional users who will now want to purchase 8GB cards.

To me it seems logical to guess that the supply of 8GB cards has or will increase soon. The drop in price is also a big move in the marketplace, because for around $10,000 one could get the HXV-200 and three 8GB P2 Cards. (OK, I know there's a backlog in HXV-200s, but the price is the key point I'm trying to make.) Depending on the mode chosen, one could record 24, 48, or 60 minutes of video. (Longer for DVCPRO, but the other modes are better. :) ) The "limited recording time" is looking a lot less limited.

My hope is that by NAB, Panasonic will say that the 16GB cards will start shipping by (whatever date).


Bob Diaz
 
Limited will quickly become a thing of the past. And right now the reason I just can't get myself to fork out 2K for cards is that I know people will be sellling 4GB cards on e-bay for $100 or less in like 6 months. The rate at which memory is increasing is exponential. A 128mb card for a digitial still camera was a lot at some point. Now that you can get a gig for $70 who cares about the 128mb cards. The same thing will happen to P2. Before we know it P2 cards will be 32GB and affordable and then we will get the HVX-200B that records in DVCProHD2 (an advanced codec that compresses HD half as much and 32GB won't be enough). Seems like a property of technology that the limits of processing power and storage are always pushed in a way that makes the latest and greatest always too damn expensive. Finding a happy medium is the way to go. For me right now that means an HVX with no cards and a laptop to capture.

r
 
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