8Gig vs. 4 Gig cards - what do you think?

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
What do you guys think about the advantages of going w/ 8Gig cards vs. 4 Gig cards, now that the price has come down to make then roughly equal.
I'm really just thinking out loud here as I just took possesion of 2 - 4 Gig's & am wondering whether to try to exchange at the new price point if I can.

Advantage of 4 Gig

1. Cheaper. so you could run continuously w/ 3 cards (30 min) for only $1800

2. You can B/U 4 Gig cards to single-sided DVD's - This sounds like it could be a good B/U method, but it only works for 4 GIG cards. I'm trying to decide if people will want this - becomes kind of moot when the firestore comes out.

Advantages of 8 Gig
1. Obviously you can run longer, - 3 cards @ 720/24PN = 1 hour = (about $3600 or so now if the price change is real)
Producers will feel more comfortable with 8 GIG cards & longer run time.

Of course don't P2 cards in general become obsolete when the firestore comes out?
So you don't want to throw too much dough at them unless you need them now for a project.

Maybe 8 Gig cards will still be valuable if you need to run out & grab stuff without bothering with the hard drive.

I'm inclining toward 2 - 8 Gig's

Any contrary thoughts?
 
Lenilenapi said:
What do you guys think about the advantages of going w/ 8Gig cards vs. 4 Gig cards, now that the price has come down to make then roughly equal . . . Any contrary thoughts?
Click to expand...
(snipped for brevity)

I am by no means an authority but I had already decided to go with two 4 gig P2's because of the initial pricing on the 8's. I think now, for me, I am going to go with one 8 gig card. My rationale is that, for only another $100 I get the same capacity I was planning on, while maintaining a vacant slot (for the next price drop).

I've already made the mental committment to P2 -- I like the entire concept and would probably only consider a Firestore type device when it can not be done with a couple of P2's. Clearly the price will continue to come down (on P2's) . . . it already has and very few people have the HVX in their hands yet. So, will I be a player for the Cineporter or Firestore? Probably, depending on the feature list and how that "melds" with my workflow.

I run both PPro and Avid Xpress Pro HD on my Dell win-box but have been thinking about making the switch to an Apple. I've already bought "Raylight" and will struggle along with what I have until NAB when, I expect, there will be further announcements regarding NLE capabilities . . . all of which will impact on P2 decisions.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get off track -- I think for the couple extra dollars it makes sense, in light of the recent price adjustment, to go with the 8 gig cards.
 
4 GB for $650 = $162.50/GB

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

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

Two 4GB cards for $1300 ($100 less than a single 8GB card)

Tough call, I guess it depends on the type of shooting you plan on doing and what mode you wish to use. If you shoot weddings, having the larger cards is handy for recording a long ceremony. On the other hand, if your shooting mostly short segments, the 4GB cards will work OK.


Bob Diaz
 
I wouldn't consider the Firestore a P2 replacement... P2 should be much more rugged, reliable, and less power-hungry. In some ways, P2 is easier to back up (you can make 2 copies in the field while shooting with other cards, etc.

However, for long-form, it'll be HD storage for a while yet (though I'd vote Cineporter over Firestore, b/c you can use native recording for space savings, potentially better price, and the ability to backup over FW if you need to...
 
I'd say two 4gb's are worth a lot more than one 8gb. With a single 8gb, when it's full you're done. You have to stop and offload. But with two 4gb's you can shoot on one while the other offloads; we shot five days of footage with just two 4gb cards.

You can treat two 4gb's as if they were a single 8gb if you wanted to; just leave 'em both in and let 'em fill up. But you can't treat a single 8gb as if it was two 4gb's.

Now, two 8gb's is better than two 4gb's, for sure. But that's not a fair price comparison. The fairer comparison would be two 8gb's vs. four 4gb's. And in that case, I'd vote for the two 8's. Mainly because you do get longer continuous runtime, you keep the same multi-card workflow, and if you do end up offloading cards to a firewire drive you can take advantage of 120gb drives, vs. 60gb limits for the 4gb cards.

So: two 8gb's beats two 4gb's but costs twice as much. Two 8gb's beats four 4gb's.

But two 4gb's beats one 8gb all day long. The value of having two is so worth it.
 
Two 4gb cards that you try and switch out as they fill up. One 8gb card if you get backed up on the two 4gb.

3 cards=16gb=$2600=Pretty nice set-up for decent price

:beer:
 
Barry_Green said:
And in that case, I'd vote for the two 8's. Mainly because you do get longer continuous runtime, you keep the same multi-card workflow, and if you do end up offloading cards to a firewire drive you can take advantage of 120gb drives, vs. 60gb limits for the 4gb cards.
Click to expand...

I take it you mean for a P2Store? Is that a hard limit of 15 partitions? D/Ling to a laptop shouldn't have such a limit... and there's no 120GB P2 store unless you know something we don't...?
 
A laptop has no limit, and a P2 Store is limited to 60gb no matter what you do. But I'm talking about using the camera to control a firewire drive for offloading; the camera's OS will only allow you to make 15 partitions (one per card). So inherently you could only use 60gb of drive space if using 4gb cards; and you could use 120gb if using 8gb cards.
 
Barry_Green said:
A laptop has no limit, and a P2 Store is limited to 60gb no matter what you do. But I'm talking about using the camera to control a firewire drive for offloading; the camera's OS will only allow you to make 15 partitions (one per card). So inherently you could only use 60gb of drive space if using 4gb cards; and you could use 120gb if using 8gb cards.
Click to expand...


Wow, that's interesting.
I had no idea.

Thanks for the info, Barry.
 
Barry,
Why would you ever want to unload P2's from the camera?
It ties up the Camera which could be shooting otherwise.
Any advatage here?
 
Lenilenapi said:
Barry,
Why would you ever want to unload P2's from the camera?
It ties up the Camera which could be shooting otherwise.
Any advatage here?
Click to expand...

It all depend of your workflow. If you have 2x8gig and shooting in 720P/24PN, you have 40 minutes of recording time. Now if within your 45 minutes, or after you have break or time to change set, or anything, then during that time you can offload your P2 card to the FireWire HD.
 
So far, I have ordered 3x4gig P2 card and this panasonic price change make me wonder...

I can still shoot 10 min of 720P/24PN per car, so 20minutes of recording without swap. + the P2 store I ordered. And I think it will still fit my needs.

But ofcourse I would dlike more 40 minutes with 2x8gig !!

I guess 3x4gig will provide ennuf, and I can always order more card in the future when they get cheaper.
 
Barry_Green said:
I'd say two 4gb's are worth a lot more than one 8gb. With a single 8gb, when it's full you're done. You have to stop and offload. But with two 4gb's you can shoot on one while the other offloads; we shot five days of footage with just two 4gb cards.

You can treat two 4gb's as if they were a single 8gb if you wanted to; just leave 'em both in and let 'em fill up. But you can't treat a single 8gb as if it was two 4gb's. (snipped for brevity)
Click to expand...

Barry- I have no argument with anything you’ve said here . . . you are, of course correct, and have already done it that way. I’m just looking at (my) real world situation, and factoring in the David's “clumsiness” element when it comes to swapping cards while rolling . . .

Anything I have plans to do, long form like doc work, will require some sort of hard disk based solution (for me).

For anything else (I try not to do weddings any more) at 720pn, which is realistically what I see myself doing most of the time, I like the flexibility of being able to go up to 20 minutes and not having to hire a loader while only concerning myself with DP responsibilities.

Although I probably did not articulate it well (or at all), in my earlier post I meant to suggest that (for me) I liked the idea of paying the extra $100 for the advantage of doubling my recording time (in one slot), with the additional potential benefit of “whatever” the next price break on the 8 gig cards might be. Anyone’s guess but just for sake of discussion: One 8gig card now at $1400 (or potentially less at street prices) and another one, maybe at NAB, for, let’s say, I don’t know, seven or eight hundred bucks? That would put me in the TCO realm of what three 4 gig cards cost today – all of which is conjecture, but April is not that far off.
 
Lenilenapi, what kind of shooting do you do???

Lenilenapi, what kind of shooting do you do???

Lenilenapi,

What king of shooting do you do?

For weddings, having 2 or 3 8GB cards seems the most logical,
but for movies, 4GB will do.

Bob Diaz
 
I'm a DP for hire. I do a little of everything from low budge features to Doc, industrials & commercials.

I'm mainly concrened about the docs & have decided to go with 2 - 8 Gig's for now. Based somewhat on perception. Frst question people seem to ask about this new technology is - "Yeah but those cards only last10 minutes right?
I would get 3 but can't justify the cost yet.

For me the big issue will be making producers feel comfortable with a new workflow.
 
Lenilenapi said:
Barry,
Why would you ever want to unload P2's from the camera?
It ties up the Camera which could be shooting otherwise.
Any advatage here?
Click to expand...
No, not really, other than not needing a laptop.

I've said before, a laptop is a far superior choice for a million different reasons. If you can make it work to bring a laptop along, you'll be much more productive. But if for some reason you just can't make that happen, then it's nice to know the camera has the capability itself to do it. But yes, it does mean shutting down your shooting while you wait for the offload. With the laptop and two cards you don't ever have to stop shooting. That's why you really, really would rather have two 4GB's instead of one 8GB.
 
dregenthal said:
For anything else (I try not to do weddings any more) at 720pn, which is realistically what I see myself doing most of the time, I like the flexibility of being able to go up to 20 minutes and not having to hire a loader while only concerning myself with DP responsibilities.
Click to expand...
Well, yeah, but -- how does that change anything in the formula of two 4gb's vs. one 8gb? If you have two 4's, you can just leave 'em both in the camera and get the same 20 minute continuous record time that you'd get from your one 8gb. It's functionally and fundamentally the same. The two cards will link together and you can do one long 20-minute take across two cards if you want.

But what if the time arises where you want to take advantage of a dramatic narrative style workflow, where you can offload one card while shooting on the other? With the single 8gb, you can't do that. You have to stop the production and offload. Whereas with two 4's, you can.

I can't see any practical advantage to having one 8gb vs. two 4gb's, and the two 4's cost less as well.

Now, if you're talking about two 8gb's vs. four 4gb's, there I'd agree with you -- two 8's are better than four 4's. But two 4's are better than one 8.

I see what you're saying, about future expandability etc.; all I can say is that I'm working with it now, in the field, and I'd way rather have two 4's than one 8. Way.
 
Lenilenapi said:
For me the big issue will be making producers feel comfortable with a new workflow.
Click to expand...
And that's a great point. Two 8's is of course the ultimate solution (of what's available today). You get 40 minutes onboard, you can swap and keep shooting, etc. Two 8's is better than four 4's, that's for sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top