HPX250: 9 hour shoot? What should I do?

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?orilla Shänks

Member
Hi there- firstly thanks for everyone providing me with help from earlier threads...

I am about to start filming a doco - i will be filming for roughly around 9 hours ..

I only have 2 64gb cards and three batteries.. buying another 5 batteries isn't a problem but really if i wanted to buy another 8 cards it will cost me around $5600, and i cant do that right now. I was going to rent them for the day but they want a security policy of $3000 cash.

So is the sane thing to do for me is to unload onto a laptop every time the cards get full? This will be at night and around a busy area so was wondering if I purchased this instead
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Sin...qid=1344501100&sr=8-2&keywords=p2+card+reader and transfered.. will this be slower then transferring straight from camera to my macpro or equally same? I havent had time to fill up my 64gb card but roughly how long does it take to transfer a full card onto a laptop?

Also this is going straight to dvd so should i even be shooting at AVC-I 100 but instead AVC-50 as it will be compressed down when outputting to dvd? And does anybody have experience using those cheaper batteries? or should i get those genuine panasonic batteries. Im trying to cut cost but i rather spend that extra if the batteries mess up thats going to be a problem :/

Thank You
 
i think the p2 card reader will have the same speed, maybe a little faster... do you have an assist who will ingest your footage? i guess a 64gb card would take around 55 minutes to upload, so this could be kinda stressy! :)

if you have time to transfer the footage between camera and your macpro, i would go that way, better than buying a p2 card reader for another 400 bucks...
if you don't need the high resolution avc 100 then go with avc 50, saves storage (doesn't it provide another hour of recording then?) but reduces to 4:2:0 sampling if i am right...

the cheap batteries are good, i use two of them with my hvx and it seems to be almost no difference to the original one...

regards Stefan
 
Imho, this is where P2 falls down big time. Panasonic has not provided a decent longer form option with the P2 format. They should (or could) include AVCHD for when you needed it. Why not? Who knows.

An option would be the look at an external recorder. Sounds crazy but is a lot cheaper than the same amount of time in P2 cards. I am trying to decide between an AC-160 or an HPX-250 and P2 with longer record times is my only sticking point. Poor planning imho.
 
Why not hire a Nanoflash/Samurai for a day and record to cheap media. You do not really want the added pressure of downloading during shooting unless you have generous scheduled breaks.
 
I agree rent a unit if you must shoot 9 solid hours. Remember if you go into AVC 50 you will not be shooting full frame, it will be scaled down just keep that in mind, if going to DVD not an issue I think. So you can rent the unit and get your own hard drive. This is the unit I would rent and this company rents it. Get the unit before you plan to use it at least a few days to understand it and practice with it. SDI is the far better option than HDMI. As far as batteries I only buy Panny batteries now after a off brand broke on me during a shoot. I buy them used on eBay for half price of new, but thats just me. P2 are always the way to go, because it keeps the camera mobile and solid, however when you need a really long record time then this will fit your bill. Just remember if you do buy hard drives, get reliable models, SSD are great but pricy. Don't buy cheap models as if the drive crashes you will loose it all. Enjoy.
 
Okay, first of all, the stress being implied here is way overblown (IMO). I've done a two-hour conversation on two 4GB cards -- THAT was stressful. Nine hours on two 64GB cards is a piece of cake.

If it's only going to DVD, then you could easily shoot in DV mode, and have almost nine hours recording time on your two P2 cards. No offloading necessary. Just shoot and you're done.

If you want an HD master, and you're fine with 24p, then shoot AVCI-50 in 720/24p. That'll give you over 10 hours on your two P2 cards. Done.

If you want to shoot on HD and you want 60i or 720/60p for the "live" look, use AVCI-50, since (again) it's only going to DVD. You will get four and a half hours of recording time on your two cards that way. You'd have to unload a grand total of two cards throughout the entire day, which is about the least-stressful environment imaginable for a P2 shooter. Get the single-slot reader and use it to offload during your lunch break or when you're shooting on the other card. It can take as little as 30 minutes to offload a 64GB card (at least, mine does, going to a Win laptop).

Seriously, P2 is well established, we've been using it for 8 years now, this shooting scenario isn't anything to stress out about, it's a piece of cake, you're well covered with what you've got. Even your three batteries are enough, if they're fully charged and are reliable 5400mah Panasonic batteries, to get you through nine hours.
 
Seriously, P2 is well established, we've been using it for 8 years now, this shooting scenario isn't anything to stress out about, it's a piece of cake,
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i agree with this 99% - and in most cases 105%

but the wayward 1% may or may not cause a probelm. i have a macbook pro running snow leopard and use the panasonic reader mentioned above. and it works great. BUT i have yet to find a mac, snow leopard software way to format P2 cards. if you have a few seconds to stop and reformat the card in-camera, that wouldnt cause you a problem. but for my last long shoot, i needed to shoot continuously, so that 15 seconds or so every 45 min was just lost.
 
wgzn said:
i agree with this 99% - and in most cases 105%

but the wayward 1% may or may not cause a probelm. i have a macbook pro running snow leopard and use the panasonic reader mentioned above. and it works great. BUT i have yet to find a mac, snow leopard software way to format P2 cards. if you have a few seconds to stop and reformat the card in-camera, that wouldnt cause you a problem. but for my last long shoot, i needed to shoot continuously, so that 15 seconds or so every 45 min was just lost.
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There's a Snow Leopard or Lion P2 Formatter app that will format it in the laptop. Use it all the time.

As a personal preference, I prefer to use P2 format over any ext. recording devices because it'll preserve full metadata.

I'm quite surprised that most users are willing to risk once in a life time footage by copying it only to a single source and NO VERIFICATION. If you have a big insurance policy for error and omission, I guess it is not a big deal. Two places are better than 1. At least I'd do copy to two different hds w/ no verification.

For me, I'd invest in two more 64 Gb P2 cards. This will give you a total of 4. This will allow you ample of time for the P2 to offload while you can simultaneously shoot at max AVC-I 100
quality.
 
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As Barry pointed out, just shoot in 16:9 DV. I did this last month, and the DVD was very sharp. The client didn't want or need Blu-R. And the DV video, after encoding to H264, looked good for the web. I also use On-Location, an older program bought by Adobe. I have a cheap $400 i5 PC laptop, with a firewire adapter to Express slot. With my HPX500 or 250, I can directly record to the laptop, and then edit right away with GrassValley Edius.
 
If it's 2007, ext. rec devices are worthwhile to consider over $1500 (32 Gb) P2 or $3200 (64 Gb) P2 media.
But in 2012, ext. rec devices will cost more in the long run. Carefully calculate the cumbersome setup: loose/easy to wear down firewire, BNC cables. And biggest of all: Very easy to not record important shot due to its ext nature...There are two weak links (output fr. cam-input to ext recorder). it will cost more than the $650 64 Gb P2 card.

Some details: Can the shooter absorb the potential lawsuit arising from misrecorded shots due to faulty or loose cabling to the ext device? How about changing battery for the ext device while important live events are occuring?
 
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hey barry - yes thanks i think i'll just shoot at AVCI-50 in 720/24p on the two cards. This will be definitely hold up into good dvd quality once burnt yes?
 
?orilla Shänks said:
hey barry - yes thanks i think i'll just shoot at AVCI-50 in 720/24p on the two cards. This will be definitely hold up into good dvd quality once burnt yes?
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For a DVD release I would expect that it would hold up plenty well, but obviously if at all possible you should test it out first to find if you are happy with the results.
 
Barry_Green said:
For a DVD release I would expect that it would hold up plenty well, but obviously if at all possible you should test it out first to find if you are happy with the results.
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i just did some test footage and looked at on my tv and ure right its great quality.

btw, just curious when i imported the footage from camera to premiere pro it says the video files are 960 x720, do i have to reencode it to 1280 x 720 first then edit in premiere? or is it okay to just edit it directly like what i've done then output to 1280 x 720.


thanks
 
the dvcprohd codec outputs rectangular pixels instead of square ones...
i would edit in the common 960x720 dvcprohd sequence, then, if needed output it to 1280x720, you may loose quality if you encode it first, save your 100mbit/s data :)
 
AVC-Intra50 also records at 960x720 (like DVCPRO-HD). I would just use an AVCI-50 720/24p preset in Premiere Pro, and then edit away. No need to re-encode or convert to 1280x720, as Premiere just "knows" how to work with it properly.
 
Yesterday I had the opportunity to use couple of HPX 250s as static C cams with alternative angles for motion graphic use to record 4-tracks of high quality dedicated audio. Less than 3 feet Mic placement makes a huge difference in sound quality. It's so much richer than from the main cam 300 feet away from the source. The newly purchased, original Panasonic batt's life is roughly about 2.5 hrs continuous recording (AVC-I 100 with full 2 xlr inputs and phantom power to power the AKG & Schoeps mics and is no where close 4+ hrs claimed by Panasonic. LCOS display is closed to conserve power. Perhaps the phantom mic power drains it faster without any mic connected to its XLR input. Was too cumbersome to use AC power source.
 
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2.5 hours battery life is about what I see with the HPX250 too.

Does anyone know if there is a CGA "dummy battery" adapter plate (like the one provided with the mains adapter) that can be plugged into P-TAP or XLR battery sources? Is there a solution out there anywhere to run these types of cameras off nice big beefy IDX/PAG/SWIT/Anton Bauer battery packs like the big boyz uze?

Cheers

Neil
 
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