Alternative to P2 Cards

S

s3comm

Member
Thinking of the buying the HVX200, the main things that stops me are:

1. The cost of P2 cards
2. The need to use an external battery powered HD to shoot in DVCPro50 or DVCProHD. This is a cumbersome solution and doesn't make this setup a mobile cam.

With the recent annoucement of Sony USA of their new solid state recording device SxS with Sandisk and a new XDCAM HD EX camcorder using this new technology, my loyalty to Panasonic is wavering. Not to mentioned that their card cost is gonna cost singnificantly cheaper per Gb to use this new technology. Even Sony's HVR-DR60 HD recording unit seems a better solution to the Firestore or CitiDisk solution, withe ability to record from HD to DVCAm to HDV. :(

Being a DVX102 user for a while, the natural switch will be to stay with the same type cams. I fell in love with the color and the feel of Panasonic cams converting from Sony in just a few short months. :)


So do anyone here have a cheaper solution? Like using a PC Card adapter to use CF or MicroDrive. :huh:

Please do tell. :crybaby:
 
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P2 card prices have come down dramatically and will continue to do so. What started out at $500/gb has now come down to $50/gb.

To declare that Sony's hard cost is going to be cheaper per GB is premature to say at best. Let's let the actual product come out and find out what the real situation is before making statements like that; SxS may very well turn out to be a proprietary solution that costs every bit as much as P2, we don't know.

And Sony's HVR-DR60 only records 25 megabit; the FireStore records 100 megabit. Different type of product. I'm not a fan of hard disk recording anyway, I think solid state's the only way to go, and now that every major manufacturer (except JVC) is offering solid-state recording, that just solidifies the idea that solid state is the future.

As for alternatives, Hoodman announced that they'd produce their own product, the Hoodman H2 card. Supposed to come out in under two months.

And for a cheaper alternative, you could go straight to computer -- no costs whatsoever.

And don't rule out AVC-HD, recording directly to SD memory cards (or memory stick, or mini-DVD, or hard disk). AVC-HD hasn't even gotten started yet, but when it does, I think there are a lot of people who will find it a very attractive alternative.
 
man, all this whining about p2 card prices is getting really old. considering the cost of the time they save you in traditional log and capture process the cost has always been largely transparent (at least in my workflow)

plus they have been getting cheaper all the time. and now are crazy cheap - as soon as they become available again at least : )
 
You know people gripe at the cost of the cards, and you do make a great point that I had not thought of until last week as I was finishing up capturing 80 hours of tape footage. The amount of time P2 saves me is incredible. On average it takes 2-3 hours to properly log and capture a 1 hour tape depending on the number of cuts. It takes 10 minutes on a p2 card. You can figure that your editing machine will be tied up for 2-3 hours for this process, and that is time you could be billing your client 50-200 bucks per hour for your editing time, and also taking more jobs. In theory you could technically pay for your cards with just the workflow, forget about the tape cost, its 4 bucks for a mini dv tape, you just saved $100 by using the P2 workflow.
 
wgzn said:
man, all this whining about p2 card prices is getting really old. considering the cost of the time they save you in traditional log and capture process the cost has always been largely transparent (at least in my workflow)
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Prices have come down, but p2 cards and workflow have hidden costs as well. If I say a p2 card is pricey, I'm not whining . . . I'm simply observing.

No, you don't need a deck, but you have to elect on how to get the card into the computer, which takes time regardless, and depending on workflow, requires you to take the cam out of use.

Whining to me is making unreasonably or immature complaints.

The price of p2 cards, while dropping, isn't exactly cheap.
 
David S. said:
Prices have come down, but p2 cards and workflow have hidden costs as well. If I say a p2 card is pricey, I'm not whining . . . I'm simply observing.

No, you don't need a deck, but you have to elect on how to get the card into the computer, which takes time regardless, and depending on workflow, requires you to take the cam out of use.
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Yeah, but this is negligible compared to time to capture tapes. As I said in another thread, even in time critical shoots, like a semi-pro soccer game we shot a couple of weeks ago, we were able to handle the P2 offloads at half time without missing a beat. We had 3 p2 cards to cover a game half, and I think they were dumping them to an iPod :) I don't think it's an issue really.

David S. said:
The price of p2 cards, while dropping, isn't exactly cheap.
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True, but they are reusable. So If I shoot say 200 hrs of P2 in a year, that is roughly 200 MQ miniDV tapes - for example - which at about $40 per 5 comes out to about $1600. $1600 I would never get back. Say I bought two 8 gig P2 cards that year for $2K. I think the long term investment weighs in favor of P2 and similar techs, even factoring in HDD storage costs. Which I always need with tape anyway, for ease of access and redundancy.

So if there is no real reason for a P2 to wear out, over time it will become a better and better investment than tapes, I think.

I was looking at things like Cineporter and Firstore. But honestly, I think those are going to become obsolete real fast. I mean how long is Cineporter going to be out, and debugged and proven in the field before we get 128 gig P2s? And is there any limit to how big P2 can get? A physical limit?

I guess all of this is to say, after working with them for 6 months, I kind of feel like the P2 card is the BEST choice for HD footage, when I weigh it all together.
 
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David S. said:
but you have to elect on how to get the card into the computer, which takes time regardless, and depending on workflow, requires you to take the cam out of use.
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A. Insert card in laptop's slot (elapsed time: 00:00:02)
B. Drag clips to EDIUS timeline (elapsed time: 00:00:02)

heh heh. :evil:
 
Or Vegas's timeline. Or Premiere's timeline. Or Liquid's timeline. Or . . . well, sort of, Avid's timeline . . .
 
i will say this....i heard about this new sony camera to compete with the hvx and i personally feel sony has dropped the ball

a lot of my friends have been shooting with xdcam and the stuff coming out of the hvx so far has really blown away xdcam footage

if you are going for a cinematic look....hvx too me is killing sony on the lower end...sure sony's f900 looks great but on the low end hvx is the winner

about p2 cards.....the prices have dropped now if panasonic could only get the cards out there we would all be happy

I can't find anyone right now that has a 16gig or 8 gig card and the 4 gig cards are discontinued.....now that is annoying but in a month or so all will be well....and end of the year a 32 gig card is slated for release which will drive the price down even more

just my 2 cents

Ronster
 
What I don't understand about the complaining is that you only need two cards to continuously record as long as you have a laptop near you.

4min to offload 8gb or so, even 8 min. 720pn is 20min per 8gb card. so... you do the math. P2 genie (or write your own auto-copy program), two cards, and a laptop... no worries, not much expense.

I'm waiting for a 500$ 8gb card. That would be great. 16gb cards are fantastic at their price, but if your workflow includes DVD DL backup, 8gb is better.
 
arrestthisman said:
What I don't understand about the complaining is that you only need two cards to continuously record as long as you have a laptop near you.
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okay, enough with the generalized statements. I'm getting alittle tired of all these "PROs" on the forum speaking like they are done learning the craft of filmmaking, or wedding video's or whatever. Please lets pull back on the pointless posts and threads designed to stroke our egos and little else.

We all are aware shooting situations vary from shoot to shoot, or even location to location.

Sometimes just (2) P2 and a laptop will work fine, and its all good. Other times rolling for 2 hours straight and doing run & gun gorilla, (2) P2 isnt enough. More like (6-8) 8 gigs. And thats if shooting 720 24PN.

Some situations the HVX is the wrong tool. So lets all select the right tool for the right situation and get on with it.
 
esperman said:
okay, enough with the generalized statements. I'm getting alittle tired of all these "PROs" on the forum speaking like they are done learning the craft of filmmaking, or wedding video's or whatever. Please lets pull back on the pointless posts and threads designed to stroke our egos and little else.
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THAT was unnecessary.
 
I kinda of agree.

Not all shoots can be achieved with a couple 8 Gbs cards and a laptop.

When people observe that, then we get the at time "condescending" comments which I don't really appreciate.

Not directed at any one specifically, but espoerman is correct. Sometimes p2 technology won't work in a particular shoot.
 
Wow never thot this will invoke so many responses.

Being truly aware of the P2 development from higher memory capacity to price drop. This has not been significant. While many other major memory card maker (SanDisk, Kingston, Lexar, etc) have been churning out the high speed, big capacity cards at very much affordable and competitive pricing, I think Panasonic should rethink their strategy. Let them do the R and D, use them and just sell the cameras.

We don't carry hard disk using our digital still cams maybe lots of mid capacity memory cards. In fact a simple 2 Gb card will last you an entire vacation. With high speed 8Gb or higher cards available now at about $200, and price to drop with the intro of write once CF / SD card that was reported be to on the shelves at 1/8 or lesser than current cards' pricing.

Frankly, any form of re-writeable memories will have a much shorter lifespan than permenant type.

Just my take on this ridiculous approach of propriotry type of manufacturing.
 
sonys camera is (as ive read at least) records to mpeg. im sorry, ill be damned if im going to shoot to a delivery format???!!!???

thats just insane.
 
jeez - if you have a shoot that cant fit on an 8 gig or 16 gig card. get a firestore. i dont quite get all the bleating...?
 
wgzn said:
jeez - i dont quite get all the bleating...?
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People are just discussing acquisition means.

That's it.

I can see saying use a FS, but why characterize the responses like this?

You don't know any of us.
 
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