am I right in assuming this?

[hoofandmouf]

well I'm in my last semester of college and upon completing graduation (may) I plan on treating myself to a camera upgrade from my trusty ole dvx. I've been reading the various forums and websites pertaining to HDV, HD, DVCPRO50 and all the various pros and cons of each camera (the sony, the canon, the hvx and the jvc). I must say that being a "noob" to high definition, it is a lot to wrap my head around but I think I have finally narrowed it down to the HVX (but the JVC remains in the back of my head). My main use of the camera will be for indie HD filmmaking, music videos, and the like. I'm not too concerned with extensive live event coverage, broadcast, etc. ..... however the thing that still is bugging me is that I assume I am going to have to purchase a powerbook ALONG with my HVX and 2 p2 cards just so i can maintain steady workflow in the field or on location, etc.

so I will not only be buying the camera but I will most certainly have to have a laptop as well? also, this is another noob question but its my understand that the HVX only does 1080i and not 1080p? is that right or am I wrong .... and if shooting 1080p, about how many minutes of footage does that translate into with the 2 8gig p2 cards? and lastly... I probably wont be getting this sucker until June, so do you guys think that by that time the p2 controversy (high prices, little capacity) will have been sorted out, at least to the extent of being somewhat better than now?

 

[Alex Leith]

A laptop is useful but not essential. The HVX can shoot 1080p24 (wrapped in a 1080i30 stream - the same way 24p works in NTSC). An 8GB card can shoot 8 mins of 1080. If you don't have a laptop (or a P2Store) you can connect a FW hard drive to the HVX200 to dump files from the P2 cards, in between shots (although it potentially interrupts workflow).

I think the P2 controversy will rage for some time. It has advantages and disadvantages, and it will be expensive (relatively speaking) for some time to come. Personally I would have loved Panasonic to have taken Thompson/Grass-Valley's approach with the Infinity, which is Iomega Rev-Drive removable media. Either that or to allow the camera to stream to an off the shelf HD as it is recording. However, they haven't, so I'm going to build my own HD recorder/monitor either using the guts of a Macmini or (if the PC workflow can be sorted) a mini-ITX system with an 8inch LCD touchscreen with a VGA/S-video input (no true HD monitoring for now, unfortunately).