BUMMER - Looks like no recording to off the shelf drives
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..it wouldnt completely bite if its not built in, but if not, I really really hope the camera ships with at least a 4 GB card so that you can still use an off the shelf drive to dump to after recording HD to the card out of the box. .. without that , it would raise the cost of actually using the camera to record HD to either what a 4GB card costs (at least) or what the firestore device will cost. and even if a 4GB card is just 1,000. thats still an extra cost that most people do not want to swallow on top of the cam price just to actually shoot HD with the cam. ..not saying its not worth it. but surely it creates an unwanted deterrent to people looking to purchase.
Jan, if its not planned already, and if theres any way possible, please.. IMHO pana should include at least a 4GB card with the camera. i predict alot of whooplah from people if they buy the cam and cant use it for HD without another chunk of change going into it.
Jan, if its not planned already, and if theres any way possible, please.. IMHO pana should include at least a 4GB card with the camera. i predict alot of whooplah from people if they buy the cam and cant use it for HD without another chunk of change going into it.
Daniel Skubal
Veteran
This is just speculation, but I have a feeling that the price of the cards will drop dramatically by the release date. I have a feeling that Panasonic is trying to get contract negotiations set up with major news corps to adopt the p2 cards. Once Pana gets some security from these corps, they will lower the price to somewhere in the hundreds.
Luis Caffesse
Admin
"Anyway, just for the record, it's easy to say "How hard can it be to implement a smart FW drive controller", but it's not necessarily true"
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying it would be easy...I asked how hard it would be because I have no idea.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying it would be easy...I asked how hard it would be because I have no idea.
pacificstreet
New member
What I find interesting is that, pretty much from the get-go, storage whether it be P2 or external HD has been the dominant factor in the purchase decision process by most potential buyers.
For the life of me, I can't understand why Panasonic haven't bulked up the initial cost of the camera to make a more dramatically reduced, or negative, margin on the included cards but get everyone hooked on the format. I know that the projected price of circa $10K is the bundle with two cards but, straight from the off, this is leading the debate towards "wow, these cards are over $2k a pop" and that is becoming the dominant debate.
Realistically, if the price of this camera was $7500 but you had to have the 2 cards bundled, then I don't think it would stop most of us buying it. The attraction is in what its capable of image-wise for under $10K is what is exciting us. What it would do though, is sell us on the great leap forward that P2 represents and from that point, we would all be hooked into buying more cards and, more importantly for Panasonic, hooked into the format. By that, I mean that we would all be a ready market for them to sell P2 field editors, P2>HD auto copiers etc. etc. Long term, I feel that this is better for Panasonic as, as it currently stands, if we don't bite at over $2K a card, we will bumble along with our frankenstein external drive scenarios, miss the attraction of P2 compeletely and its then likely that we won't be biting at all until they are about a quarter of that price. With low take up, it might never be able to reach that price point.
When I buy my mobile phone, I'm not stupid enough to believe that the phone company is manufacturing them for $0.00 and hence can sell them at that, I know that they want me to get into using it and then they'll make their money back over that usage period. Even when the phones are $0.00, we still need some inclusive air-time to get us to see the beauty of having a mobile phone and spend some more. I see it the same way with this camera and the P2 cards.
The advantage of solid state recording media is an absolute no-brainer once you have used it. If you put a dollar value on your time, the digitization time-saving will quickly make the media cost-effective but those sort of benefits will sadly be missed if the entry cost to ownership is so high.
With regard to external hard drive devices, again I have to look to Panasonic for a solution. If you or I tried to make this camera, how much would it cost ? A LOT more than $5995 that's for sure. In the same way, how many of us think, if we are being honest, that the Firestore devices are overpriced in comparison to similar functionality of mass market products such as the i-pod ? The answer in both cases of course is economies of scale, both in design, manufacture and sales. So why are we sitting with fingers crossed that someone like Focus is going to step into the breach and come up with a viable external HD ? Why on earth are Panasonic not showing us a ready to go enclosure for, say, $450.00 that we would all leap on ?
To me, they can't have it both ways. If the lack of their own HD enclosure is to guerilla market the P2 route then, fine, reduce the cost of ownership of P2 in the immediate purchase proposition. If not, then produce the HD enclosure so that we can realistically, from a cost perspective, be enjoying the full performance of this camera from day one.
For me, I'd rather go the P2 route and would be prepared to pay a like for like price with current SD cards, with the expectation for it to fall in accordance in the future. Taking B&H as a price indicator, that would equate to around $750 for the 8 gig card. Anything beyond that and it's hard not to feel that you are being taken advantage of and when Panasonic are trying to encourage me to get into P2 for the long-haul, thats not the best starting point.
For the life of me, I can't understand why Panasonic haven't bulked up the initial cost of the camera to make a more dramatically reduced, or negative, margin on the included cards but get everyone hooked on the format. I know that the projected price of circa $10K is the bundle with two cards but, straight from the off, this is leading the debate towards "wow, these cards are over $2k a pop" and that is becoming the dominant debate.
Realistically, if the price of this camera was $7500 but you had to have the 2 cards bundled, then I don't think it would stop most of us buying it. The attraction is in what its capable of image-wise for under $10K is what is exciting us. What it would do though, is sell us on the great leap forward that P2 represents and from that point, we would all be hooked into buying more cards and, more importantly for Panasonic, hooked into the format. By that, I mean that we would all be a ready market for them to sell P2 field editors, P2>HD auto copiers etc. etc. Long term, I feel that this is better for Panasonic as, as it currently stands, if we don't bite at over $2K a card, we will bumble along with our frankenstein external drive scenarios, miss the attraction of P2 compeletely and its then likely that we won't be biting at all until they are about a quarter of that price. With low take up, it might never be able to reach that price point.
When I buy my mobile phone, I'm not stupid enough to believe that the phone company is manufacturing them for $0.00 and hence can sell them at that, I know that they want me to get into using it and then they'll make their money back over that usage period. Even when the phones are $0.00, we still need some inclusive air-time to get us to see the beauty of having a mobile phone and spend some more. I see it the same way with this camera and the P2 cards.
The advantage of solid state recording media is an absolute no-brainer once you have used it. If you put a dollar value on your time, the digitization time-saving will quickly make the media cost-effective but those sort of benefits will sadly be missed if the entry cost to ownership is so high.
With regard to external hard drive devices, again I have to look to Panasonic for a solution. If you or I tried to make this camera, how much would it cost ? A LOT more than $5995 that's for sure. In the same way, how many of us think, if we are being honest, that the Firestore devices are overpriced in comparison to similar functionality of mass market products such as the i-pod ? The answer in both cases of course is economies of scale, both in design, manufacture and sales. So why are we sitting with fingers crossed that someone like Focus is going to step into the breach and come up with a viable external HD ? Why on earth are Panasonic not showing us a ready to go enclosure for, say, $450.00 that we would all leap on ?
To me, they can't have it both ways. If the lack of their own HD enclosure is to guerilla market the P2 route then, fine, reduce the cost of ownership of P2 in the immediate purchase proposition. If not, then produce the HD enclosure so that we can realistically, from a cost perspective, be enjoying the full performance of this camera from day one.
For me, I'd rather go the P2 route and would be prepared to pay a like for like price with current SD cards, with the expectation for it to fall in accordance in the future. Taking B&H as a price indicator, that would equate to around $750 for the 8 gig card. Anything beyond that and it's hard not to feel that you are being taken advantage of and when Panasonic are trying to encourage me to get into P2 for the long-haul, thats not the best starting point.
i think they should bundle one single 4GB card with the camera. .. that allows you to shoot HD out of the box, and you can dunp to an externall HDD and could start shooting a dramatic feature or anything else requireing 4min or less of continuous take time out of the box..
..nobody likes "batteries not included"
ps. ..im not referring to the movie..
..nobody likes "batteries not included"
ps. ..im not referring to the movie..
Ya know . . .
At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )
I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .
And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.
I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)
At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )
I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .
And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.
I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)
Jubal28 said:
Well, I wouln't do that. To pay basically the double of a DVX just because of 16:9 wouldn't be a good deal for me. I would just buy an anamorphic adapter if I really, really needed 16:9 and wait till P2 drops. Maybe by then, we would even have better cameras available.
PacificStreet: You're 100% on the mark. My point in another thread is that if you had a cheap P2 Store that could do 70GB (instead of 60GB) and you had cheap 8GB (or, preferably 16GB) P2 cards, both of those items only slightly above cost of manufacture (which they **clearly** are not), then people would buy into the "P2 upgrade path" story. Fitting 4 of the 16GB cards into your 70 GB P2 Store (as opposed to only 3+ into the 60GB Store), would mean that you'd have people buying 3 or 4 Stores and 3 or 4 cards. With this setup, you could shoot for a day and be happy. As it stands now, someone not willing to lug a laptop or other non-portable powered storage system around is not likely to buy this camera, in my opinion.
If you can't get 4 hours of footage with just battery power without too great an expense, I predict that sales of this camera will disappoint very much.
If you can't get 4 hours of footage with just battery power without too great an expense, I predict that sales of this camera will disappoint very much.
Mediacre said:
I didn’t mean it quite like that. I meant that even if I can’t take advantage of the HD capabilities immediately (which is not to say I won’t be able to, but if), having a 16:9 DVX for about $1500 more than the price of a DVX and the 16:9 adapter (figuring $5500 street price vs. $4000 for the DVX/adapter combo), knowing that I will be able to take advantage of the HD later . . . not to mention the color space, etc., that I can take advantage of right away, without going to HD, it’s an outstanding value at the price. It really is three cameras in one, which can be used immediately no matter the P2 dilemma.
If I were deciding between it and the DVX (which I’m not), I’m pretty sure that calculus would tip the scales.
braw
Well-known member
Barry_Green said:
My god Barry, you're sooo right on. No one is ever satisfied with anything. That's the nature of consumers though. Everyone wants liquid gold at frosty **** prices.
My take is along yours, Panasonic should make the architecture open enough for people or 3rd party vendors to create "hack cards" for the HVX. Like a P2 style card that controls an off the shelf drive. This way if it doesn't work Panasonic doesn't get the brunt of it because someone elses stuf is faulty. However, this opens the door for others to make kick ass products and make some money too. This would then make the HVX a "hackable" camera thus driving up sales as most "elite hackmasters" and cheapskate videographers and filmmakers think they're getting away with something.
Panasonic would win no matter what.
kyle_doris
Well-known member
Barry_Green said:
it's funny have been thinking this would be the route from day 1 before someone mentioned going direclty via the firewire/usb2.
Bart_Boge
Well-known member
For not much more than what a FireStore drive would cost, a person could buy a PowerBook and a makeshift RAID array with 200+GB space on it. The PowerBook could double as a large monitor as well (although the videoRAM would choke on HD and frame rates would be sporadic on the LCD).
For independent filmmaking, this would not be necessary, as the cinematic shoot workflow involves setting up and shooting shots of usually less than 60 seconds each. Offloading the P2 between set-ups would be no problem for an assistant. It is just a part of the process we'll have to ge used to, like loading film magazines for 16 & 35mm shoots. I am a believer in the Barry Green philosophy that this new way of working in video will be revolutionary. P2s are a good thing--even the small buggers. They allow us 1080p/24fps for less than $10k all in. Damn!
For us event videographers, a cobbled-together HD solution will be possible, I'm sure. We'll just have to test and retest our systems to make sure they can handle the data rate in the "real" world. A dual RAID array of 7200RPM SATA drives, each writen to by completely separate FW busses, captured via a PowerBook should handle the 100mbs data without hiccups. Or so I'm hoping.
For independent filmmaking, this would not be necessary, as the cinematic shoot workflow involves setting up and shooting shots of usually less than 60 seconds each. Offloading the P2 between set-ups would be no problem for an assistant. It is just a part of the process we'll have to ge used to, like loading film magazines for 16 & 35mm shoots. I am a believer in the Barry Green philosophy that this new way of working in video will be revolutionary. P2s are a good thing--even the small buggers. They allow us 1080p/24fps for less than $10k all in. Damn!
For us event videographers, a cobbled-together HD solution will be possible, I'm sure. We'll just have to test and retest our systems to make sure they can handle the data rate in the "real" world. A dual RAID array of 7200RPM SATA drives, each writen to by completely separate FW busses, captured via a PowerBook should handle the 100mbs data without hiccups. Or so I'm hoping.
pacificstreet
New member
Jubal28 said:
So, if my suggested $7500 bundle happens, can I buy your P2 cards for $750 a pop from you and we both get what we want ?
Gary_McClurg
Well-known member
Originally Posted by Jubal28
Ya know . . .
At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )
I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .
And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.
I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)
Let's guess that the street price will be $5,500
We save $500 bucks there
The DVX 16.9 adapter is $800 bucks.
So that's $1,300 bucks total.
You can get the DVX for $3,400 that's only $400 bucks more for the HVX or $700 bucks adding in the rebate.
$700 bucks more for a camera that can shoot HD when you need it. Just rent the cards from EVS.
And please let's not get into the handing off tape debate. It's called business or life you figure out how to work around it.
I'll own this camera also. My only problem is I just wish it was the last quarter of the year.
Ya know . . .
At $5995 with no cards . . . (and certainly less on the street . . . )
I could justify it on having a 16:9 DVX *alone* . . .
And then HD is there when I need it, and at the very least, downrezzed immediately.
I will own this cam. (Pending real-world results, of course.)
Let's guess that the street price will be $5,500
We save $500 bucks there
The DVX 16.9 adapter is $800 bucks.
So that's $1,300 bucks total.
You can get the DVX for $3,400 that's only $400 bucks more for the HVX or $700 bucks adding in the rebate.
$700 bucks more for a camera that can shoot HD when you need it. Just rent the cards from EVS.
And please let's not get into the handing off tape debate. It's called business or life you figure out how to work around it.
I'll own this camera also. My only problem is I just wish it was the last quarter of the year.
i might be wacky here, but ..i think your math is off there. assuming its 5500 street.. 5,500 - 1,300 = 4,200 .. which is a 800.00 difference from the DVX. counting the rebate thats 1,100 difference. which as we are talking about presumably only lets you shoot in DV "naitive" 16:9. I " "ed the naitive because although the sampling from the chips is true 16:9 its downsampled to anamorphic 1.2 pixel aspect 720x480 anyway since there is no naitive 16:9 in the DV spec.. but of course its better to downsample than it is to upsample like squeeze mode.. which would be more aptly named "stretch mode"
but as we all know ..once you add shooting P2 for HD your cost difference goes up quite a bit again.(unless they include a 4GB card with the cam)
but as we all know ..once you add shooting P2 for HD your cost difference goes up quite a bit again.(unless they include a 4GB card with the cam)
pacificstreet
New member
Bart_Boge said:
Bart, its the cobbled together part that I'm having difficulty with.
Its like buying a car and having to make your own petrol as far as I'm concerned. Yes, its possible but it brings in an element of inconvenience, and more importantly, unpredictability that I'm not comfortable with.
Make no mistake, I want this camera. In fact, I want more than one of these cameras. The workflow, no problem to me, I'm right behind it. Swapping several P2 cards to external copy devices is the same process as I use with a Digital SLR and this is fine. Except with the caveat that for particularly long takes, I would be concerned about camera disturbance when popping the cards in and out - has that been raised and answered before btw?
So, everything is fine but I really would like to see the following from Panasonic at launch:
1) P2 cards at comparable price per gig as SD cards + an overall, say, $100 for the card mechanism
2) Cheap (circa $200) P2>HD transfer caddy where I can fit my own drive
3) Dedicated DVX200 Firestore style device. This should be sympathetically designed to fit on the camera (under the base preferrably) and house a certified drive that gives approximately 90 minutes record time. Price for this for me can even be in the $1500 range but it should also double as a P2>HD transfer device.
Really, I'm saying that I want to spend around $7500 per camera but that out of the box I want to have either 2 P2 cards or the bolt-on drive so that I can shoot some meaningful amount of content. Then I would spend the additional $200 on the transfer caddy as an accessory. These prices seem fair to me in terms of comparable external devices and I would happily pay a premium in the case of the bolt-on drive for it to be Panasonic authorised. In reality, for my purposes, I would buy both solutions, which would give me a price of around $9000 all up.
So, do I want the world for $9000 and I'm being a whingeing consumer when this could reasonably still be considered a bargain at twice that price ? No, because when you announce the camera at $5995, you need to be realistic in the additional costs that you charge otherwise people will feel exploited. From the country where petrol is creeping over $7 a gallon, the running costs are often more important than the price of the car !
Gary_McClurg
Well-known member
You maybe be right I might have screwed up on my math. I might have added in the rebate twice or who knows what. Maybe I should get more sleep.
But here goes again.
Okay the reabate ends this month I think. So you have a few days to buy if not then this happens.
DVX $3,400 + $800 (16.9) = $4,200
HVX $5,500 ( a guess)
So, $1,300 bucks for a camera that can shoot HD is not bad, if you rent the P2cards.
Said this on another post.
But if I where Panasonic for the combo price that's been thrown around that's
$9,995.
Here what it should be.
The camera
2 8g P2 cards
and the (just forgot the name) dump station that you can dump the P2 cards to the 60g hard drive.
To me that would be a sweet heart deal. Now if they have a better deal than that I take it also.
Who knows that might even throw in a 4g P2 card with the camera.
But here goes again.
Okay the reabate ends this month I think. So you have a few days to buy if not then this happens.
DVX $3,400 + $800 (16.9) = $4,200
HVX $5,500 ( a guess)
So, $1,300 bucks for a camera that can shoot HD is not bad, if you rent the P2cards.
Said this on another post.
But if I where Panasonic for the combo price that's been thrown around that's
$9,995.
Here what it should be.
The camera
2 8g P2 cards
and the (just forgot the name) dump station that you can dump the P2 cards to the 60g hard drive.
To me that would be a sweet heart deal. Now if they have a better deal than that I take it also.
Who knows that might even throw in a 4g P2 card with the camera.