Can HVX shoot DV on P2?

Haakon said:
Sounds like if I only have one P2 card with me, a laptop isn't even necessary... I can just bring a little pocket USB2 drive with me, dump and go. That's not shabby at all. When you combine that with the fact that you don't have to capture anything... eesh... I have a feeling that in a year I won't believe I ever messed with DV in the first place. Lol...
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Bingo. I'm already auditioning for the "DEATH TO TAPE" cheerleader squad!

Yeah, one 4GB P2 card is all a filmmaker needs. Shoot for 4 minutes in 1080/24p, dump to USB2 hard disk, resume shooting. No capturing later, no dropped frames, and 1080/24p!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
True, Barry, but you don't do that while you're on set struggling to get through your shot list. A key distinction.

Anyway, I don't think it'll be more than a mild annoyance in the end but I just wanted to point out that the "all you need is one 4GB card" might be sorta problematic.
 
dougspice said:
True, Barry, but you don't do that while you're on set struggling to get through your shot list. A key distinction.

Anyway, I don't think it'll be more than a mild annoyance in the end but I just wanted to point out that the "all you need is one 4GB card" might be sorta problematic.
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Com'on. Back at Super 8 times we had cassettes to change and it took at least a minute or so to unload/reload the camera: pull the new cassette out of its wrapper, open the humidity safe enclosure of the cassette, pull the cassette out from it, push the used cassette in there, and push the new cassette into the camera's empty cassette slot, close the cassette compartment, readjust the camera to restart filming, just to become aware of that the scene had changed so much that it did not make sense any more to start filming again.
The situation was pretty much the same with 16mm/100 ft reels.

Compare that to: Connect the external HD via USB2 with the HVX200, switch to VCR mode, push a button and let the camera download the P2's content onto the external HD. Should not last longer then 30 seconds. Switch back to camera mode and restart filming.

Taking into account, too, that 16mm/100ft or a Super 8 cassette are good for 2.5 minutes of filming at 24 fps while a single 8GB P2 card is good to record 8 minutes of DVCProHD (1080i/30) or 20 minutes with 720p/24 or 32 minutes of DVCPro25/DV. Divide those minute figure by 2 in case of a 4GB P2 card which will cost you appr. 800 bucks.

So IMHO it is much more annoying to change films reels or cassettes (appr. 20% more for the same amount of source material) then dump the content of a P2 card onto a USB2 HD. Plus the situation will vastly improve with P2 cards with higher capacity becoming available after a year or so.
 
Yeah, and when have Super 8 or 100 foot reels been considered real professional production tools? Not a good comparison to be making.

Look, I don't want to give the impression I'm against P2. I'm not, I love the idea. But there are some shortcomings, and some people just want to gloss over them as if they're not there. You know that in a few months' time that'll turn into an endless number of forum threads bitching about "I'm so pissed off about my P2 card!" when a lot of that is really just a misappropriation of uses.
 
Doug does have a point, and we do need to adapt our workflow -- especially in the early days when card capacities are somewhat limited, especially on the 4gb card.

However, PKraft's points are totally valid, if you just substitute "8gb card" for the 4gb that jrv3034 mentions, and "16mm 400' mag" or "35mm 1000' mag" for the "super8 cartridge" analogy. An 8gb card will give about as much runtime as a 1000' magazine of 35mm film, even in 1080 mode. Even the 4gb card matches the runtime of a 400' magazine of 35mm film (and, if you're shooting in 720/24p mode, the 4gb card matches the runtime of a 1,000' mag!)

The workflow will be different as compared to the "firehosing" mentality of some video shooters. But it will be a very familiar workflow for film shooters.
 
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