Firestore & P2 Pricing Question

rgdfilms

rgdfilms

Wet poodle
With the newly announced alliance between Panasonic and Firestore, Firestore developing a drive to handle DVCPRO HD, do you think the release of the drive this spring will cause P2 costs/ capacity from coming down as dramatically as everyone thought ? I know they're two different recording mediums but if a consumer had the choice between $2K for a 100 GB harddrive and $2K for 8 GB worth of P2, I think they would go with the hard drive which would stunt P2's growth. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the release of the firestore will cause P2 to drop but I highly doubt it. Just a concern and a speculation, thoughts ?
 
rgdfilms said:
do you think the release of the drive this spring will cause P2 costs/ capacity from coming down as dramatically as everyone thought ?
Click to expand...

Nope, it won't. It may sound hard, but the P2 HVX200 'prosumer' bussiness is peanuts compared to the full body ENG ( and later EFP with HD models) broadcast world. We don't mind buying 50 or 100 8GB P2-cards. We don't want to fiddle around with tiny firewire cables, addon drives etc. Speed and flexibility are more important than cost.

For some reason, P2 cards cost that much, wether it's the 'top 1% of SD cards', the cost of R&D, ... Prices will stay the same, only capacity will double. In fact, it has already happened: the first 2GB card in the beginning cost as much as the 4GB when it came out, and as much as the 8GB is now( and as the 16GB will be next year, and so on).

Compare it to PC's: my current Athlon 3500 costs as much as my 7Mhz 8086 from way back. Prices stay, speed/capacity doubles.

That said, think of it as choice: either pay premium and get the flexibilty of P2, or stay low-budget, and go Firestore. Then in time, when capacity doubles and doubles and doubles, buy a 64GB P2 for the price of a Firestore.
 
mmmm 64 GB P2 for 2K,

mmmmmmmmmmmm...tasty

thanks for the info, makes sense

it would have been some tasty icing on the cake if Panasonic just bundled a 4 GB card or even a 2 GB card with the base camera just like how all the digital still cameras on the market are released with a memory card that can hold 2 high res pictures, that way us broke fools can at least taste test HD for the time being

ah vell
 
I think Pany will not be making huge profits of P2 at the moment. If I was them, I would just aim to sell as many P2 cards as possible and establish the format. Although it would restrict profits now, it is more likely to pay off later. The factors keeping the price of P2 cards up are the cost of the SD memory and the limited production of the cards.
 
How about this as an option on the Firestore (which is the way I will go for now). How about a P2 option for the Firestore? Shoot with one P2 card and load to the Firestore. Of course this is with file conversion to native formats for your NLE...
???
 
rgdfilms said:
it would have been some tasty icing on the cake if Panasonic just bundled a 4 GB card or even a 2 GB card with the base camera just like how all the digital still cameras on the market are released with a memory card that can hold 2 high res pictures, that way us broke fools can at least taste test HD for the time being

ah vell
Click to expand...

I LOVE that idea rosie..uhh...I mean rgdfilms. A bundled 2gb card would be great!
 
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