HDV the future?

Re: HDV the future?

[quote author=ettubaby link=board=sony;num=1104107398;start=45#56 date=12/29/04 at 14:56:03]

I think you are reworking the number there.  Panasonics profit were half that and Sony's mostly come from gaming and its entertainment divisions.  [/quote]
You lost me there. I was talking solely about Sony's revenues and suspected profits.

I think they sell a few thousand.
Click to expand...
A few thousand total? As in, you believe there's only maybe 5,000 PD170's sold? Wow, we would disagree if that were the case. I am certain the numbers are much higher than that.
 
Re: HDV the future?

I just though we were talking about dvx, not the sony, The earning I initial gave were panasonic parent company not sonys. In term of pd170 you said 200000 units sold, so you say earning of the pd170 are 1/2 bill, but yes over a couple of years... three. They are still raking it in. wow
 
Re: HDV the future?

All the numbers I was listing were for Sony, yes (which is why I said Zeiss, etc).

I'm sure the sales of the PD170 are a lot lower than for the 150; for the 150 they were pretty much unchallenged for 2 or 3 years, it was THE camera to have until the DVX and now XL2; the PD170 got a $300 rebate slapped on it almost immediately. I'm sure it's still selling to some customers, but I don't think it's drawing nearly the sales numbers that the 150 used to.

Sony's sales overall are down and their market share is declining in several areas, but their profits are doubled this year vs. last year, apparently they're making good margins on the product they're moving.  I don't know what's driving this, but they're selling something that's got good profit margins, which is always a good sign for a company.
 
Re: HDV the future?

Hi Barry,
This thread reminds me of the old Betamax V/S VHS debate that a lot of you may not be old enough to remember...
Sony Betamax was definitely better quality... but VHS got more (cheaper) players out there first and the rest is history.
Dale
 
Re: HDV the future?

... and VHS allowed for longer record times. That, I believe, was the clincher. When customers saw they could get six hours on one tape, they didn't even ask any further questions...
 
Re: HDV the future?

I guess it depends on what a feeder deck to the NLE will cost... the cheapest DVCPRO-HD deck is currently $21,000... but then again, with a sub-$6000 camera, there should be a corresponding sub-$6,000 deck announced too, hopefully...
Click to expand...

Well, the DVCPROHD mockup that Panasonic has shown at tradeshows says it is a P2 camera, which means it records to memory cards. If that is the case, my guess is that there will be no tape mechanism at all and therefore no feeder deck.

It would be nice to have a deck for backing up footage to tape, but hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper these days.
 
Re: HDV the future?

It's a different look. It's only "better" if you like the look of progressive-scan instead of interlaced.

1080i looks like conventional interlaced video (like the news, or soap operas); only higher-resolution.

720p, when played at a 24p frame rate, can look like film (or DVX/XL2 24p footage).

The HDV specification doesn't allow for 1080p, so if you want to use HDV, you to make have a choice: progressive-scan at 720, or interlaced at 1080...
 
Re: HDV the future?

This has been discussed before. But DV spec "doesn't allow" for progressive data on tape either. Still, it's possible to put progressive frames into interlaced DV tape. So, if you shoot 1080p and put it to 1080i HDV tape or other media, it will still look the same, as the only thing that matters is, if the material was progressive when it was captured.
So, it would be technically possible to do a HDV 1080 24p camera, just as it was done on DVX and XL2 on interlaced DV spec. (But, I for one would be much happier with another format than HDV, as the 25 Mb/s isn't enough in extreme conditions.)
 
Re: HDV the future?

Not only is it technically possible, but JVC has already announced plans to do so (with their shoulder-mount, 2/3", 3-CCD ENG-style HDV camera). I should have mentioned that, thanks for bringing it up.
 
Re: HDV the future?

What is the cost / space of the P2 cards versus DVCPRO HD tape? I'm thinking of a scenario where one does not have access to download footage from the P2 cards and wondering how expensive that would get. Hence, wondering if they really will put P2 in the new prosumer Panasonic, or tape. I suppose both is very unlikely?
 
Re: HDV the future?

I would prefer 720p to 1080i anytime. At least we'd have 720 real lines. I am amazed and saddened that some people are still pushing interlace. Why do people take such bad decisions? On the other hand, the whole worls works this way. If people would use their brains a little more there would be no poverty, no wars, and of course no interlace.
 
Re: HDV the future?

Barry: I just think that the consumer part of "prosumer" is not going to take to a P2 only solution, given the high cost to storage ratio for that medium. Actually, anyone who isn't always going to have a hard drive around (or lug some other device) is in the same boat. I do like the idea of P2, and if I had an option to use one or the other at any time that would be nice...but are there any pro models that even do that? If I had to choose between only using one format, it would have to be tape. How do others feel the issue of tape vs P2?
 
Re: HDV the future?

But how much more expensive is P2 than tape, by storage unit? And, how much storage of HD footage does one P2 card have? Sure' I'd like P2 also, but not at any price. It would be nice to be able to use a cam without having to constantly download material somewhere.
 
Re: HDV the future?

P2 is solid-state memory-based cards. No moving parts, no dust or moisture problems.Today the biggest card is 4 GB and holds 16 minutes of DV signal. (25 mb/s).

I dont like tape, its a crime to preserve. But its an easy and cheap way to store and save the original for a short period. If you have huge digital data you need blue ray or hd-dvd or harddisk to dump your P2 cards on.
If you are in the field, maybe you can use the biggest Ipod ( 60 Gb) to dump it on...

So you can use the P2 cards again. In the future you see the memory cards price per GB will go down. For now, tapes and dvd recordables are cheaper.
 
Re: HDV the future?

Well, we'd have to differentiate P2 away from DVCPRO-HD to keep the discussion on track. I don't expect that we'll ever see DVCPRO-HD "consumer" cameras (i.e., $399 JVC 1-CCD models at Circuit City)... I think that section of the market would go to HDV, since a consumer-only company like Sharp has already signed on to HDV.

So the question is, would the consumer agree to a P2-only style of recording? I don't know... they've adapted to it for digital cameras (I mean, not that there was ever a tape option for digital cameras!) But P2 isn't designed primarily for consumers or even conventional pro shooters, is it? It's my understanding that Panasonic promotes P2 primarily to news shooters, and in that context it's enormously valuable.

If I could only have one or the other... hmmm... obviously we all want tape to go away, as well as capture times, but tape is *sooooo* cheap compared to hard-disc or memory recording... hmmm... I think if Panasonic releases a P2-only system, intended for consumer use, that would probably be the wrong move. Give us both. Gotta have both. For example, recording plays or concerts or whatever (keeping in touch with Panasonic's "make a living/flip a switch/make a movie" slogan) to make a living, you just have to have long recording times, and that means tape. Even if you could afford enough P2 cards to go for an hour, what if you're doing a 3-camera shoot? A $10 tape just can't be beat.

If we can have only one or the other, I'm ashamed to say it'll have to be tape, until P2 cards can store an hour and cost $50. Hopefully (fingers crossed, begging and pleading Panasonic) it'll do both. I would *so* love to never have to deal with tape again! But as a practical matter, I think tape's going to be with us for a while.
 
Re: HDV the future?

Perhaps BluRay and P2 combined?

Speaking in the here and now, even if I don't have seperate deck I can copy video, picture and other supplementary files to the XDCAM and take the camera to wherever I need to and upload via file transfer to their machine.

P2 would be fantastic for news, but the ultimate would be a Blu-Ray and P2 combined camera. All the advantages of cost of non linear disc based storage for longer drawn out projects, and the advantages of even more speed of P2 for short form projects.
 
Re: HDV the future?

[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=sony;num=1104107398;start=75#77 date=01/16/05 at 18:05:08]
If I could only have one or the other... hmmm... obviously we all want tape to go away, as well as capture times, but tape is *sooooo* cheap compared to hard-disc or memory recording...[/quote]

I'm not convinced that tape is always cheaper than P2 in recording DVCPROHD; it depends on what kind of shooting you're going to do, how much you're going to do, and when you intend to start doing it. For right now, I think P2 narrative shooting is about as cost effective at tape, and P2 documentary shooting will be as cost effective as tape in 2-3 years.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation is as follows: Let's assume that, after recording to a P2 card, you dump the footage to the new LaCie F800 disk array set to work at RAID 5 (750 GB for $1500, or $2/GB). Since an hour of 24p DVCPRO HD at 40Mbps takes up about 20GB, that means that a P2 downloaded to RAID solution would cost about $40/hour of footage. Now, going over to B&H, we can see that a 64 minute DVCPROHD tape costs $45. P2 and RAID are actually cheaper.

What's more, after you've filled up the LaCie RAID drive, you can buy a new set of 4 drives for about $1000, which is $1.33/GB, or about $28/hour of footage. Finally, if you really wanted to bring your variable costs down, you could invest in a $1100-$1300 data tape drive which can archive as much as 200GB to a $50 tape, which is a cost of $.25/GB or $5/hour of footage.

There are, of course, some downsides to the P2 workflow as I've described it. First off, right now 4GB is the size of the largest card, and if you are in a situation where you can't download your P2 cards to your RAID and clear them out during your shoot, you may be significantly impacted. Narrative shoots may be able to expect to have a laptop & RAID on set or to have a low enough shooting ratio to confine their day's footage to a few P2 cards, whereas documentary shoots probably will not. Second, the fixed costs of this workflow are non-trivial (however many 4GB cards for $600? $1000?; a RAID array for $1500; a data tape drive for $1300). When compared to the cost of a DVCPROHD deck, though, these costs seem pretty reasonable. Also, the cost of RAID arrays, hard drives, and tape drives keeps coming down because of major competition. Third, if higher frame rates are supported in a prosumer P2 DVCPROHD cam (60i @ 50Mbps or 60p @ 100Mbps), then clearly the cost-effectiveness of the P2-RAID solution will suffer.

According to Panasonic, they expect flash memory to double in size each year. If we assume that this (perhaps optimistic) conjecture is right, then in 3 years we will have 32GB P2 cards, which would amount to 96 minutes of 24p DVCPRO HD. At that point, high shooting ratio documentary-style run-and-gun shooting will be more than possible, especially if the camera has 2 or 4 P2 slots. For a lot of projects, 4 P2 slots with an 8GB card each (for a total of 2 hours of footage without reloads) will be enough, and this should in theory be available within a year.

If we can have only one or the other, I'm ashamed to say it'll have to be tape, until P2 cards can store an hour and cost $50.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that it will be a long time before P2 cards are cheap enough to be a one-use technology, but that isn't what they are designed for. If you assume that the 4GB card sells for $600 (a number I pulled out of the air based on the fact that 4 1GB SD cards cost $300), then P2 runs at an eye-popping $3000/hour of footage. Even if flash memory doubles each year at the same price, it would take on the order of 6 years to bring the cost down to $50/hour of footage. You have to remember, though, that that's not at all what P2 cards are designed for. P2 cards are designed as multi-use objects that are downloaded into IT systems. In the short term, the per hour costs for an IT-based solution are around the same as the costs for video tape. In the long term, IT systems will become much cheaper, though, because of the technological advances constantly being made in the computer world.
 
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