im.thatoneguy
Well-known member
Operating shock tolerance of most SD cards is around 2k Gs. If you experience 2k Gs, the least of your concerns is the survival of the data. 
HVX-200 streaming DVCproHD via FW400
- Thread starter Barra
- Start date
There are larger bateries for Firestore.
A modern HDD can start writing quite fast. It's not like we are waiting for film to get to speed
A modern high capacity 2.5inch disk uses 0.2watts idle to 2.5watts when maxed out writing. It's not that important. An HDC27 VariCam eats about 32watts typically. Even cameras that only use P2 use about 20watts. And the consumption of a tape transport is a multiple of the HDD consumption. HDD will be in everything eventually. The cost of memory is insane. All consumer cameras and all professional cameras will eventually use a HDD. Some already do.
A P2 uses 4 sd cards I believe. It uses about 0.4watt + consumption of the controller. We are not talking about a huge difference in consumption.
4x1gb 133x SDs are $300. 4x2gb 120x SDs are $500. 4x4gb 133x SDs are $1200. The P2 cards are a little expensive for what they provide. 80gb on SD cards costs $5000 just in SD cards and about $22000 if it comes in Panasonic P2s. The 80gb HDD is $100. How can something 220x more expensive be a better solution in the digital age?
And everything will switch to liquid fuel eventually
I think the future is removable hard disks in cartidges. About $500 for 5x80gb ones or 500minutes 1080p DVCProHD. I think it's a logical cost. If somebody does not provide it soon enough I will hack it out of an existing hard disk based solution one of these days. It will cost about $2500 which is still not expensive. Compared to $110,000 for a P2 based solution it makes sense
A modern HDD can start writing quite fast. It's not like we are waiting for film to get to speed
A modern high capacity 2.5inch disk uses 0.2watts idle to 2.5watts when maxed out writing. It's not that important. An HDC27 VariCam eats about 32watts typically. Even cameras that only use P2 use about 20watts. And the consumption of a tape transport is a multiple of the HDD consumption. HDD will be in everything eventually. The cost of memory is insane. All consumer cameras and all professional cameras will eventually use a HDD. Some already do.
A P2 uses 4 sd cards I believe. It uses about 0.4watt + consumption of the controller. We are not talking about a huge difference in consumption.
4x1gb 133x SDs are $300. 4x2gb 120x SDs are $500. 4x4gb 133x SDs are $1200. The P2 cards are a little expensive for what they provide. 80gb on SD cards costs $5000 just in SD cards and about $22000 if it comes in Panasonic P2s. The 80gb HDD is $100. How can something 220x more expensive be a better solution in the digital age?
And everything will switch to liquid fuel eventually
I think the future is removable hard disks in cartidges. About $500 for 5x80gb ones or 500minutes 1080p DVCProHD. I think it's a logical cost. If somebody does not provide it soon enough I will hack it out of an existing hard disk based solution one of these days. It will cost about $2500 which is still not expensive. Compared to $110,000 for a P2 based solution it makes sense
btw, 2.5inch HDD can take 900 G/1ms when they are not in power compared to 1500G for P2s. And 1.8inch HDD can take 1500G/1ms which should be the same with P2s. Panasonic does not even document the shock properly. 1500G how many ms? It is not operating shock since the connection or the camera would not be able to take it. Sounds like marketing to me which an insanely expensive product would surely need. Their P2 download units use a HDD also so they are not that safe? In a proper cartridge HDD could take a lot more than 900G/1ms. When you are using them in a camera they can take a lot less (250G/2ms for reading), but you really drop the camera off buildings while shooting? Most cameramen I know are so emotionally connected with their camera they wouldn't even give it 2Gs
In a proper cartridge HDD could take a lot more than 900G/1ms. When you are using them in a camera they can take a lot less (250G/2ms for reading), but you really drop the camera off buildings while shooting? Most cameramen I know are so emotionally connected with their camera they wouldn't even give it 2GsPCMCIA today can only fit 0.65inch hard disks at 5gb with 1/3 the speed DVCPROHD needs. 2.5inch is a much safer bet. 120gb already, cheap and quite fast.
Memory recording is a mid market thing. The high end (uncompressed HD) is already on hard disk today and the low end (consumer camcorders) has already taken steps to hard disk recording with some new models this year.
I believe P2 will die much sooner than we expect. Optical media recording could survive for a few years.
Memory recording is a mid market thing. The high end (uncompressed HD) is already on hard disk today and the low end (consumer camcorders) has already taken steps to hard disk recording with some new models this year.
I believe P2 will die much sooner than we expect. Optical media recording could survive for a few years.
Xenophon said:
Did you read the tech section of the NYT on NAND today? What's NAND? NAND is the memory chip in a P2 Card. The big boys are betting over $38 Billion that NAND is not going away.
"Chang-Gyu Hwang, chief executive of Samsung's chip business, caused some eyebrows to rise in skepticism in September when he predicted that the chips would soon hold enough data to make hard-disk drives obsolete"
Samsung is the iPod Nano memory vendor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/technology/12flash.html?pagewanted=1
A 4gb sd card is $700 and can do 20mb/sec. An 80gb hdd is $100 and can do slightly better speed in its slowest point. This is 20x more storage at 1/7 the price. 140x leaps in price/performance do not happen within one or two years.
I have a desktop raid here that is 2TByte and does 500mb/sec when it is empty and about 280mb/sec when it is full. It cost $1300. A lot less than an 8gb P2.
You can do a 32gb storage solution for laptops using SD. It will even outperform a normal HDD. But I don't think I will find one on these in my next laptop when the cost is $6000 at least compared to $100!
A 12gb CF card is $5000 and quite slow. The price of this dropped 66% in 14 months, but the drop was from $15,000 to $5,000 It will take 6 years till it reaches the cost of a normal HDD at this rate. How large/fast/cheap will hard disks be by then?
Samsung will probably make more flash and sram memory to meet demand and even produce less normal memory since it does not pay that well these days with all the competition. That doesn't mean much really. Perhaps they will intoduce a NAND based HDD in cooperation for microsoft. They actually did a prototype at 1gb. But that will actually be a HDD. With plates, heads and eveything. They are working on ways to improve hdd using memory. The principle is simple. It is a normal HDD that uses a NAND buffer that is part of the storage. It does not need to be written to hdd. This will drive consumption down since it might reduce access to the disk in some typical uses.
NAND and other memory technologies will certainly not go away. But they will cover the consumer sector. Small size, low weight, high price. Mp3 players and digital cameras. These applications don't need much memory and are happy with a few gigabytes. I don't see any future in these technologies in professional video or servers. It will take more than 15 years till this becomes a possibility. The pro video market is very small and tends to develop at the minimum of speed. I can't think of a reason Panasonic would make such a big marketing mistake with P2. They just wanted to be different than Sony and all the others I believe. Somebody wanted a new technology and they "invented" one.
I have a desktop raid here that is 2TByte and does 500mb/sec when it is empty and about 280mb/sec when it is full. It cost $1300. A lot less than an 8gb P2.
You can do a 32gb storage solution for laptops using SD. It will even outperform a normal HDD. But I don't think I will find one on these in my next laptop when the cost is $6000 at least compared to $100!
A 12gb CF card is $5000 and quite slow. The price of this dropped 66% in 14 months, but the drop was from $15,000 to $5,000
It will take 6 years till it reaches the cost of a normal HDD at this rate. How large/fast/cheap will hard disks be by then?Samsung will probably make more flash and sram memory to meet demand and even produce less normal memory since it does not pay that well these days with all the competition. That doesn't mean much really. Perhaps they will intoduce a NAND based HDD in cooperation for microsoft. They actually did a prototype at 1gb. But that will actually be a HDD. With plates, heads and eveything. They are working on ways to improve hdd using memory. The principle is simple. It is a normal HDD that uses a NAND buffer that is part of the storage. It does not need to be written to hdd. This will drive consumption down since it might reduce access to the disk in some typical uses.
NAND and other memory technologies will certainly not go away. But they will cover the consumer sector. Small size, low weight, high price. Mp3 players and digital cameras. These applications don't need much memory and are happy with a few gigabytes. I don't see any future in these technologies in professional video or servers. It will take more than 15 years till this becomes a possibility. The pro video market is very small and tends to develop at the minimum of speed. I can't think of a reason Panasonic would make such a big marketing mistake with P2. They just wanted to be different than Sony and all the others I believe. Somebody wanted a new technology and they "invented" one.
I think your wrong on a few points Xenophon.. but most importantly the reasons behind Panasonic's P2 creation reasons.
P2 cards came out in the SD world on the SPX as a fast way to go from no digitizing on the field in remote applications for almost instant capture to air. The "container" needed to be incredible rugged.. hard drives wouldn't cut it out in the desert in the blowing sand and heat or in the middle of some hostile ENG situations. Optical solutions would just not hold up. P2 was marketed as an incredibly strong storage medium with zero capture times, and when it was used to store SD DVCpro the runtimes on 4gb cards fit into most people workflow without problems.
As for using SD cards.. it was brilliant. Panasonic could leave the development of larger, faster SD cards to the consortum, and focus on other things, like the HVX. Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba along with 700 other companies in the SD association (open standards mind you) insure a healthy R&D.
P2 cards, with demand from the consumer market will continue to expand in storage capacity and lower in price. SD cards wont go anywhere for along time.. it has replaced compact flash and Smartmedia cards as the storage standard.
If anything P2, with this HD implementation is just a little ahead of its time.. its creating a camera and storage system that will just mature rather than become extinct. Its kinda like all these HD televisions being sold with HDMI inputs.
4gb cards are out now.. which when put into P2 form will allow for 30 minutes of 1080 DVCpro HD recording when used it 2 slots. Remember, HDCAM camera tapes are 40 minutes.. so the playing grounds even out, and the cost factor disipates when you consider the re-use factor. tape doesnt get cheaper either.. it never has. P2 cards will though, as every year passes.
P2 cards came out in the SD world on the SPX as a fast way to go from no digitizing on the field in remote applications for almost instant capture to air. The "container" needed to be incredible rugged.. hard drives wouldn't cut it out in the desert in the blowing sand and heat or in the middle of some hostile ENG situations. Optical solutions would just not hold up. P2 was marketed as an incredibly strong storage medium with zero capture times, and when it was used to store SD DVCpro the runtimes on 4gb cards fit into most people workflow without problems.
As for using SD cards.. it was brilliant. Panasonic could leave the development of larger, faster SD cards to the consortum, and focus on other things, like the HVX. Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba along with 700 other companies in the SD association (open standards mind you) insure a healthy R&D.
P2 cards, with demand from the consumer market will continue to expand in storage capacity and lower in price. SD cards wont go anywhere for along time.. it has replaced compact flash and Smartmedia cards as the storage standard.
If anything P2, with this HD implementation is just a little ahead of its time.. its creating a camera and storage system that will just mature rather than become extinct. Its kinda like all these HD televisions being sold with HDMI inputs.
4gb cards are out now.. which when put into P2 form will allow for 30 minutes of 1080 DVCpro HD recording when used it 2 slots. Remember, HDCAM camera tapes are 40 minutes.. so the playing grounds even out, and the cost factor disipates when you consider the re-use factor. tape doesnt get cheaper either.. it never has. P2 cards will though, as every year passes.
4gb P2 contain $250 worth of Sds and cost $650.
8gb P2 contain $700 worth of SDs and cost more than $2000.
I don't think the 16gb P2 will be cheaper than $5000 since the SDs cost about $2800. We are talking about $10,000 for 30 minutes.
I don't see the "few points in which I'm wrong". I gave some facts on price/performance and speculated about the future. If you think I'm wrong it has to be on facts and not on speculation, I believe. Anyone can speculate and your speculation is as valid as mine. So, is there something wrong with the facts?
8gb P2 contain $700 worth of SDs and cost more than $2000.
I don't think the 16gb P2 will be cheaper than $5000 since the SDs cost about $2800. We are talking about $10,000 for 30 minutes.
I don't see the "few points in which I'm wrong". I gave some facts on price/performance and speculated about the future. If you think I'm wrong it has to be on facts and not on speculation, I believe. Anyone can speculate and your speculation is as valid as mine. So, is there something wrong with the facts?
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
Xenophon said:
I don't know if calling your "facts" wrong is the right word. I will say that your post would lead people to believe that your information is based on fact, although it is based on fluff. Saying that the 16GB card has to cost $5000, is frankly speculation and attempts to launch another fear induced thread about how expensive the P2 cards are. The 8GB cards were initially introduced at NAB at $2750, now they are at $2200, they too will go down again just as the 4GB cards have. Since the value you have for the price of the SD media within the cards is suspect (since I don't believe you are in our procurement office in Japan) you are going with the pop-culture version of what you think to be true. Think again. Your pricing is speculation and not facts.
Best regards,
Jan
The 8gb P2 cost $2750 in May and they cost $2200 now. It's so generous of Panasonic to do a 20% cut after half a year. The prices of 2gb SD went down by that amount also. What's your point? If the 8gb card went down 20% every six months it will still cost $1408 a year from now.
Panasonic is selling an 8gb P2 that costs $2200 and I can buy 8bg in 2gb SDs retail for $700. That's 314% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact.
Panasonic is also selling an 4gb P2 that costs $650 euros and I can buy 4gb in 1gb sds for $250. That's 260% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact also.
The 16gb card is a product from the same company and will be priced by the same people. I speculated that a 16gb card will probably cost more than $5,000 because the cost of memory is $2800 today. I should have said that since it will be the top of the line card, like the 8gb is now, and using short supply memory chips, it would cost $2800*3.14=$8792 at least if it was released tomorrow since companies do not change profit margins easily when demand is so high. On the contrary.
Isn't the Panasonic markup quite large on P2 cards? What makes you think panasonic will release a 16gb card really cheap? If you have a better guess or inside information you should share it with us. My estimation is based on the pricing of the 4gb and 8gb cards since that's the only thing I can use as a guide. I dunno how much cheaper the cards are to Panasonic. Perhaps you could help us there. But if panasonic is making even more profit on P2s to cover the marketing campaign, it's Panasonic's problem and not mine (if I don't buy a P2 that is).
This post will remain here till the 16gb P2 card will be released and I will gladly repost it to the front page when the card comes out. We will all see how much it will cost. Your response will remain here also.
Btw, you should read some books on marketing. Your cheap 16gb card viewpoint is not helping 8gb P2 sales. You are supposed to market the P2s as a cheap and effective new format, not reduce sales.
And my final estimates so when we can compare later on
Panasonic 16gb P2, january 2006: $5000, July 2006: $4000.
Panasonic is selling an 8gb P2 that costs $2200 and I can buy 8bg in 2gb SDs retail for $700. That's 314% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact.
Panasonic is also selling an 4gb P2 that costs $650 euros and I can buy 4gb in 1gb sds for $250. That's 260% the cost of memory retail. That's a fact also.
The 16gb card is a product from the same company and will be priced by the same people. I speculated that a 16gb card will probably cost more than $5,000 because the cost of memory is $2800 today. I should have said that since it will be the top of the line card, like the 8gb is now, and using short supply memory chips, it would cost $2800*3.14=$8792 at least if it was released tomorrow since companies do not change profit margins easily when demand is so high. On the contrary.
Isn't the Panasonic markup quite large on P2 cards? What makes you think panasonic will release a 16gb card really cheap? If you have a better guess or inside information you should share it with us. My estimation is based on the pricing of the 4gb and 8gb cards since that's the only thing I can use as a guide. I dunno how much cheaper the cards are to Panasonic. Perhaps you could help us there. But if panasonic is making even more profit on P2s to cover the marketing campaign, it's Panasonic's problem and not mine (if I don't buy a P2 that is).
This post will remain here till the 16gb P2 card will be released and I will gladly repost it to the front page when the card comes out. We will all see how much it will cost. Your response will remain here also.
Btw, you should read some books on marketing. Your cheap 16gb card viewpoint is not helping 8gb P2 sales. You are supposed to market the P2s as a cheap and effective new format, not reduce sales.
And my final estimates so when we can compare later on
Panasonic 16gb P2, january 2006: $5000, July 2006: $4000.
ransom said:
yes.. everyone knows this Ransom, except Xenophon. Xenophon will also have you believe that ECC memory is just the same price as Non-ECC memory, Elvis lives in his basement and that his gramma's Pigs fly 3 times a year.
And I love how in his price comparisons and price drop rates he conveniently skipped right over the fact that the 4gb cards has dropped 70% in price since April.
Way to bring those facts home skippy!
Jarred Land said:
Since you are already working for Panasonic in my eyes Jarred Land, this is very unprofessional of you.
Panasonic want us to believe we are getting something special. It is just a simple controller with 4 sd cards. Any EE can tell by the requirements of the application. The format needs only 12,5mb/sec. Any sd cards on the market can be used. They are not using 150x or anything. They don't have to.
Four 2gb SD 150x cards WITH ECC SUPPORT cost less than $700. Some brands are only $500 (A-Data ones). A single good 150x SD card can do DVCPROHD. Those are at your local photographic equipment shop these days. There is nothing special about the sd cards in P2, because nothing needs to be special when you can use 4 cards and engineers do not increase the cost just for kicks.
The 70% price drop on 4gb sds was simply scheduled. 1gb sds are a very old and cheap technology (not for p2 users of course). The camera was not out. 4gb P2 cards were not available in stores. They could say anything about the price. That is just a cheap way to push the aging 1gb SD technology. Even after the price drop the profit they make is similar in % with the one they are making on 8gb cards. You were glad to announce the 4gb price drop followed by a few exclamation marks on this site just in time with the first videos. I bet that produced some 4gb card sales and Panasonic are very happy with your performance.
Anyway, this is getting boring. I'm out of here. I deny to accept marketing addressed to technically challenged persons. And I feel like I'm playing your (Panasonic's) game when contributing. You can continue pushing something the members of this board will regret buying (P2). You will keep pushing the camera without releasing any tests or uncompressed frames on any short. Jan will continue her definition of "marketing" and keep the low number of pixels on the ccd confidential and so on.
Greetings to everyone reading this
If it is all that simple, please make them for the members here and make your self a bundle. Otherwise understand that they are not that simple, are not using off the shelf components that you can get at Fry's, CompUSA, etc., they took some R&D to develop and are priced at what Pany thinks is a fair price while still getting a return on their investment. And I believe anyone that wants to make 3rd party P2 cards are welcome to do it as long as they meet Pany's strict reliability and ruggedness requirements. If they do it cheaper than Pany and meet Pany's specs all the better for us.
$.02
johnc
$.02
johnc
esperman
Well-known member
I agree the P2 is overpriced. New technology usually is. Remember when firewire cards cost $400? But don't worry, prices will come down, and there is always the option to rent cards.
The fact is, 50% of corporate and narrative work can be shot using 1 or 2 P2 cards, and transfered easily to external drive or firestore type device. For a camera that gives us a proven HD format with sooo many recording options (P2, Firestore, Live stream, uncompressed D4 output) I can live with the systems shortcomings.
If you want real cheap HD, there are plenty of viable HDV offerings.
The fact is, 50% of corporate and narrative work can be shot using 1 or 2 P2 cards, and transfered easily to external drive or firestore type device. For a camera that gives us a proven HD format with sooo many recording options (P2, Firestore, Live stream, uncompressed D4 output) I can live with the systems shortcomings.
If you want real cheap HD, there are plenty of viable HDV offerings.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Compare apples to apples, please. A 4gb P2 card is a 4gb device, and is the fastest memory card on the market. If you compare against a fast 4gb card like the SanDisk Extreme III, you'll find that the Extreme III 4gb card carries an MSRP of $599. It's 4gb, it's the fastest compactflash card out there, and it retails at $599. The P2 card is 4gb, it's 4x faster than the Extreme III, and it costs $51 more. Sure doesn't seem overpriced to me.Xenophon said:
As for the 8gb card, obviously those are quite expensive, a single 8gb card costs more than three 4gb cards. My recommendation is: don't buy the 8gb yet. A year from now the 8gb will probably be under $700, at which point it'll make a lot more sense.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Xenophon, others are being impatient, and I understand why. I am attempting to be patient, but please, you simply do not have the facts and you are off-base when you make proclamations like this. You're making wild assumptions that are not, in any way, based in fact.Xenophon said:
For example: read what Spec-Comm says the P2 card is. "a simple controller"? hardly. These guys are engineering a device that works in the P2 slot, so they have to be fully versed in what the P2 card is and what it does and what the camera expects of it.
(taken from Spec-Comm's post at http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showpost.php?p=372184&postcount=31
"any SD cards" is simply not true. There's one, and only one, SD card (that I know of) that has the sustained data rate to support DVCPRO-HD transfer rates, and that's the Extreme III. Even the high-speed Ultra II is too slow, it has a sustained write rate of 10 megabytes per second. DVCPRO-HD (and its audio and associated metadata files) requires something on the order of 14 megabytes per second. Only the Extreme III can handle that; it's rated at 20 megabytes per second. And an Extreme III card by itself costs about the same as a same-capacity P2 card. Keep in mind we have yet to see "street price" on P2 cards -- they may be substantially less than $650.
If you honestly believe this, then I think there's a good entrepreneurial slot for you to leap in and make your own cheap P2 cards. I'll even suggest a name: "CheaP2". If you can produce P2-compatible cards at 1/4 the price of Panasonic's, I would guess that you'd sell a lot. Of course, I think that once you start delving into it you'll find that it's a *lot* more complex than you're thinking, just like Specialized Communications is now discovering.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Actually, they don't even have to do that. If they want to call it a "P2" card, and put the "P2" logo on it, then yes they'd have to comply. But if they just want to engineer some cheap solution that takes a plug-in SD Extreme III card, and they don't call it "P2", they probably don't even need Panasonic's permission at all.johnc said:
Anyone who did that would find a huge fan club among HVX users! :thumbsup:
Please don't loose your patience on me just because I understand electronics enough to know that P2 is not a miracle of engineering:
That would be a traumatic experience I bet
Anyway, my "assumptions" are based on facts.
Electronics is what an engineer does for a living. It might seam like infinitely complex work to most people but it everyday work for an EE. All the components are pretty standard. SD, controller, PC card etc. The cost of the P2 solution is not justified to me since the cost of the components is very low compared to the retail price. From an engineers' point of view it is an $100,000 indie film marketed with a $20m budget.
I said any SD card because 4 of them are used. I think that was obvious. They can be the cheap type we find at very low prices. 66x is a lot faster than the requirements. Perhaps those were not that common a few years ago, but now they are already outdated. The typical SD card available TODAY can be used with the P2 controller since it exceeds the requirements.
I understand most people haven't got a clue on what electronics cost to develop. I have heard insane arguments on how much more expensive 2/3inch sensors or super 35 sized ones would be. People should start thinking for themselves instead of buying company marketing. On the example above, 2/3inch HD sensors are cheap enough to be included on single chip $500 or 3xccd $800 camcorders. Why do we still get 1/6 or 1/3inch cameras? Because we still buy the ultra cheap small sensors anyway even though they increase the optics requirements by magnitudes. The result is many prosumer hd cameras with sd optical performance in the corners and tons of problems on the output. Chromatic abberations, smear, ghosting/flare, glowing, bad low light performance, you name it.
That would be a traumatic experience I betAnyway, my "assumptions" are based on facts.
Electronics is what an engineer does for a living. It might seam like infinitely complex work to most people but it everyday work for an EE. All the components are pretty standard. SD, controller, PC card etc. The cost of the P2 solution is not justified to me since the cost of the components is very low compared to the retail price. From an engineers' point of view it is an $100,000 indie film marketed with a $20m budget.
I said any SD card because 4 of them are used. I think that was obvious. They can be the cheap type we find at very low prices. 66x is a lot faster than the requirements. Perhaps those were not that common a few years ago, but now they are already outdated. The typical SD card available TODAY can be used with the P2 controller since it exceeds the requirements.
I understand most people haven't got a clue on what electronics cost to develop. I have heard insane arguments on how much more expensive 2/3inch sensors or super 35 sized ones would be. People should start thinking for themselves instead of buying company marketing. On the example above, 2/3inch HD sensors are cheap enough to be included on single chip $500 or 3xccd $800 camcorders. Why do we still get 1/6 or 1/3inch cameras? Because we still buy the ultra cheap small sensors anyway even though they increase the optics requirements by magnitudes. The result is many prosumer hd cameras with sd optical performance in the corners and tons of problems on the output. Chromatic abberations, smear, ghosting/flare, glowing, bad low light performance, you name it.