HVX200 package drop in price drama

thefilmaddict

thefilmaddict

Veteran
I ordered the HVX200 package with 2 8GB cards back in December from B&H in New York for $9995.00. As most of you heard, the 8GB cards went down in price recently. The new HVX200 2 8GB card package is cheaper ($8795.00). It now goes for $1200.00 less!

B&H still has not shipped me a camera and have not sent me an e-mail stating when my camera will be shipped, although they already billed my credit card $9995.00. Of course I would love to get the pacakge at the newer lower price.

Are any of you in this situation? Will B&H honor the new package price and give me a refund? Do I need to cancel my original order, get a refund, then purchase at the new lower price? I'm not sure of their policy. Am I just out of luck?

I just thought I would ask you guys for some advice on this issue before I call them.

Thanks for the help!
 
B+H has been very accomodating in my experience. Call the special customer service number, and calmly explain the situation to a manager.
 
Definitely call them. Since they haven't shipped the product yet, I wouldn't think that they have any basis to deny you the lower price.
 
No need to worry. No store can keep a charge on your card unless they have actually shipped your product.

A simle phone call will take care of it but you might be put back and the end of the line since you will be canceling your order and making a new one.

Is waiting another month or 2 worth $1200?
 
penfever said:
Would they really cancel his order? That's cold.
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Given the number of times I have done business with them I would bet not.

(already been said), call 'em!

Then come back and tell us how it went (please).
 
Gregg said:
No need to worry. No store can keep a charge on your card unless they have actually shipped your product.

A simle phone call will take care of it but you might be put back and the end of the line since you will be canceling your order and making a new one.

Is waiting another month or 2 worth $1200?
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Have the price adjusted to the correct price isn't changing his order.
 
After reading your posts, I prepared to call B&H. I expected the worst...

I thought that I would have to get upset with them.

I thought I might have to mention that I ordered over $10,000 worth of stuff in late November/early December and still have nothing to show for the order! How could they make me pay the original price if I still don't have the stuff?

I thought that I would have to mention that I've been a very loyal customer and have purchased 2 light kits, 2 complete editing systems, 2 cameras, all kinds of audio gear, etc... in the last 6 years (costing me a ton of money)!

I thought I might have to cancel the order and go some place else. I thought that this would make the delay to get the camera even longer (that would be bad)!

I THOUGHT WRONG!!!

Here's what happened:

B & H gave me the new lower price. That gave me $1301.55 worth of credit. I then ordered the 60GB P2 Store for around $400 more. I should have a nice little set up now with 2 8GB cards and a P2 store. That must be a ton of 720 24p footage storage (after you fill up the 60GB P2 store and the 16GB worth of P2 cards). If the quality of the HVX200 HD image is very nice, I will be very happy!!!

I REALLY RESPECT B&H. GOOD PRICES AND GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE. PLEASE BUY FROM THEM!!!

------------------------------

NOTE: I am a Final Cut Pro HD Mac user. I had to investigate the P2 store before buying it (because Panasonic only mentions that it will work on a PC). Here's what I found out about it and it's compatibility with Mac:

--------------------------------

TO GET YOUR MAC TO SEE THE P2 STORE (TAKEN FROM A DV INFO POST):

To change compatibility mode between Mac and Windows:

1. Connect USB cable between P2 store and Mac or PC, and then turn on P2
store.
2. Make sure USB LED (D) lights.
3. Press CANCEL button (A), Battery level indicator button (B) and HDD
capacity indicator button (C) simultaneously for more than five seconds.
4. The color of USB LED (D) is orange for Mac, green for Windows.

NOTE :
If you follow the instructions in order, the P2 store will not change modes correctly. The correct sequence is to first press and hold the HDD Capacity ( C ) and Cancel buttons (A), THEN add the Battery Check Button (B), now hold all three buttons for 5 seconds, the mode will change reliably from PC to Mac or back to PC. Doing the procedure in alphabetical order will produce hit-and-miss results.

As mentioned in the note, it is necessary to connect a USB 2.0 cable to the computer or the USB mode LED will not light and you will not know which mode you have selected.

------------------

TO GET THE P2 STORE TO WORK WITH 8GB CARDS (TAKEN FROM AN OLDER POST):

As an update, we discovered yesterday that the P2 store we were shipped was only setup to use 4GB cards. Since we have only 8GB cards, the P2 store didn't want to work with them, it wasn't just my technical incompetence ;-) A few calls to Panasonic support resulted in Panasonic sending us a driver update.

So if your P2 store keeps reporting HDD errors and you are using 8GB cards, call Panasonic to get this driver update.

IT MIGHT BE NICE TO ADD TO THIS INFO PANASONIC'S HVX200 TECH SUPPORT NUMBER. ANYONE HAVE IT?
 
Congrats. That is why B and H has such a good rep. I would love to know their pre-order list number. I'm sure it's quite huge.
 
Justyn said:
Congrats. That is why B and H has such a good rep. I would love to know their pre-order list number. I'm sure it's quite huge.
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Last I heard I think it was around 147 preorders but it could be more now. And when I talked to them a few weeks ago the guy told me they had 340 cameras on order total.

I'm not sure how many they've received and shipped out. I wish I knew that and where I was on the preorder list. :cry:
 
I just got a hard drive with it's own power source or computer powered, with 1,000 gigs of space (1TB) running at 7200rpm and 16mb buffer with FW800/400 or USB, for only 800 dollars.
The HVX has the new host funtion, so I don't see the value of paying twice that for the P2 Store which offers a tiny 60 gigs that will need to be copied to hard drive after only 1 hour of recording at 1gig per minute DVCproHD.... can anyone tell me why I should see the P2 store any differently re value compared to my new 1,000 gig triple interface MAC/PC aluminum cased, virtually silent hard drive?
 
Hawkeye said:
I just got a hard drive with it's own power source or computer powered, with 1,000 gigs of space (1TB) running at 7200rpm and 16mb buffer with FW800/400 or USB, for only 800 dollars.
The HVX has the new host funtion, so I don't see the value of paying twice that for the P2 Store which offers a tiny 60 gigs that will need to be copied to hard drive after only 1 hour of recording at 1gig per minute DVCproHD.... can anyone tell me why I should see the P2 store any differently re value compared to my new 1,000 gig triple interface MAC/PC aluminum cased, virtually silent hard drive?
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I agree that the price of the P2 drive is a bit high and the 60GB is a bit low but you have to take into account what the drive offers. It's portable and runs on the same camera batteries and power supply as the camera which is actually a really cool thing. And you can eject a P2 card from the camera and put it into the drive and with a hit of a button you can transfer your files over and continue shooting. If you use another kind of drive you have to stop shooting and transfer the files over through the camera if using a regular external drive.

I still think it's overpriced but it's a specifalized piece of equipment that does come in handy if you're shooting fast out in the field.
 
"Unfortunately it is still on backorder. Our purchasing agent will forward your backorder inquiry to our Supplier/Manufacturer for an update on its status. As soon as we receive a response from them, we will forward this information to you. We apologize for this delay and for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Thank you for your patronage."

This is in reply to my inquiry from B&H. I ordered Dec 21, 2005 and payed for the HVX 200 with 5 4gig P2's. $9199.00. So it looks like they put it in the hands of Supplier/Mfg
Oh well I'll keep on shooting with my FX1.

Mule Ferguson
Pumpkin Creek Video

Edius Broadcast NX Componet Output
Dual Xeon 3.4
2 G Ram
500 Rad 0 Sata
7800
1 19" Dell
1 24" Dell Dual Mon
 
First I'm interested in what make and model the drive is. It might be the way to go.

The only disadvantages would be that the P2 store reads the P2 cards from it's own slot if I'm not mistaken. That means that if you are shooting and fill a card, you can continue to shoot on the 2nd card while you remove the 1st card and download it to the HDD. If you had 3 cards you would never need to stop shooting. You would be downloading card 1, recording card 2, and switch to recording card 3 when it's time to changeover downloading from card 1 to card 2.

On the HDD you have you would have to stop recording with the camera, put it into host mode and download. I'm not absolutely sure but I don't think the camera can shoot and be host at the same time.

(Just saw the first reply. Stole my thunder.)

In addition, the P2 store is fairly small and portable. How big is that 1TB drive. Would it be practical in the field?
 
philarno said:
First I'm interested in what make and model the drive is. It might be the way to go.

The only disadvantages would be that the P2 store reads the P2 cards from it's own slot if I'm not mistaken. That means that if you are shooting and fill a card, you can continue to shoot on the 2nd card while you remove the 1st card and download it to the HDD. If you had 3 cards you would never need to stop shooting. You would be downloading card 1, recording card 2, and switch to recording card 3 when it's time to changeover downloading from card 1 to card 2.

On the HDD you have you would have to stop recording with the camera, put it into host mode and download. I'm not absolutely sure but I don't think the camera can shoot and be host at the same time.

(Just saw the first reply. Stole my thunder.)

In addition, the P2 store is fairly small and portable. How big is that 1TB drive. Would it be practical in the field?
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1) If you have any computer, your firewire drive would be connected to it, and the P2 card transfers from the computer/laptop, to the hard drive. Your money spent on a p2store can buy any laptop that can serve as the host, and serve other functions as well.

2) Do you "field" shooters really shoot in the woods/desert/forest/ where you have no access to 120v? That happens to me about 1/2 of 1 % of the time for me.
 
Green Hornet said:
1) If you have any computer, your firewire drive would be connected to it, and the P2 card transfers from the computer/laptop, to the hard drive. Your money spent on a p2store can buy any laptop that can serve as the host, and serve other functions as well.

2) Do you "field" shooters really shoot in the woods/desert/forest/ where you have no access to 120v? That happens to me about 1/2 of 1 % of the time for me.
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1) A very good point and I would also encourage people to do this. But you also have to stop shooting while transfering the footage over (assuming you have more than one P2 card). And I've had some clients that wouldn't put up with that. Whenever you have a moment of everyone standing around technically not doing anything they get upset. Not the most desired clients by any stretch but sometimes a necesary evil.

2) Again, a very good point but believe it or not I've been in several situations where there was not a plug in site. At least without going into a donut shop and asking if they wouldn't mind me plugging in my drive/PC and transfer some files over. Not sure how well that would go over.

I'm not saying the P2 drive is the ideal situation for everyone. But there are a few of us that would need it over using a laptop. :)
 
thefilmaddict said:
Very Cool Hitchcock picture. He's one of the best!
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Thanks. I agree. I just love Hitchcock. :)

It's sort of become the thing that everyone recognizes me from on various message boards. I figured I should keep it here as well.
 
You know why I love the P2.
this is how I'm going to use it. I do a lot ENG news and documentaries. The nice thing of P2 is that you can give your soundman the P2 store and when the card is full you give him the card. He hangs the P2 store direct next to his soundmixer does the dump and you film the whole day long. (When you have a break, you dump the store to your laptop and you start al over again).
 
thefilmaddict said:
That must be a ton of 720 24p footage storage (after you fill up the 60GB P2 store and the 16GB worth of P2 cards).
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Let's see... that's 76gb on hand at once, and at 2.5 minutes per gig, that means you've got about three hours and 10 minutes of footage available to you before you have to offload it to something else.

If the quality of the HVX200 HD image is very nice, I will be very happy!!!
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Prepare to be very happy indeed! :)


Hey, thanks for posting those service notes -- I'm sure other members here will very much appreciate that info!
 
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