Live from the Panasonic NAB press conference...

k2director said:
Cheaper p2 cards is huge news. Huge. Very few people will care about a 5 year or so lifespan (and that's a conservative estimate). $1000 for very fast 64gb is going to open up p2 to so many other uses. Now smaller, more cost-conscious producers will be able to buy some of their own cards, hand them to a freelance cameraman, and then take the cards home at the end of the day. It also is far cheaper to handle shooting a full day on cards without doing a data offload, which has also been an Achilles Heel of p2.

I think this is the moment where p2 experiences a real breakthrough in acceptance. I think this will also help put Sony's xdcam disk to rest. If you shoot 5 hours of content on xdcam, you end up with 4 disks to be carried around and then manually loaded into an edit system, one disk at a time. You can shoot 5 hours of p2 via a pro Panasonic camera without stopping to put in new media, and transfer it all with a single button press in less than 45 minutes.
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I agree. I have a hard time thinking people will care that it "only" lasts five years with daily use. Organizations that are actually using their cards daily... namely TV news stations... would have the budget for it anyways. I'm thinking that this new E series is going to help the HPX300 put a big dent in Sony EX series sales.
 
Well, I know that I've been a P2 user since 2005, and I don't come anywhere close to filling up my cards every day. There will be many days when they're not used at all, and a few days where they'll fill up multiple times. I think this whole "5 year" thing is being conservative, probably to make a bigger distinction between the "A" and the "E" series.

And the "A" is still offered. For news organizations or major turnover users, paying 3x as much for a card that should last 10x as long makes good sense. For the small producer who's never going to likely ever encounter the lifespan limit of the "E" cards, a price slash of 55%-65% is very welcome indeed.

Also, you'll get plenty of warning if you're using a card that is anywhere near its end of useful lifespan. There will be a "run down card" indication in the viewfinder when you insert a card that's nearing its end of life; from what I understand it'll be announced long before the limit is reached so you can plan appropriately, but it's not like the card will just stop working right away. You'll probably still have hundreds of uses on it before it's truly hit its end of life.

And, second, there will be an update to the P2 formatting software that will show you the current status of the card. So there's no reason to be concerned, you'll know your status long before the card's ever anywhere near towards being used up.
 
Wow! I am blown away by this P2 announcement.

1. First of all, lets give credit where credit was due, the rumor mill was correct once again. Wow, first the HPX300, now this, I am going to have to start really paying attention to Panasonic rumors, if not other brands so much.

2. Think about what this means. I already own six P2 cards, two 16s and four 8s. For less than $2,000.00, I can acquire two 64s of the E series. I would then have 508 minutes of recording capacity at 720 24pN. 192 minutes of 1080! Wow, I knew the day would come when we could afford to shoot 1080 for everything. This does make the HPX300 much more appealing.

3. The five year thing is hilarious. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the users of this board would not use 5 years of daily usage in 50 years. Even me, I shoot perhaps 4-10 days per month, do the math. There should be NO concerns about lifespan of these cards. By Moores law, these cards will be antiques in about 3 years anyway, we should be shooting 4 or 5k onto holographic SDXC cards by then with average capacities in the TBs.

Great move Jan and Co, I think that this is a home run and bodes very well for the future of the P2 format and cameras. I just hope that they can make enough, a lot of users are going to come out of the woodwork to buy 64GB cards who never would have before.

Dan
 
By the way, thanks much for the detailed press conference report, Barry. You're well ahead of any of the news sites I follow...
 
Great reporting Barry. thank you also. Did they use my good side? ;-) Oh man, I hate being on that side of the camera, I kept telling them I have a face made for radio. I have not even seen it yet, hopefully I don't come off like too much of a dork.

Thanks,

Dan
 
Also in 5 years i dont think im even going to be using P2 anymore once i get a Scarlet/Fushia/VCXFD-9000 whatever .......

New stuff is going to come out trust me....
 
I don't know what the news sites are doing; I just sat there with a wireless card and spoke it as it happened.

New stuff does always come out, but... okay, let me put it this way -- nobody's even mentioned the most interesting snippet I saw there. Why are there faster cards? Sure, offload speed is great and all, offloading a 64GB card in 7 minutes would rock, and they're now 50% faster than the fastest SxS card, but is that all there is to it?

Did nobody notice the tiny mention of AVC-Ultra?

I think they plan on P2 being around for a while.

*and no, nobody will say a word on what AVC-Ultra is. It was one tiny picture at the bottom of one multi-picture slide, but that's what it said...
 
Right. That's what I'm talking about -- nobody seems to know anything. But if they're juicing up the performance of the P2 cards, and announcing a new format called "ultra", then... what can that portend? 4:4:4 recording? 1080/60P? Or <gasp> 4K or 3K or 2K or ??? I dunno, and nobody's talking, and I wonder if it was a mistake that slipped through the cracks. But I shall badger them mercilessly until they spill some good gossip (or blood, whichever comes first).
 
wouldnt be surprised to see 2K 4K....

But it was mentioned in reference to the 3D stuff so it will need a safe potential of 200Mbps to record....
 
Disappointed in the HMC40, however the P2 card news is just what the HPX300 needed. The owners and renters of existing P2 cards won't be happy.

Can someone get better info on the GH-1?
 
Right, 3D stuff... hmmm. Well, 1080/60p doesn't really exist yet, but I've got a 1080/60p-capable 3D-capable HDTV right now. 60Hz, full frames, for left/right eye with the cable-connected glasses.

So yes, I'd say 200mbps is the minimum that we'd be looking at with "ultra", so it could do 60p. Oooh, but could that mean 720/120p is possible? heh.

Anyway, this is just random speculation, there's enough good announcements to keep track of.

I saw the "flash band" compensation in action. It's really pretty good. Makes it look like a CCD shot it, although I could just make out maybe one line here or there that looked different from how a CCD would have shot it. But overall, it's like 99% improved and looks like it'll go a long way towards eliminating one of the CMOS artifacts.
 
Barry_Green said:
Right, 3D stuff... hmmm. Well, 1080/60p doesn't really exist yet, but I've got a 1080/60p-capable 3D-capable HDTV right now. 60Hz, full frames, for left/right eye with the cable-connected glasses.
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JVC and Sanyo sell consumer camcorders that record 1080p60 today. There is a general lack of support though.
 
It seems Panasonic is nothing if not ambitious. I'm still hung up on the picture I'm getting from my HMC150 and AVCCam... good glass and this "AVC-Ultra" has the potential to make me faint. Could be that they're going after Sony's HDCam SR.

Also, this "Flashband Compensation"... am I to understand that by compensating for "flash issues", you're saying it basically compensates for the CMOS rolling shutter (sorry, I can be dense like that)? Suddenly I'm envisioning a "HPX250" that has the 300's chips in a 170's body with AVC-Intra100. :love4:
 
DavidNJ said:
Disappointed in the HMC40
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Why? It's about 3x cooler than I was expecting it to be.

The owners and renters of existing P2 cards won't be happy.
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Why not? I haven't talked to any P2 owners who are unhappy. The system just got a whole lot more affordable, and a 64gb card that used to be a pipe dream, just became reality for a lot of us.

Can someone get better info on the GH-1?
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There won't be anything about a consumer still camera at the NAB show. This is for broadcast stuff, made by the broadcast division. So, while I'd love to get some time with a GH-1, I am pretty sure nobody here will know anything about it. This is all by Panasonic Broadcast and Television Systems Company, whereas the consumer division is staffed by entirely different people.
 
Mike Harvey said:
Also, this "Flashband Compensation"... am I to understand that by compensating for "flash issues", you're saying it basically compensates for the CMOS rolling shutter (sorry, I can be dense like that)?
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Well, no, but it does compensate for one manifestation of the rolling shutter. Rolling shutters cause wobble, skew, fluttering lines under fluorescents/HMIs/mercury vapor lights, and big bands of bright/dark when a flash goes off.

This new firmware compensates for the flash portion, and makes the camera's footage look a lot more like a CCD camera would have under those same circumstances. But it won't do anything about skew/wobble or stuff like that, that's all just part and parcel of dealing with a rolling shutter camera.

However, for the 300's main market (news/ENG etc), I bet the flash was far and away the most prevalent cmos issue that 300 shooters would encounter, and therefore this firmware update will be most welcome.

EDIT: aha, more info on the flashband compensation:
http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...9021155613&surfModel=Content04162009021155613
 
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Barry_Green said:
Why? It's about 3x cooler than I was expecting it to be.
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Doesn't it have 1/4" sensors and add on XLR? I was hoping for an HPX 200 with the HPX300 sensors and AVC Intra 100.

Why not? I haven't talked to any P2 owners who are unhappy. The system just got a whole lot more affordable, and a 64gb card that used to be a pipe dream, just became reality for a lot of us.
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There are people with an investment in P2s and rental P2s that now have lost 60% of their value.
There won't be anything about a consumer still camera at the NAB show. This is for broadcast stuff, made by the broadcast division. So, while I'd love to get some time with a GH-1, I am pretty sure nobody here will know anything about it. This is all by Panasonic Broadcast and Television Systems Company, whereas the consumer division is staffed by entirely different people.
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In this sub-$10k class hybrid DSLRs are game changers.
 
DavidNJ said:
Doesn't it have 1/4" sensors and add on XLR? I was hoping for an HPX 200 with the HPX300 sensors and AVC Intra 100.
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Ah. You were hoping for something entirely different from what it was, I see. I didn't know what to expect from an HMC40, I thought it'd be like the DVC30 but it's way more like the HMC150 than that, so I was pleasantly surprised.

There are people with an investment in P2s and rental P2s that now have lost 60% of their value.
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Er... I guess. You're not a P2 user, I take it? I don't know anyone who values these cards at any sort of resale value, we buy them to use them. Lower prices means we can buy more.

In this sub-$10k class hybrid DSLRs are game changers.
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Doesn't matter, they're not offered from the broadcast divisions, they're not sold to broadcasters, so they won't be at this show.
 
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