New cameras

MadHMC150 said:
...P2 in general is a tried and true format used by the majority - but its inevitable it will have to change in the future. Will they be nice and give us backwards compatibility? Who knows, that's how they make $$$.
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There does reach a point where you have such market saturation that introducing the latest and greatest and not making it compatible with your previous gear may doom the latest and greatest to failure. Betacam is a great example. Each new version could play back the previous version (or two). Thus Betacam in it's various versions was the standard for what, 20 years almost? P2 is at that point, and got there a whole heckuva lock faster. Panasonic would torgue a whole lot of people off if they introduced a "P3" like Barry has been proposing and didn't find a way to make it backwards compatible.
 
Exactly, which is why I propose "P3" in the way I did. It would be 100% backwards compatible with everything. That way anyone who bought back in 2004 could still take advantage of today's latest technology.
 
Great discussion.
I would like to vislumbre the possibilites of SD cards. Do you folks think that the new SDXC cards will or could be compatible in the HMC150?
Thanks for you folks.
 
http://broadcastengineering.com/news/freelance-camera-operators-loss-0727/index.html

Smith chose the JVC camera because of the cost of the media it records to. The JVC GY-HM700 HD camcorder records video as .MOV files on solid-state SDHC Class-6 cards, which is immediately recognizable to Final Cut Pro editing workstations.
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“If networks are going to P2 or SXS cards, I see a lot confusion as to how to keep track of those cards, unless the network is willing to pay for them,” Smith said.
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His SDHC solution affords him the ability to save his original footage on the same card he recorded it on. “These cards are about the same price as a Betacam tape (about $20), so it’s seems to be the only cost-effective way to archive at this point in time.”
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“Because of the environment we now operate in, more and more people are expecting a bargain, so now that I have to own gear again, I don't want to make the $50,000-$60,000 investment that I used to make with the bigger cameras,” Smith said.
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http://www.studiodaily.com/hdstudio/production/11132.html

I initially bought a Sony XDCAM EX3 ... but the idea of very expensive memory cards just didn’t sit well with me.
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I shot with a Panasonic P2 camera owned by a client ... but with the cost of http://www.studiodaily.com/store/panasonicp2/?delivery=emailP2 cards, I was in constant fear of losing the media.
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For many years, we worked with Betacam tapes that are inexpensive enough that you can hand them off and forget about them or later just charge the client $20 for the tape.
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Smith chose the JVC camera because of the cost of the media it records to. The JVC GY-HM700 HD camcorder records video as .MOV files on solid-state SDHC Class-6 cards, which is immediately recognizable to Final Cut Pro editing workstations.
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This is a FCP unique thing. Most other edit solutions not only recognize P2, but allow you to edit native. And the thing a lot of FCP people need to realize is that in broadcast, they are the minority... by a long shot. No TV station I have ever heard of edit their news on FCP. More often than not, it's an Avid setup, since they also have integrated newswriting (iNews) and server systems that allow for on air playback. I have never heard of an integrated server system of anything from Apple. All the shops in town here are to the best of my knowledge Windows based, and mostly Avid.

His SDHC solution affords him the ability to save his original footage on the same card he recorded it on. “These cards are about the same price as a Betacam tape (about $20), so it’s seems to be the only cost-effective way to archive at this point in time.”
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This assumes that a particular broadcast shop archives the raw footage. I'm speaking from a news perspective, but the sheer volume of footage shot daily would make that impossible and cost prohibitive, even if shot on SD or Betacam. More often than not, the finished story may be archived and the raw dumped. But the aquisition medium and archive medium can be two seperate things. For archival, SD would make sense save for it's small and easily losable size.

I initially bought a Sony XDCAM EX3 ... but the idea of very expensive memory cards just didn’t sit well with me.
...
I shot with a Panasonic P2 camera owned by a client ... but with the cost of P2 cards, I was in constant fear of losing the media.
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For many years, we worked with Betacam tapes that are inexpensive enough that you can hand them off and forget about them or later just charge the client $20 for the tape.
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Again, maybe for a small one man band (like myself, which is why I love the HMC150 and am not interested in going P2 right now), but for broadcast (the bulk of the P2 market), the more likely scenario is either edit off the card in the field and transmit it back to the station, or get back to the station and dump it into the server system (which is most likely redundant, so losing the footage isn't a practical problem).

Tools. They're all tools. Not every tool is appropriate for every situation or user. They key is to recognize that, and not assume your needs are the same as every other person's.
 
This is why I'm using the hmc 150. I hand the sd card over at the end of the shoot. I'm convinced that Panasonic and the other camera manufacturers will be offering cameras that will record to SDXC cards in the near future. Low cost media has always been a staple of the freelance commmunity.
 
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All very interesting how people react to this conversation. I understand many here have adapted to P2 or flash recording and data management (are very happy) and that’s great!
From my seat at the table I have a different view. We don’t need to guess Jan or Barry’s agenda’s both make a living selling P2 products and P2 help books. No need to guess mine, I will tell you my (secret) motivation behind this thread that has evolved and originally posted on the Cow about 3 months ago.

I am a working cameraman and have been for 33 years, in mostly documentary, but also movies, commercials etc. I started a rental operation 5 years ago in Washington DC and so I get to see what the customers want to rent and also what my clients ask me to shoot. DC you might think an outpost to the big cities and maybe that’s true but Discovery is here, Geographic is here, and many productions from all over the world come through DC and its not uncommon that they need something from our shop. In other words, we have a steady stream of customers and they rent what they choose to rent (for whatever reasons) has nothing to do with my opinions. So you might say we see a cross section of what productions choose to shoot with. We tend to not rent to news organizations, but to the rest of the production community.
My job is to have on our shelves what the client asks for, and also try and minimize what doesn’t get used. These days It’s a constant challenge to try and be a step ahead (what’s next) and also to lighten up on what gear is on its way out, so not to get stuck with to much inventory of last year’s favorite. You might say It’s my business to have my finger on the pulse of the industry, and if I read it right I get to stay in the game. In this day of fast change its important to stay current, hence the desire to engage in the conversation. (my motivation is being reveled)

Back in January/February when everything was slow and I had time to think about these things and talk to my clients, I wanted to analyze why my clients were NOT renting full size P2 products. I had already bought into Panasonics version of the future and paid lots of money for P2 cameras. Mind you most of where I was coming from was in regard to 2/3” camera systems HVX’s had been busy, so the fact that this thread is now posted on the DV forum is a bit out of place (and “time” to a degree).

I own a bunch of these P2 cameras now (mini and 2/3”), and if they were renting all the time I would have much less motivation to go on about this, but they are not. Id be more then pleased to have this status change tomorrow and have to buy 4 more P2 Varicams because demand out paced supply… believe me I’d be MORE then pleased! So you see my motivation is actually the opposite of what most might assume. I’m financially motivated to encourage P2 camera rental not to question the system or talk about where we should be headed, so you can take financial motivations out of the MO equation.

Personally I could care less where we are headed, I just want the camera makers to make smart decisions for us the consumers. As a cameraman I don’t much like P2 in the productions that I shoot (if I’m asked to do transfers), but where I was coming from was trying to figure out WHY most of our rental clients seemed to feel the same way. I’m not talking them into tape product we just take orders and fill the need. I understand there are many happy P2 campers, but I talk to people everyday who are not there yet. Many of our customers still use tape, a lot are using Sony systems. Believe me when I say I’m an equal opportunity basher and questioner of all these company’s products, I have no axe to grind, only to engage in the conversation of Why, Where, When, etc.

I was attempting to look from 30,000 ft level at the digital time line, where we had come from and where we might be headed. And whether p2 was here to stay or is it a “transition” field storage media. Maybe P3 will be next? Barry Green seemed to understand the need for the “next step” even though he was compelled to discredit all my other premises, but that was one of the big question’s brought to the table “have we arrived” in P2 format? From my seat at the game P2 looks like we are not there yet. If we had arrived I believe we would not be having this conversation. Even in the minicam market where P2 makes much more sense then in 2/3”, we have seen a substantial move away from P2 rentals and into Sony’s version of SxS with EX camera’s. Our Ex’s are very busy and the HVX’s and 170’s have slowed considerably from even 6 months ago. I’m just stating the facts from OUR rental statistics, not an opinion. The whole point of my thread was to ask the question why are these P2 products not moving… and look for possible answers. I get it. Some here think they are selling just fine. Well the P2 Varicam’s are not. Or at least were not before they dropped the price THIRTY THOUSAND dollars! I still don’t know one person who has bought a P2 Varicam… not one person… (other then me)!
There are a few things in my note that I was a bit loose in the facts arena like when did the P2 format arrive exactly and how far and fast did consumer flash pricing drop, but these issues are commonly understood I didn’t feel the need to go fact checking. Most of my note is my opinion and by all means your welcome to have a different opinion. Since posting it I have talked to many people who have read it and many people agree with the idea that we are in a transition period out of tape and into data management and its not been smooth thus far for many people. (I know… some of you are happy with P2).

This transition might not happen as fast as Panasonic would have you believe. I think (my opinion again) that particularly where large quantities of money is concerned (like in 2/3” P2 Varicam’s) we should think twice and 3 times before jumping in rather then blindly buying into the hype we hear everyday from the Manufacturers.

I say again, I don’t care what people want to use or to rent I just need to have on my shelves what the customer wants, but at the moment P2 products are not "flying off" those shelves, and the EX cameras are. I’m just trying to figure out WHY they are not renting and engage in the conversation with intelligent consumers who can pull back from there own current needs, wants (or agenda’s) and look to where we might be headed 3-5-7 years out. I’m attempting to have rational discourse (less emotion helps) without obvious attached agenda’s. Remember this doesn’t help my financial situation by engaging in this conversation, as I'm already a big investor in P2. I’ve talked to a lot of people who like the conversation, and don’t get hooked in some way (or over react… like Barry taking me to DV court of Green’s law’s).

Where should we be headed in terms of camera data storage and camera design? I say look to Red, they are on the cutting edge of what’s possible. Guess what… I don’t own any Red cameras at the moment, but I expect I will buy Scarlet’s when it arrives. Some say "Red is in a different business". Well.... they used to be, but the lines will be getting blurrier and when the Scarlett arrives and the next version of DSLR's come out and Cannons newest video camera arrives, these lines of "who does what" business are disapearing fast, and changing faster. Its becoming an all out war at the lower priced levels.

Panasonic posted they’re quarterly financial results just last night… 560 million dollar loss. Who knows maybe I’m not as “off base” as some here would have you believe.

Peace out, Erich
 
Erich Roland said:
Panasonic posted they’re quarterly financial results just last night… 560 million dollar loss. Who knows maybe I’m not as “off base” as some here would have you believe.
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As you say everyone has their agenda, and that quarterly financial results looks at the company as a whole. Keep in mind that Panaosnic Broadcast is a very small percentage, less that 10% of the whole company. Consumer business is way off, and that is the majority of that number when you look at everything.

That quarterly loss does not just as Sony's quarterly loss does not reflect how the Broadcast business is doing. It is more of a reflection of the consumer side of the business.

As for why your customers are not asking for P2, who knows? There are parts of the country where all the P2 cameras are booked every week. Thing is, that with the Panasonic cameras there is a flexibility that is not in the competitive product and for that I think there is value. I do know that we are selling more P2 cameras per month than we sold tape based cameras, and I am not counting the HPX170 or the HVX200, that would skew it much to the favor of P2, I am talking about shoulder mounted cameras, we are out selling our own sales of tape based cameras with P2 cameras. So somebody is buying them and if you look at the reviews and articles that are published, they are doing some really neat stuff with them.

Best,

Jan
 
> DC you might think an outpost to the big cities and maybe that’s true
> but Discovery is here, Geographic is here, and many productions
> from all over the world
> ...
> We tend to not rent to news organizations, but to the rest of the production community.

I thought that Barry stressed out that P2 is particularly strong in the ENG sector, so you are sort of robbing yourself. Do you even talk to these newsmen before showing them to the door? What format do they prefer?

> I don’t care what people want to use or to rent I just need to have
> on my shelves what the customer wants, but at the moment P2 products
> are not "flying off" those shelves, and the EX cameras are.
> I’m just trying to figure out WHY they are not renting and engage
> in the conversation with intelligent consumers.

Have you asked from the customers who rent out the EX, do they use genuine Sony SxS media or the SDHC hack? AFAIK, P2 has no such hack (yet?).

P.S. With all being said, I am amazed that Panasonic have got the guts to release the HMC150 with AVCHD/SDHC. I am also amazed that JVC have got the guts to release the HM700 and the HM100 with Qucktime/SDHC. Things a'changing. I don't know what Canon is waiting for.
 
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Since P2 is pretty expensive compared to tape and sdhc, don't your rental prices reflect that?

Right now I carry close to 100GB of SDHC cards in a little case. That has replaced hundreds of tapes for us (that I still have to store)... When I looked at the prices of P2 and our long record time needs, I knew that was not the business model (expense) we were looking for...
 
Erich, we went to the court of Green's Law because you were making sweeping statements characterizing all customers and the entire industry, yet you were doing it from a very restricted viewpoint. Had your entire post been about the viewpoint from "the rental industry" or from "the freelancer perspective" then I'm certain we could have had a very different discussion.

It's no big mystery why P2 VariCams aren't selling well -- the expensive one has 2/3" chips and only does 30p. Nobody wants that. Case closed. Done. Over. It offers very little over the HPX3000, a camera that eats the F950's lunch at half the price. So why would someone buy it? Yes, there are certain advantages, and the ASC/PGA's test results might reveal more, but as a consumer I certainly was never tempted at it's $60,000 price. Now, at $30,000 it's much more feasible. As for the HPX2700 -- a lot more appealing to most folks, but when others are offering 1920x1080 raster chipsets, the HPX2700's challenge is convincing people its 1280x720 chipset is good enough. Is this the fault of the format? I don't think so. Furthermore, is anyone buying *any* 2/3" camera anymore? I think the market for those has probably pretty much plummeted across the board. When NBC and ABC start basing their news operations on a 1/3" HPX300, you've got to question the viability of any 2/3" product. Nobody will argue that the quality is better on the 2/3", but -- is it worth the price? Finally -- has anyone noticed there's a bit of an economic slowdown going on? Perhaps the worst since the Great Depression? Perhaps that contributes to the market slowdown for $60,000 VariCam 3700s a little bit more than SDHC memory cards have.

The point I find interesting is that while you seemed to be irate that Panasonic had "abandoned" your tape-based cameras, you didn't even mention that they have indeed offered very inexpensive ways to P2-ize your existing cameras and make them even better than they were.

For myself, I don't see any compelling "need" to move to any other format. P2 works just fine where it is, and for those who don't want or need what it does, SDHC certainly covers the low end. Lots of talk about Red in that big post, but isn't it rather comical to see that Red charges *more* for their 16GB CompactFlash card than Panasonic charges for a 16GB P2 card? Red's model has certainly been disruptive and captivated the consumer's eye, yes, and probably contributed the most to the slowdown of rentals of all 2/3" cameras by major production companies. Then again, it looks like Red may have been out-Redded by Canon's EOS 5D Mark II and Panasonic's GH1 on the low end; all of a sudden a Scarlet at $7500 is starting to look mighty expensive compared to those alternatives.

Point being, there are many "markets" out there, the high-end production company rental market, the freelancer market, the one-man-band/closed-shop market, and the news/eng/broadcast market. Your post characterized P2 as some sort of failure, when it's actually achieved landslide-level success in the markets it was designed for.
 
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Things a'changing. I don't know what Canon is waiting for
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Canon is always dragging with the new cams... When they move to digital, they were last but made a statement with the XL series. When they move to HD, they were last but had some good stuff to offer... Now just waiting for tapeless from them (5D MKII sensor hopefully) on an ergonomic camcorder.

We can complain all we want about anything or everything, but for once i think is great to be in the Video Business today, many options and the Gaps are getting smaller and smaller

Erich Roland has a good point
but the lines will be getting blurrier and when the Scarlett arrives and the next version of DSLR's come out and Cannons newest video camera arrives, these lines of "who does what" business are disapearing fast, and changing faster. Its becoming an all out war at the lower priced levels.
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Many of us are getting great awesome gear at a fraction of what it would have cost years ago... I for one would skip the scarlett but would really look into Canon and DSLR's in the near future.

Like i said is a great time to play with video toys!!!
 
Jam, I am often amazed at how quickly you are on these forums to counter a posting. Does someone call you? Do you have a buzzer that lets you know to go quickly to "DV-users" or the "Cow" and work your magic?

Id guess part of your job description has become "the Face of Panasonic" on-line, and you must have some system of letting you know its time to do your thing, no? Its very curious this new world of media, where everybody gets a say in the matter, and everybody else can read it, so you guys need to be in these places otherwise guys like me might have a negative influence I suppose.

Anyway, I have no way to dispute what you know about the numbers in sales. All I know is what I have laid out above. I have no doubt you are correct in stating that P2 shoulder mount cameras are out selling your tape shoulder cameras, since you have what, just one left.... the HDX-900? Against like 6-7 shoulder mount P2 products? It seems a skew'd stat to me, but that's your department so i have nothing to offer about sales stats other then there are ways to skew statistics in many ways as you've suggested.

Whatever the sales numbers.... in this corner of the world I still don't know one person who owns a P2 Varicam and that is a stat you can take to the bank (but sorry no deposit). I believe the drop in price on the 3700 and "special deals" for the 2700 suggest that there is a good reason I don't know anyone who owns one!

best, Erich
 
Erich Roland said:
Jam, I am often amazed at how quickly you are on these forums to counter a posting. Does someone call you? Do you have a buzzer that lets you know to go quickly to "DV-users" or the "Cow" and work your magic?
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Hi Erich, it isn't magic, and nobody has to call me, it is because I posted in this thread I get an email saying that something new has occured in it. This is pretty old internet technology. And by the way, my name is Jan.

Anyway, I have no way to dispute what you know about the numbers in sales. All I know is what I have laid out above. I have no doubt you are correct in stating that P2 shoulder mount cameras are out selling your tape shoulder cameras, since you have what, just one left.... the HDX-900? Against like 6-7 shoulder mount P2 products? It seems a skew'd stat to me, but that's your department so i have nothing to offer about sales stats other then there are ways to skew statistics in many ways as you've suggested.
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Hey I compare it even back to the days of the AJ-D700 camera, or the height of the SDX900 and frankly even that camera outsold the HDX900, not to say that the HDX didn't sell well because it did and continues to. Point is at the end of every month you add up the shoulder mounted cameras so that had tape in its heyday, and compare that with the sales of shoulder mounted P2 cameras, the P2 wins, easily. So just to be clear, it is not comparing to just the HDX900, that wouldn't be fair, as you point out. Take any point in time since DVCPRO took off in 1996 to today, take the pulse on any month and we sell more P2 cameras today, and this doesn't include the hand-helds.


Whatever the sales numbers.... in this corner of the world I still don't know one person who owns a P2 Varicam and that is a stat you can take to the bank (but sorry no deposit). I believe the drop in price on the 3700 and "special deals" for the 2700 suggest that there is a good reason I don't know anyone who owns one!
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Well you obviously don't know everyone in DC, as there are a good slug of them there but it might be that you really don't. The folks that own them aren't coming to you to rent them. The bigger cameras are selling and as I read the product manager's take it was a marketing opportunty and based on the response there as a bunch of new and happy customers.

Best,

Jan
 
Jan,

I am a bit off topic - but I was wondering if you have seen the post: How long to get rebate battery/card? - http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=166870 and could comment on the issue.

There are a bunch of us on here that are waiting for a battery and card as a rebate for over 4 months. I have a hard time believing you are out of stock, more like you have sold all your stock to e-tailers that now have full inventory of the battery (we know we had to buy a few). I am a long time Sony user and went for the Panasonic HMC150 thinking I was getting the rebate with it. Well what can I say, it has left quite a bad taste in my mouth...
 
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Cranky, We dont show anybody the door, id be happy to rent to news operations but they tend to be closed loops and own thyre own stuff.

No we don't rent out the hack SxS cards usually, but i do have a few in case we run dry.
 
MadHMC150 said:
Jan,

I am a bit off topic - but I was wondering if you have seen the post: How long to get rebate battery/card? - http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=166870 and could comment on the issue.
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Hi,

Your link doesn't send me to the right thread, but if you send me a PM I will forward your inquiry on to the product manager responsible for that promotion and product. Please be sure to include your email and contact info along with the serial number of your camera.

Best,

Jan
 
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