P2 Cards... E-Series vs A-Series

A

aleebee156

Active member
1-Is there any down side to the E-series vs the A-series P2 cards?

2-Better to run two 16gb cards or one 32gb card or no difference at all?

3-Is there any issue with mixing card sizes in the camera, one 16 and one 32?

here are my own answers:

1- no

2- no difference

3- no again

just making sure im right here, really couldnt find what i was looking for as far as information goes on the subject. Anything you MUST know about using P2?


Thanks everyone!!!! :thumbsup:
 
1) depends on how much you use them. If you're an occasional user, then there's no downsides. If you're a massive user, filling them up and offloading them several times a day, then the "A" series will last longer than the "E".

2) Two 16gbs give you more flexibility than one 32gb.

3) no.
 
I always seem to miss little things that i should of known when i move into a new area. Ex. when i got my DVX the first time i started filming with widescreen i was shooting 60i in squeeze mode! shot an entire short video and obviously it looks horrible. anyways, you learn from your mistakes, but i like to keep my mistakes cost down, haha, thanks Barry
 
3-Is there any issue with mixing card sizes in the camera, one 16 and one 32?
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technically, no. no problem at all. you can mix and match all day. but you MAY run into logjams when offloading. the 32gig will take a good deal longer to offload than the 16gig. so lets say you filled the 32 then started shooting on the 16. there is a very good chance that you will fill your 16 before the 32 is finished transferring. which will bring your shoot to a halt for several minutes. which doesnt make paying clients happy.

the place where this would be most problematic is in a situation where youre just constantly rolling. like a concert, long presentation, or news event.
 
aleebee156 said:
i was shooting 60i in squeeze mode! shot an entire short video and obviously it looks horrible.
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On the HPX and HVX all HD modes will be 16:9 but if you use SD 480 you DO want to use squeeze mode if you want 16:9 widescreen, otherwise your footage will be 4:3.
 
Thanks for the tip DGW, good to know!

wgzn, i guess the best thing to do is just get two 64gb cards! i wish!!
 
true, thanks for bringing me back down to earth
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there is a lot of "keeping up with the jones'" and other such silliness in this biz.
but truth be known, for the larger part of my business. i COULD get by VERY happily on about 85% of jobs with a pair of 8gig cards. shoot to one, transfer the other. rinse. repeat.

but where would the fun be in THAT!?!??! right?
 
Im right there with you. Normal use... i dont need two 64gig cards, the 16's will work fine. Just out of curiosity, do you dump your footage on site? if so, what do you use to dump it or what do you transfer it onto?
 
If you have a laptop or PC running P2CMS or your NLE, you can import that way. You can also set the cam to HOST mode and dump the entire P2 card direct to a POWERED external portable hard drive. Note that the cam will not suplly power to an external HD.
 
I believe the life-cycle of the E series is 30,000 uses. I don't know what the other series life-cycle is but it's obviously quite a bit higher.
 
tallrd said:
I believe the life-cycle of the E series is 30,000 uses. I don't know what the other series life-cycle is but it's obviously quite a bit higher.
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So downloading once a day puts you at 82 years.


Hmmm....... I think I'm cool with that.
 
Just out of curiosity, do you dump your footage on site? if so, what do you use to dump it or what do you transfer it onto?
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yeah. i typically use my old worn out 1.0ghz mac powerbook 17" G4. depending on what im shooting, i may hook up a fw800 drive. but usually i just dump to the laptops internal drive.

i have also been known to use a macbook pro w duel adapter or a windows machine once or twice...
 
I have ten 8GB's, three 16GB's (A-Series) and one 64GB (A-Series). And this is after I sold two 4GB's, two 8GB's and one 16GB. Rarely do I have to use anything more than the one 64GB card. Sometimes I'll spill onto an extra 16GB card though. This has just been the nature of my shoots lately. But I'd rather have 'em and not need 'em, than need 'em and not have 'em! :)
 
Cranky said:
http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/faq/P2_E-Series_Cards_faq.pdf

2,000 cycles vs. 30,000 cycles. What happens when a card clocks 2,000 cycles? Will camera still record onto it, will it display a warning message?
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The A and R series cards are designed for many more write/read times than 30,000, whereas the E series is indeed 30,000 and that's it. It's hard to quantify how many times the A, R, and H series can do, but it's "way more than 30,000" (according to a very reliable source in Panasonic's technical support for broadcast). Not sure if or what the camera would display if it's at it's limit but Panasonic offers a feature in one of their software downloads which allows a person to "check the odometer" so to speak (for example, when buying a used E series and wanting to know how many uses it's had). I'm unsure which download contains that option, but I have a link below which should have it somewhere.

I'm not sure what the 2,000 cycles is referring to (SxS cards? CF? SDHC?) but it's not any of the current P2 cards. Once an E series card has been written 30,000 times, it can't be written to again, but it can read up to that point so that the information on the 30,000th write can be taken off the card.

this link is a comprehensive page from Panasonic containing all current downloads related P2, AVCHD, as well as plug-ins for Windows and MAC:
https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm
 
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tallrd said:
I'm not sure what the 2,000 cycles is referring to (SxS cards? CF? SDHC?) but it's not any of the current P2 cards.
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From the horse's mouth:

When recorded once daily, at full capacity (100%), the new E Series cards are reusable for up to five years. When used at half capacity (50%), the cards will continue to record for up to 10 years or longer. Current P2 cards, including the A Series as well as the previously discontinued R and H series, have a record life of 30,000+ uses when filled with data and overwritten once a day.
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365 * 5 = 1825 ~ 2000
 
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