P2 Shenanigans

(Yeesh. Pardon me if I take with a huge grain of salt anything written by Robin Liss. She's been . . . er, wrong . . . more times than I can count.)

Why wouldn't it work with a 16GB card? They'll manufacture it to the same specs. Are you worried that your still digital camera won't work a 2GB flash card? Of course not. It's the same principle.

Besides, when Jan laid out the timeline for P2 development at NAB, there was no mention of any compatibility issues.
 
She's just quoting a Japanese paper, which is getting the info from the companies, albeit with Sony pushing the timeline back. Panny's parent is also in on it.
 
I'm not saying the article is wrong or right. That's beside the point. I'm just saying you could give Robin Liss the Gettysburg Address and she'll write about the Declaration of Independence. (I'm just stepping out of the substantive disccusion for a bit here.)
 
It is compared to solid-state.[/QUOTE]

It's not the comparison to solid-state that matters. It's the comparison to the power needs of the rest of the camera. Minimal, I believe.
 
It's really cute sometimes when people second guess everything in the P2 workflow with the
perspective that someone will come in and blow the doors off of what they're doing.. AND,
they use Sony as their example of that theoretical company.

Look, everyone here is pretty much brand agnostic. We'll use the product that best suits our
needs and Sony has a history of not meeting my needs. So, when you talk about v2.0 of the
Blu-Ray spec at a time when they're in negotiations to merge with the HD-DVD consortium, it seems
a little more than far fetched to predict what will become of Sony's eventual blue-laser disc formats. P2 exists and a camera to use it in HD exists or will by the end of this year.
 
Since we are all using our crystal balls here I imagine much of this interesting discussion will be moot soon enough but I will add a few points.

In the discussion of blu-ray I don't see where the cost of constantly consumed media compared to multi-use P2 is being taken into account. I imagine the price of optical disc that can record 100Mps is going to be quite high. Importing the footage into your editing system will involve some other peice of equipment (probably proprietary Sony). Meanwhile I back up my P2 cards to 2 HDD at $.30 or less a gig (and HDD are such a highly consumed item, their price is always dropping like a brick). I can still then re-use both the P2 card and later the HDD after editing out the junk. Blu-ray a one time maybe $50 a pop media?

I would like to imagine a even cheaper solution then P2 might come on the horizon (what consumer doesn't love competition) but I don't see it and truely have my doubts that Sony will ever offer the "low-cost" solution.

Crystal ball is fading now....
 
I have to admit, I thought they would stick with a full disk size. We'll see how that develops, but it seems limiting to go with the smaller disks. I know that the blu-ray spec needs to advance before it can do the higher data rate codecs, but I do think it will happen.

Right now the choices are: extremely expensive media with higher quality acquisition format or much cheaper media with lower quality acquisition format. Getting a blu-ray based system with a better acquisition format than HDV would be the perfect compromise.
 
PaulC said:
I have to admit, I thought they would stick with a full disk size. We'll see how that develops, but it seems limiting to go with the smaller disks. I know that the blu-ray spec needs to advance before it can do the higher data rate codecs, but I do think it will happen.
Click to expand...

As I said -- you're speculating on something which doesn't exist yet.
 
wabbit said:
Since we are all using our crystal balls here I imagine much of this interesting discussion will be moot soon enough but I will add a few points.

In the discussion of blu-ray I don't see where the cost of constantly consumed media compared to multi-use P2 is being taken into account. I imagine the price of optical disc that can record 100Mps is going to be quite high. Importing the footage into your editing system will involve some other peice of equipment (probably proprietary Sony). Meanwhile I back up my P2 cards to 2 HDD at $.30 or less a gig (and HDD are such a highly consumed item, their price is always dropping like a brick). I can still then re-use both the P2 card and later the HDD after editing out the junk. Blu-ray a one time maybe $50 a pop media?

I would like to imagine a even cheaper solution then P2 might come on the horizon (what consumer doesn't love competition) but I don't see it and truely have my doubts that Sony will ever offer the "low-cost" solution.

Crystal ball is fading now....
Click to expand...

Wabbit: I would be backing up onto optical disk anyway, hence acquisition onto optical would be optimal, since I'm gonna pay for it anyway. That's why people don't mention it. As for decks, there isn't any reason the disks can't record the same files that would go onto a P2 system, thereby allowing for direct input into an NLE.

The problem, I believe, with optical currently is the data rate and the disk size, as well as the issue of electronics that will allow for a buffering to be used for disk changes and shock absorbption.

FYI, check out:

------------------------
http://www.urbanfox.tv/articles/cameras/c27p2andxdcam.htm

In the section "The Case for Disk":

"There are two XDCAM camcorders and three decks available using Blu-ray technology, with prices starting at Euro7,000. Each single-sided 23.3GB Professional Disc costs about Euro30, about the same price as a 90 minute DVCAM tape, and records 85 minutes of DV or 45 minutes of MPEG-2."
------------------------

Compared to the HVX200, I believe that those cams have bigger CCDs and removable lenses, but it seems that the technology could be adapted for smaller cams that would compete with the HVX200. Since I suspect there are a lot of people like me who would want to archive to optical disks, having a cam that does acquistion on those disks would be a very attractive alternative to the extremely expensive P2 system. In terms of editing, you could simply copy the files to your hard drive and edit from there. No big deal, since you have the archive on optical.
 
thisiswells said:
PaulC:
Do you buy a new media card for your digital still camera everytime it's full? Didn't think so.
Click to expand...

No, but I also don't have to stop every 4 (or even 8) minutes and transfer my pics to a hard drive, and then back them up to optical for long-term storage. And, that's with *still* images. Imagine if it were moving..... Duh.
 
Jubal28 said:
What do you back your still pics up to?
Click to expand...

I back them up, sure, but I don't have to stop every 8 minutes and download them onto a temporary medium. Damn, I could shoot for days with the cards I have. Too bad same is not so (at a reasonable price) with the Panny cam. I'd buy several P2 Stores and cards if they weren't so much. If I'm gonna wait for the price to come down, then I might as well wait and see what blu-ray cams are going to come out. At least I'm shooting directly to archive. To me, this is huge.
 
How many 1920x1080 still pics will fit on a 2GB card? Divide by 24. (Not accounting for 60i pulldown here.) That's how many seconds you'll get.

How many 1280x720 still pics will fit on a 2GB card? Divide by 24.

Etc. . . .
 
Jubal28 said:
How many 1920x1080 still pics will fit on a 2GB card? Divide by 24. (Not accounting for 60i pulldown here.) That's how many seconds you'll get.

How many 1280x720 still pics will fit on a 2GB card? Divide by 24.

Etc. . . .
Click to expand...

Yes, but of course, I don't shoot still pics continuously. In a few days I might take several hundred. But if I'm shooting video at a wedding, or, say, out on a hike, or doing anything else out in the field for 1 day, there is no way I could do it in a cost-effective way with the current specs on the cards.

Hey, I *want* to buy a really great HD cam, but I also want to be able to use it in a fairly cost-effective way for one day with total portability. I can see that if I were a film maker and I had the luxury of downloading every 8 minutes, this cam would be great. But, for a wide variety of other uses, I don't see this cam being cost effective. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of HDV, so really I'd rather wait. But, this is the problem I think Panny will face with this cam. If people like me wait, then it could get eclipsed by optical disks by mid or late 2006. If I am incented to buy this cam in late 2005 because 16GB P2 is there and not too expensive, they they would rope me into P2 now instead of (possibly) losing me to optical next year.
 
Jubal28 said:
And while we're at it, why not just sell the DVX for $100? Sure would sell more cameras that way. How about it, Panasonic? :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Don't you have anything better to say than a disdainful sarcastic remark?

The truth is, you personally have no clue why the price of P2 is astonomically high other than Panny says it's so. It's posts like these that get in the way of answers and actual "discussion" of the concerns at hand. If money does not consern you then get some knee pads because you've got a long ride ahead of you my friend.

Get off your high horse and write something worth reading not worth ridiculing. After all, this is a discussion board.
 
PaulC said:
Yes, but of course, I don't shoot still pics continuously. In a few days I might take several hundred. But if I'm shooting video at a wedding, or, say, out on a hike, or doing anything else out in the field for 1 day, there is no way I could do it in a cost-effective way with the current specs on the cards.

Hey, I *want* to buy a really great HD cam, but I also want to be able to use it in a fairly cost-effective way for one day with total portability. I can see that if I were a film maker and I had the luxury of downloading every 8 minutes, this cam would be great. But, for a wide variety of other uses, I don't see this cam being cost effective. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of HDV, so really I'd rather wait. But, this is the problem I think Panny will face with this cam. If people like me wait, then it could get eclipsed by optical disks by mid or late 2006. If I am incented to buy in late 2005 because 16GB P2 is there and not too expensive, they they would rope me into P2 now instead of (possibly) losing me to optical next year.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm full-well willing to grant that initially, it's going to represent some problems for people like event videographers who want continuous, lengthy shooting; it's going to be not so problematic for people like me who want to do narrative or documentary film work.

But as I mentioned in an earlier post, the first adopters of any new technology pay more and get less. Prices will come down eventually, or maybe there's even another acquisition method coming down the pike that we don't know about yet, and it'll blow the doors off everything else. But P2 can do the job, now and today. The idea that there's a 1080p HD camcorder available for under $10K is . . . astonishing, and given the possible alternatives to P2 recording in the short term -- to dedicated hard drives or to a laptop -- this is a camera that the indy filmmaking crowd is going to eat up.

The more I've studied this and really pored through the issue, the more I'm convinced that Panasonic made the right decision here. Hey, maybe it will keep people -- yourself included? -- from buying the cam. But then, the lack of 24p and HDV kept me from buying the Sony. Is the HVX200 the right camera for everyone who wants to shoot HD? No. But really, that's OK.
 
RyanF said:
Don't you have anything better to say than a disdainful sarcastic remark?

The truth is, you personally have no clue why the price of P2 is astonomically high other than Panny says it's so. It's posts like these that get in the way of answers and actual "discussion" of the concerns at hand. If money does not consern you then get some knee pads because you've got a long ride ahead of you my friend.

Get off your high horse and write something worth reading not worth ridiculing. After all, this is a discussion board.
Click to expand...

Oh, get over it. It was a joke, and everyone else took it as that. Meant only to illustrate the idea that physical reality often overrides popular desire when it comes to economics.

(Perhaps you should spend a little more time getting a feel for the tenor of a place, and what kind of comments do and don't fly in that place's culture, before you pop off . . . just a suggestion. :beer: Welcome aboard! )


EDIT:

If money does not consern you then get some knee pads because you've got a long ride ahead of you my friend.
Click to expand...


I really don't know what that even means . . .
 
Jubal28 said:
Without knowing production costs, that's sheer speculation, and probably not a little wishful thinking.
Click to expand...

Umm, I'm pretty sure those costs are what we'd like to know. That's why we keep saying we'd like to see a price breakdown!

But you are right, it is wishful thinking.
 
Jubal28 said:
(Perhaps you should spend a little more time getting a feel for the tenor of a place, and what kind of comments do and don't fly in that place's culture, before you pop off . . . just a suggestion. :beer: Welcome aboard! )
Click to expand...

Okay, you're right, but sarcasm just tends to change the goals of a particular thread. Sorry for the huff and puff.
:beer: Cheers

-Ryan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top