P2 Shenanigans

wabbit said:
Ok, but regarding thisiswell question, what would you have done different in designing this camera to be available in 2005?

1. Been covered to death, will happen just maybe not on a time you like. I imagine the 8 gig cards will be out just about in time for the camera. I imagine most will be sold with the camera package, so they can keep the price higher on these for awhile. As long as they are selling out, the price won't move much.

2. not really about the HVX but a reasonable request.

3. This too has been covered to death, a HD tape drive is far too expensive and would more then double the price, nough said.

4. Outside Panasonic's sphere but as you said, gonna happen.

5. Not about storage but a request that is reasonable. It would again drive up the costs and considering how much concern there is over P2 prices, why would Panasonic add something that because of cost won't be utilized by but a few customers (figure several thousand for a lower end wideangle lens...well over $10,000 for HD lens). The remaining users are stuck with a heavier, more expensive camera.

I hope they come out with a DVCPro HD shoulder mount camera in the under $20,000 range. We will see at NAB 2006 :) In the meantime I have no doubt someone will yank off HVX stock lens and design a system to mount HD prime lens.

6. It probably won't take much time for this once optical is available and Panasonic doesn't have to do it. No worries here.

Again, for all the moaning about P2, would in the real world would you do differently?
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More clarity on future P2 pricing would be nice, at least when the camera comes out. The clarity issue is key. I want to buy the camera and into the technology, but I want to make sure future P2 cards will be compatible and reasonably priced.

I'm surprised that putting a DVCPRO HD tape mount on the cam would be that expensive. I think you're over-estimating that cost. It couldn't add more than 1 or 2 thousand dollars, right?! Anyone with more info here? With the tape option they would sell **way** more cams, IMO, but the buy-in to P2 would be a bit slower. I still think it's a good option. Let's get some info on this point...just how much does a DVCPRO HD tape drive cost, and what are the size implications for the cam? Personally, I would pay extra for the HD tape drive, and still buy two 8 GB cards. In fact, thinking about it, I think I'd not only be more likely to buy the cam with the HD drive, but, I'd probably be * more* likely to buy the 8GB P2 cards as a nice option when I don't need to go to tape for portability reasons. Without the HD tape drive, I feel I'm more likely not to buy the cam until 16GB cards come out, and I can offload easily. Again, it all comes down to being able to shoot for a day.....

My bad on bringing in the lens, since we're talking storage only in this thread. Sorry.
 
Sounds like for the features you need, this is not the right camera for you.
What you need is a camera that records DVCPro-HD to a tape and with a B4 lens mount....

Have you considered the Panasonic AJ-HDX400?
 
thisiswells said:
Sounds like for the features you need, this is not the right camera for you.
What you need is a camera that records DVCPro-HD to a tape and with a B4 lens mount....

Have you considered the Panasonic AJ-HDX400?
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I don't need 2/3" CCDs. They are extremely expensive.

If you've got P2 + DV tape, I don't see P2 + HD tape as a big step, really.

The lens is a different issue. Let's drop it in this thread.
 
PaulC said:
More clarity on future P2 pricing would be nice, at least when the camera comes out. The clarity issue is key. I want to buy the camera and into the technology, but I want to make sure future P2 cards will be compatible and reasonably priced.
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Anything that says "P2" on it will be compatible. The current plans show up to 128gb. All will work with the HVX. As far as pricing, there's no way they could announce pricing now on a memory-based product that has to wait on its core components even existing in the first place. All we can do is go by what's been happening in the memory market, which is: prices plummet incredibly quickly, and capacity increases exponentially. But if you want to know how much an 8GB CompactFlash card is going to cost -- is there anyone announcing retail prices on that now? How about 16gb CompactFlash? It's just not done. I think it'd be incredibly brave or incredibly foolish to try to predict prices on a commodity item like RAM (and the P2 card's underlying components are four SD RAM cards). Any manufacturer attempting to lock in prices and dates on those things would find themselves between a rock and a hard place very quickly.

I'm surprised that putting a DVCPRO HD tape mount on the cam would be that expensive. I think you're over-estimating that cost. It couldn't add more than 1 or 2 thousand dollars, right?! Anyone with more info here?
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A DVCPRO-HD tape deck uses 16 heads that spin at an unbelievable velocity. Each pair of heads costs $800. The total hard cost for the heads, transport, etc. is over $15,000 -- Jan's already clarified that for us. The cheapest DVCPRO-HD deck on the market costs over $21,000.

This isn't HDV we're talking about. This is DVCPRO-HD. The decks are incredibly expensive, just like HDCAM decks are. There's a reason the Sony Z1 shoots to HDV and not to HDCAM!

By implementing P2 instead of tape, Panasonic was able to shave over $15,000 off the price it would have otherwise cost, in order to bring DVCPRO-HD to this market.

A DVCPRO50 deck would add about $7,000 to the price. Panasonic made the right choice by offering miniDV. Any other tape option would have meant that this camera, at this price, could never exist.
 
No, the only difference between the camera you want for $6K-8K and the $43K HDX400
is the size of the CCD. I wish you would accept this.

Other than chip size, what does the camera you want not have in common with
the HDX400? It is a shoulder mount camera with a B4 lens mount and it records HD to tape...

That is exactly what you want and you absolutely will not accept fact that the biggest
factor between the cost of the cameras is the tape drive, not the size of the chips,
not the fact that it doesn't come with a lens, and not the fact that it fits on your
shoulder and not in your hand.

It is the fact that it records DVCPro-HD to tape more than any other factor.
This is a fact.

You can think whatever you want to, but it doesn't change reality.
 
Barry_Green said:
Anything that says "P2" on it will be compatible. The current plans show up to 128gb. All will work with the HVX.


A DVCPRO-HD tape deck uses 16 heads that spin at an unbelievable velocity. Each pair of heads costs $800. The total hard cost for the heads, transport, etc. is over $15,000 -- Jan's already clarified that for us. The cheapest DVCPRO-HD deck on the market costs over $21,000.
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Thanks Barry. I hadn't seen that. Wow!

Well, I guess it will just be a waiting game then. My suspicion is that people like me who want to shoot for a day will probably wait, but, will likely buy into this camera once the P2 sizes and/or Firestore comes.

I think Panny has taken a very crafty stance, in the sense that the medium they've chosen is available now, expensive, but likely to improve a fair bit (still unknown), versus going with a technology that will likely exist in the future (HD quality optical, with or without MPEG compression) and be fairly cheap (comparitively speaking) to start. The advantage of Pannys' stance all comes down to that buy-in...if they can get it going and lure people in, other shops are not going to have as much of a base to draw from down the road.

FYI, I think the specs on the cam look terrific. Yes, I have issues with P2, but hopefully time will help that.
 
simple workflow at a known price

simple workflow at a known price

PaulC said:
Well, I guess it will just be a waiting game then. My suspicion is that people like me who want to shoot for a day will probably wait, but, will likely buy into this camera once the P2 sizes and/or Firestore comes.
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Paul, are you aware of the P2 / USB workflow? Barry hinted just lately to the fact that it is possible to offload the content of the P2 cards via the camera's USB2 port connected to any external USB2 HDD. While this is not streaming data, it resembles largely to changing a film cassette with a cine camera.
This is a feasible workflow out of the box and works with any HDD with a USB2 port.
Firestore is really only necessary if you have to take verrry loooong shots.

I mean, compare the P2 cards to a laptop's RAM and the HDD mentioned to the laptop's internal or an external HDD to which you save your data. Not much difference in workflow!? What makes you hesitate? You won't need more than two P2 cards. With the 8GB version available this year you have to offload their content after 16 minutes (HD, 1080) or after 40 minutes (HD, 720/24p). Not to speak about even larger time frames when you use DVCPro50 or DVCPro25. When larger P2 cards beyond 8 GB capacity will become available, so will increase the maximum recording time outlined above.

What makes me wonder, I have to admit, is why this simple and clear workflow is not mentioned whenever somebody complains about the P2 cards' capacity or price. True, you have to make some initial investment, but at the end of the day the cost per minute recorded is lower then working with tape. And even lower than that if you take into account that you don't have to capture and/or convert your video clips before you can start editing them.

BTW, there was a clear statement Jan made somewhere here about the P2 pricing: "The 4 GB may be $1400 by this fall, but the 8 GB is not even out yet. Two will be bundled with the camera for $9995. The cards might be higher than $2000 each, I do not know, but the camera will be on the street for $9995 with 2 8GB cards. But they will come down in price like the 4Gb card has. The 4GB card started @ $2000, is currently $1700. The 2GB card started @$2000, is currently $900. Memory prices are not set in stone."

Hope this helps.
 
At this point, I just don't understand the obsession with a) an HD tape drive and b) interchangeable lenses.

The AG-HVX200 is not going to have either. That's not going to change.

If that's not what you want, then it's just not the camera for you. Going on and on and on about it isn't going to change anything.
 
So they like their green eggs and ham.

Falling in love with tapes is a tradgic affair. I have cry over drop frames, and hours of captures, conforming, sound sync.

I'm looking forward to having uncompress sound in HVX-200.

If they can afford to buy a $25,000 lenz. Why buy a sub $10k camera? If you can affford a $25k lenz? buy a better camera man.

The HVX lenz will better than what you can anyway.

Hummmmm

Mthornton
 
Speaking of the P2/USB2 workflow. What if you had 2 4GB P2 cards in the HVX and a 250GB USB2 HD connected. If the HVX was smart enough, could it record to the first P2 card until full, switch to the second P2 card, and while recording to the second P2 card dump the contents of the first P2 to the HD. When the second P2 is full, it switches back to the now empty P2 #1 for recording and dumps the P2 #2 to the HD. So on and so forth, never stopping and giving a long continous record time. The benefit of P2 for short shots with the added benefit of long record times with an off the shelf HD. Also, whenever you stopped recording, the currently recording P2 would be dumped to the HD. Just a thought.

johnc
 
The great advantage to this system is that the HDD needs to be spinning and consuming power only during the time when the P2 card is being copied. So if you are taking 10 second clips and actual recording time is a small percentage of elapsed time you will not run down the portable system battery before the day is over. The other advantage over a streaming firewire system is that the average data transfer rate to the drive must be greater than 100Mbps as to opposed to a firewire system where if the instantaneous rate ever drops below 100Mbps you would get dropped frames. The other advantage to the USB transfer is that Meta Data is recorded.
 
johnc said:
Speaking of the P2/USB2 workflow. What if you had 2 4GB P2 cards in the HVX and a 250GB USB2 HD connected. If the HVX was smart enough, could it record to the first P2 card until full, switch to the second P2 card, and while recording to the second P2 card dump the contents of the first P2 to the HD. When the second P2 is full, it switches back to the now empty P2 #1 for recording and dumps the P2 #2 to the HD. So on and so forth, never stopping and giving a long continous record time. The benefit of P2 for short shots with the added benefit of long record times with an off the shelf HD. Also, whenever you stopped recording, the currently recording P2 would be dumped to the HD. Just a thought.
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As to my understanding you can't have both at the same time. It's either recording on P2 or dumping data from P2 to the HDD. That's already something. If you need what you suggested, buy a Firestore HD. However, you will need a bunch of those, too, if you plan to record for several hours.
It all depends on our personal requirements and individual workflow.
 
Citidisc is also planning a DVCPro-HD direct to HDD product.
Public relations confirmed this in an email today. No firm release date was available.
 
May not be lost if you insert PC card into a card reader and do a direct data copy.

Also maybe possible if transfer as raw data not DV streams over firewire.

If you play out 1394 as DV stream some meta data maybe lost I believe.

The answer is yes and no, So it's up to you!

Mthornton
 
thisiswells said:
Citidisc is also planning a DVCPro-HD direct to HDD product.
Public relations confirmed this in an email today. No firm release date was available.
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Ah, yes, of course Citidisc. Sorry I did not mention them in my earlier post.
Seems to me, Firestore has become some kind of generic name that includes all other products with the same functionality. :-)

Any hints as to how their current product fares? I am asking, because I did not read many good reports about Quickstream.
 
I have never heard anything good about Citidisc. All reports are disjointed.
Don't know anybody that actually has one.. It's all heresay.
 
Honestly--why can't HDD be a back-up medium?

Honestly--why can't HDD be a back-up medium?

I have heard a lot about HDD's failing and how they are in no way a workable storage medium. But honestly, are they any worse than other magnetic media?

Currently, I use Seagate Barracuda 200GB 7200rpm/8MB SATA drives to capture to and edit from. I buy a fresh, new one for every major project for the whopping price of $125. After I finish the project, I remove the drive and store it in a location relatively safe from excess humidity, teperature, and magnetic fields. If Barracuda drives can regularly function for 5+ years of constant CPU use (they have 5 yr warranties), how long can they last on a shelf in a completely dormant state with their recording heads locked down? HDDs are tightly sealed, carefully engineered, durable pieces of hardware for what they do (spin at a ridiculously fast speeds, write microscopic tracks of data with infintesimally small error rates) and for what they cost.

I have backed up data to optical media (CDR and DVD-R) in the past, only to suffer "CD-rot" and have unreadable disks after less than 10 years--and fuggetaboutit if the disks ever get a good scratch or two. I have had tapes with drop-outs.

For recording/archiving DVCPRO100 video, nothing is cheaper than SATA drives. Heck, DVCPROHD tapes alone cost more, don't they? Let alone the cost of even RENTING a deck.

I would like to see proof that HDDs are a riskier bet than other magnetic and/or optical media, if used as I've described. What aging or corrosion occurs in a hermetically sealed drive case that would make HDDs give out years down the road?
 
terry_g_johnson said:
A Panasonic rep at NBA told me Meta Data was not retained in a fire wire transfer. Jan or Barry correct me if I am wrong.
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This is correct Terry. In streaming the file writes differently than if it were a transferred file. to some, the Metadata is superfluous anyhow, so it means very little, to others it is everything.

Best,

Jan
 
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