Panasonic abandoning P2?

Ben_B

Ben_B

Veteran
Yeah I don't think so.

But, the new 3D camera they're coming out with, the AG-3D-A1...basically a 3D version of the HPX-170, is going to use SDHC, despite its $21,000 price tag which targets it squarely at a similar market to that currently using P2.

I don't understand technically how this is even possible. We need the smart speed of P2 cards to record proper professional video...so why is a camera that literally needs to record twice as much recording to SDHC?
 
My guess is that the camera isn't able to encode dual streams of DVCPRO-HD or AVC-Intra (which isn't available at all in that form factor), or AVC-Ultra, in that small a body.

The bandwidth necessary to record dual streams of DVCPRO-HD, or AVC-Intra is 200mbps. That's some hefty throughput; and I'd guess that the camera simply isn't capable of that.

- Mikko
 
Ben_B said:
Yeah I don't think so.

But, the new 3D camera they're coming out with, the AG-3D-A1...basically a 3D version of the HPX-170, is going to use SDHC, despite its $21,000 price tag which targets it squarely at a similar market to that currently using P2.

I don't understand technically how this is even possible. We need the smart speed of P2 cards to record proper professional video...so why is a camera that literally needs to record twice as much recording to SDHC?
Click to expand...

Do the numbers.

200Mbps = 25MBPS

Sandisks Extreme 3 SDHC cards are 20Mbps minimum. Easily enough for single stream, and likely enough for this. The idea that you need P2 (or SxS) for this is silly. Even a basic compactFlash card would be overkill for this. They are in the 40+ MegaBYTE per second range now.
 
mikkowilson said:
The bandwidth necessary to record dual streams of DVCPRO-HD, or AVC-Intra is 200mbps. That's some hefty throughput; and I'd guess that the camera simply isn't capable of that.

- Mikko
Click to expand...

What do you think the bandwidth on a D3s or 1DMk4 is when it's shooting 10fps of RAW to compact flash? From it's better than 4k Sensor?
 
The Panasonic rep at Real Screen gave us a 40 minute "P2 is God" presentation and then gave us a sneak preview of the new non-P2 3D camera. The P2 talk was, unfortunately, aimed at producers who had seemingly never used P2 before. If it were my first rodeo, I would've gotten a good deal out of it.

During Q&A, I asked why, given P2's reliability and predominance in the solid-state market, Panasonic chose to go with the as-yet-unspecified and unproven (by Panasonic) alternate media.

He became incredibly defensive, making sure everyone in the room knew that Panasonic "was not abandoning P2". This was "...one camera and not representative of a shift away from P2".

For me, the question about "why not P2 in the HD3D camera?" was a serious and sincere one from one of their earliest adopters of the media. Coming off the heels of his presentation on the virtues of P2, he seemed to be really caught off-guard. I felt bad about it when I left the room, but the question persists.

If you're recording gen-locked simultaneous streams of data, why would you not send it to the same zero-defect-tolerance recording media that has become the centerpiece of every professional camera in your line-up?
 
Sure, good point, David. As a for instance, we use the Panasonic HDC-SD5 cameras for dashcams and timelapses for our unscripted formats. Now, we're starting to see HD Flips used for these applications, but I still like the SD5 for it's manual features.

The SD card media is a given in such a consumer-segment / tiny form-factor camera.

Real Screen isn't a show for consumers. Guys like Thom Beers are in the room and the camera is clearly not built for (or currently marketed toward) the consumer market. At all. Specifically, Panasonic decided to preview it's first-to-market, fully-integrated 3D camera to producers of factual content for use in fulfilling the rapidly-emerging 3D mandate from people like Discovery Channel.

That's the truth.
 
PerroneFord said:
What do you think the bandwidth on a D3s or 1DMk4 is when it's shooting 10fps of RAW to compact flash? From it's better than 4k Sensor?
Click to expand...

The 1DMk4 will only buffer 28 frames at full speed, plus the ones you can get onto the card in that 3 seconds.

That's a long step from continuous video.


And I'm not talking so much memory speed as I am camera's internal speed capacity. We all know that P2 itself can write much faster than 100mbps. But any performance of the camera is all pure speculation on my part.

- Mikko
 
David Jimerson said:
I guess it depends on who they think their customer base will be for this.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And I am wondering who they think that is? Given that the price tag is in the tens-of-thousands of dollars I am guessing they are going after a relatively professional market, or at least a market that is similar to the one that they have sold P2 to in the past.....so after years of all of us getting to know exactly why P2 is what it is what it is, and after countless "why P2 too expensive ew ew ew gonna die" spouters getting smacked down by Barry et al, we're seeing a $21,000 with SDHC...that we call know needs to record twice as much data as the P2 cameras are now!

Also I am sort of wondering who they think is gonna buy this. Mainstream Hollywood wouldn't be shooting on a camera this low-end, and many indie filmmakers wouldn't go near 3D with a 50 foot pole. (Which raises a good point: sorry for the radical thread title. I couldn't get any replies earlier because nobody on this forum seems to want to touch anything about a 3D camera with a 50 foot pole.)

I guess this is just an R & D stepping stone for future products that might make a bit more sense (either higher end or lower end), but that, I'm betting, will all be moot when everyone gets over 3D a short time from now.

That said, I can think of two markets this camera, and 3D, might be well suited for. Sports and porn. And really, in the end, isn't that all that matters?
 
mikkowilson said:
And I'm not talking so much memory speed as I am camera's internal speed capacity. We all know that P2 itself can write much faster than 100mbps. But any performance of the camera is all pure speculation on my part.

- Mikko
Click to expand...

Hmmm,

So how do they get 1.5Gbps out of the HDMI port?
 
I agree; it's hard to imagine hardcore 3D being done on a prosumer-form camcorder, and yet the price tag is hardly prosumer, so its market placement does confound me a bit.

Erik, I have no reason to doubt you. :)
 
I have no idea why this thing isn't P2. When they showed the prototype at last year's NAB, it was -- it was an HPX170 body with P2 slots and AVC-Ultra written on the side of it.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the switch to SD/AVCCAM was requested by whoever the target market is. And I'm not sure who the target market is, because I don't really know or care about 3D. Just went and saw Alice in Wonderland 3D, and I'm wondering why -- could have saved six bucks and seen the 2D version. Maybe I'm getting too old and grumpy?

Anyway, I don't think this 3D camera is aimed as being the "A" camera on hollywood productions. I think it's likely to see the same kind of use, in 3D, as we're currently seeing DSLRs on 2D productions -- crash cam, insert angles, plates, stuff like that. And for uses like that, SD is probably fine.

But yeah, it's pretty curious to me as well -- I sure would have thought it'd be P2/AVC... maybe there'll be an upmarket 2/3" version announced some day that is, and then the strategy would become more clear -- this unit would be the "HMC40" of 3D as compared to the 2/3" P2 unit which would be a 3D VariCam?

And actually, now that I even say it, maybe that's what they've been waiting on all this time for the "true" VariCam successor... 3D?
 
Unscripted, factual and docs would be a great place for this camera - if the convergence and occ. distances are really easy to set.

I know Discovery and ESPN are two nets that plan to push aggressively into 3D content as early as the 3rd quarter of 2010. So, let the big, two camera hero rigs do the heavy lifting and let a little camera like this one do OTFs, in-the-moment verite and reality work.
 
Would it not be possible for the camera to automatically set ocular-distance based on focal length, and convergence based on focus point?

- Mikko
 
Class 10 cards OFFICIALLY have 80 Mbit/s data rate. Cards are usually at least twice faster than their posted speed class, so the capability for 100 Mbit/s is already here. At times when SD cards were slower, Panasonic might indeed needed P2 in form of RAIDed SD cards. Not now. Now the only question is reliability. Sadly, SD/SDHC data loss seems to occur more frequently than P2 data loss, does this say bad about the format, or about quality control and cheap media? Have anyone lost data off a SanDisk card? Maybe Panasonic is betting on SDXC cards, which are faster than SDHC cards, but are currently priced at about P2 level.

P2 never fulfilled its promise of editing right off a card, because cards are so expensive, they are used like reloadable magazines, are copied onto a computer and immediately reused. With SDHC one can edit right off a card, because cards are so cheap and there is no need to reuse them right away. No need for outrageously priced P2 readers and "decks" either.

Maybe this camera is a fluke. After all, Sony released the MRC1K tapeless recorder, which records to CompactFlash. Not to Memory Stick, not to SxS, but to CompactFlash. Why? On the other hand, the newer NXCAM products use MS/SD cards. Go figure.
 
Erik Olson said:
Unscripted, factual and docs would be a great place for this camera - if the convergence and occ. distances are really easy to set.

I know Discovery and ESPN are two nets that plan to push aggressively into 3D content as early as the 3rd quarter of 2010. So, let the big, two camera hero rigs do the heavy lifting and let a little camera like this one do OTFs, in-the-moment verite and reality work.
Click to expand...

Good point didn't think of the Discovery factor. Still Discovery has pretty strict camera IQ requirements so we'll see if this meets it as "A" cam. Probably not? At least as far as they're concerned?

But yeah, for their shows like Mythbusters, etc, could maybe see this used...Planet Earth type stuff not so much?

I have a feeling that Discovery will hit the 3D pretty hard but I somehow doubt anyone will have much success with this. (the concept as a whole not the camera.)
 
There aren't, I agree, but that was never really part of the "promise" of P2. It was never presented as a consumer or hobbyist solution; that's more what the HMC line of SD/AVCCAM cameras are geared toward. You were never promised to be able to collect P2 cards like they were SD cards. They're extensions of the camera, not media. That was said from day 1.
 
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