AC130: Panasonic ag ac130

My point is that P2 cards are yesterday's technology and offer absolutely no technical or technological benefits.

Your link to the SSD drive actually strengthens my position. If I could magically plug that drive into a P2 camera, I'd get about 9 hours of AVC-I record time for $1200....not a bad deal. How much would I need to spend and how many cards would I have to lug around if I wanted 9 hours of P2 record time?

Bringing Arri and Alexa into this pointless...those cams are cinema cameras and cost more than a nice car...why even bother bringing them up?

I'm frustrated because the HPX is priced low, but the media is priced high for no apparent reason whatsoever other than to protect the customers who have already invested in P2.

How do you think the P2 market would react if the HPX250 had 4 SDXC slots instead of 2 P2 slots? That would make it the #1 selling camera in its class instantly, but it would piss off so many people whose P2 cards would effectively become almost worthless overnight.

At the end of the day you're right...If you don't like it, don't buy it. I'm going to shut up now.
 
Then grab a Atomos Samurai, or another external recorder, and capture to Pro Res 422 HQ.

Roll the dice with 2.5 inch drives, or plastic SDHC cards.

I been shooting p2 for six years.

Never had a failure. Never.

I'll take that history and bet it against anything else. P2 prices have dropped 600% since their introduction.

Two 64 GB p2 cards will give you virtually unlimited footage if you offload each card when necessary. For $1200.00, I'll take that fail safe approach against SDHC or something like it.
 
Phil1076 said:
My point is that P2 cards are yesterday's technology and offer absolutely no technical or technological benefits.
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Then your point is totally misinformed and is actually rather unproductive. It shows that you really don't know much of anything about what a P2 card is or how it works.

How much would I need to spend and how many cards would I have to lug around if I wanted 9 hours of P2 record time?
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You wouldn't. P2 is not the right medium for someone with those requirements. That's de facto the reason why the SDHC cameras exist in the first place.

Bringing Arri and Alexa into this pointless...those cams are cinema cameras and cost more than a nice car...why even bother bringing them up?
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Just to point out how absurdly outrageous your statement was.

I'm frustrated because the HPX is priced low, but the media is priced high for no apparent reason whatsoever other than to protect the customers who have already invested in P2.
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Again, you're taking your limited viewpoint and trying to enforce it as sweeping fact. You are wrong, plain and simple.

P2 prices have come down 97% from the time when they were introduced. They are microcomputers, not memory cards. They have processors on them that do data management and data verification and provide for safety and redundancy. It is not a simple memory card. It is not a simple drive like an SSD. Do you not wonder why, five years later and it being the dominant medium for broadcast (controlling about 80% of the global tapeless broadcast market) why nobody has come out with "clone" cards? Because they can't. It's not a memory card.

Now, you don't have to like that, but it would show some maturity on your part if you would at least respect it and say "okay, fine, it's not for me" instead of saying it is "criminal".

Besides -- okay, throw everyone else out of the window, and just look at their immediate competitors -- Sony charges 50% MORE for a card that's HALF the size. A 32GB SxS card is $995, or $31 per gigabyte. Makes P2 at $10/gigabyte sound like a steal, doesn't it?

How do you think the P2 market would react if the HPX250 had 4 SDXC slots instead of 2 P2 slots?
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Simple. They wouldn't buy it.

That would make it the #1 selling camera in its class instantly
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Quite the opposite. It would make it the #1 most unreliable camera in its class, and the customers who would otherwise have been interested would turn and flee from it.,

Perhaps you don't understand what P2 is about. It isn't about "cheap memory". It's about ultimate reliability. It's about indestructible media and 1,000% ultimate reliability that will never, ever fail. That's what it's about.

If you want cheap memory, buy an AVCCAM camera. That's exactly what they're made for. Panasonic offers both products to appeal to both customers.
 
David Saraceno said:
Then grab a Atomos Samurai, or another external recorder, and capture to Pro Res 422 HQ.
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Excellent suggestion. With an external recorder you can use any other recording media you like, you're not "criminally" "forced" into P2.

I been shooting p2 for six years.

Never had a failure. Never.
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This is who P2 was designed for and who it is marketed to. And David is one of those who paid $1400 for an 8GB card.

For $1200.00, I'll take that fail safe approach against SDHC or something like it.
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Once again, this attitude directly reflects what P2 is, who it is made for, and what that customer values and prioritizes. Not everyone does. Some people want the cheapest recordings possible -- and SDHC provides that. While I do enjoy my SDHC cameras, I am the first to point out that I really wish the AF100 had been introduced with a P2 variant or, at the very least, simultaneous recording to increase the inherent reliability. Fortunately on the new AC130 (and AC160) they're introducing simultaneous recording.

Some people don't care. Some will use Transcend or AData or total no-name SDHC cards. I won't. When I use SDHC cards, I use Sandisk Extreme Pro and Panasonic Gold. Guess what -- they cost a LOT more. So what? Reliability is important to me. When I use an SDHC camera, I use the highest-quality most-reliable cards made -- and I still wish that it was being recorded to P2.
 
it does offer technological advances. advances that only a few may care about.
like 1.2 gb/s. no sd/CF card can match that speed while offering assurance of footage shot at 10 bit 4:2:2 100mbps. (or avcultra @400mbps)
 
"How much would I need to spend and how many cards would I have to lug around if I wanted 9 hours of P2 record time?
You wouldn't. P2 is not the right medium for someone with those requirements. That's de facto the reason why the SDHC cameras exist in the first place."

Hmmm... I'd actually oppose even this! I shoot DVCProHD 720p30 or 720p24 for long events, and get 2.2 or 2.8 hours on a 64GB card... AVC-INTRA 50 would get around the same. So: 4 or 5 64GB cards would cover 9 hours... and, given the reliability, at a pretty reasonable price.

Look, P2 has issues... being tied to old PCMCIA readers for offloading is a pain. But read all the posts one here discussing "reliability of this or that brand of SDHC card" or "SDHC card failures"... and do the same for P2. P2 is a rock. There's no comparison.

And it feels a lot nicer in the hand!
 
No question about the reliability of P2. Regarding SDHC reliability, of course there are good cards and there are bad cards -- I feel that backup recording to two Sandisk SDXC cards would negate pretty much all of the risk associated with using SDXC instead of P2.

Anyways, I see your point and I hope you see mine. I accept the fact that P2 does not fit my needs due to media cost however, despite the media cost, it fits the needs of many others.
 
The HPX250 is a P2 camera.
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There's the issue here. We don't see it as a "P2 camera". We see it as an "AVC-I camera" that records to P2 media. We want an "AVC-I camera" that records to media we can afford.


if you're shooting something that actually needs to be recorded onto a 10bit, 4:2:2, I-frame, 100Mb/s codec, chances are you're going to have the budget for P2.
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It's not about whether or not the job needs AVC-I, it that we want AVC-I - for every job, no matter how small. AVC-I is possibly the only proper HD codec currently on the market, meaning I-frame only. GOP structure is for delivery, not source media. ALL cameras ever built should be recording to I-frame only codecs. Up until HD, we pretty much had that. AVC-I offers us what we've always had for SD, but in HD. So we want it.


what advantage does AVC-I really give to an event videographer?
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The same thing it gives to every other videographer who uses it, a better image.


Just because the camera is "competitively priced" at $6,500 list and the codec is awesome doesn't mean that the media is required to be cheap.
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The corollary is that neither is it 'required' to be expensive. That's all we're asking for, an affordable AVC-I camera that records to affordable media. Panny only went half way with the 250.


Panasonic could theoretically make it work with SDXC cards, but why should they?
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The same reason they do anything, to sell it to people who want it.
 
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??? Three hours of recording time, at top quality, would cost about $1900 (three 64GB cards)... no where near the cost of a second 130?
 
Jim Simon said:
There's the issue here. We don't see it as a "P2 camera". We see it as an "AVC-I camera" that records to P2 media. We want an "AVC-I camera" that records to media we can afford.
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That's great, but Panasonic doesn't want to do that. If they could do that and make more money than what they were doing now, they would be doing that already. And besides, it really doesn't matter what you see it as... Panasonic makes it, and they see it as a P2 camera.

It's not about whether or not the job needs AVC-I, it that we want AVC-I - for every job, no matter how small. AVC-I is possibly the only proper HD codec currently on the market, meaning I-frame only. GOP structure is for delivery, not source media. ALL cameras ever built should be recording to I-frame only codecs. (my emphasis added) Up until HD, we pretty much had that. AVC-I offers us what we've always had for SD, but in HD. So we want it.
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Who says that every camera "should"? Don't you think that's a bit presumptive? I would love to have AVC-I for every job, but I have yet to have a client say they wish it was shot in AVC-I. They just want it to look good. I get that with AVCHD.

The same thing it gives to every other videographer who uses it, a better image.
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I would love a better image, but the one I'm getting now with AVCHD is pretty stinkin' good, and I doubt my clients would really care. I mean, right now a producer I work for is working on a huge contract with a client, based purely on stuff I've already shot with AVCHD. The client doesn't care about what format it's shot in, they just want it to look good. And so far they've been just fine with AVCHD, and I doubt they would notice a difference if it was AVC-I.

The corollary is that neither is it 'required' to be expensive. That's all we're asking for, an affordable AVC-I camera that records to affordable media. Panny only went half way with the 250.
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And again, if Panasonic would be making more money this way, don't you think they would be doing that already?

The same reason they do anything, to sell it to people who want it.
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No, they don't. The reason why they do anything is to make as much money as possible and make their stockholders happy. They do that by selling products they think people will like that will maximize profits at the same time. But that is not the same as just making whatever stuff that people want.

I mean, look at the stink when the AF100 came out. People were screaming for a P2 version of it, even if it meant making the P2 version $2,000-$3,000 more. Think about that... if ever there was a camera in this price range that deserves to have AVC-I, it's the AF100. Yet, it doesn't exist. Why? Because they thought they would have made more money by offering a version that only did AVCHD, and didn't even have 10bit going out of the SDI output. And it's not like Panasonic isn't listening... the fact Jan frequents this website is proof of that. I mean, who in their right mind is going to not offer a product that people want and will make them a ton of money? Obviously, they didn't think that would be the case with a P2, AVC-I AF100. My guess is, that is the case with AVC-I in a non-P2 AC160/HPX250-type camera.

Making and selling stuff simply because some people want it is a real good way of going out of business.
 
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is there another reliable sd card media that stores 100mb/s avc-i footage without hiccups? or 200mb/s? or 400mb/s?

however, panasonic should come up with an SSD solution. technological advances on thunderbolt or usb3 are there too
 
Hi. It looks like it's time to get a new cam, and I was looking at either the hmc130 or the HPX170. So just how unreliable are these SD cards, if they're the higher end brands? Is there a pretty high failure rate or something? What is the typical cost of a higher end card? I realize of course that 64 GB of AVCHD footage goes a lot farther than the same of P2. Are the only two options for getting P2 onto a computer/drive a $2000 reader or using the cam's USB port? Lastly, in the real world, where do you really see the AVCHD compression show it's inferiority to DVCProHD? Can you give an example ("if I was looking at a shot of bleh, I'd see bleh bleh and bleh that looked crummy on the AVCHD, etc.")
 
Josh, I've been using the HMC150 since it was launched three years ago. I've been shooting with it at least once a week since I bought it, and usually it get's used two-three times a week. This past Friday, I had the little card lock tab break without me knowing it. It still recorded just fine. That is the *FIRST* issue I've ever had with a card.

If you cheap out and get an off brand off Ebay, you're asking for issues. If you buy a brand name that is dirt cheap off Ebay, chances are it's counterfeit and you're asking for issues. Buy a higher end card like a Sandisk Extreme (16GB = $43 at B&H, ~97 minutes at highest quality), and you should be fine. The nice thing about the new AC130 and AC160 is that it will dual record to both slots at the same time... so even if a card does crap out, you can be recording on another at the same time for backup.

As far as AVCHD vs DVCProHD, chances are you aren't really going to see a difference until you start trying to really push any sort of color grading in post. For light stuff you should be fine. And 4:2:2 is always going to be better than 4:2:0 for green screen as well... but plenty of people here will tell you they've pulled decent keys off of AVCHD.
 
What would be the disadvantage(s) of using the Atomos Ninja instead of P2 cards? The Ninja is only slightly more expensive than two P2s and takes the relatively cheap HDDs as well as SSDs.
 
As an event videographer, I don't think we have much to complain about here. Panasonic seem to have addressed all the main issues that people had with the 150, which itself was an excellent event camcorder, probably the best in its class up until now. The dual recording is very nice, although personally I've never had a problem with the 150's single card. The extra resolution is also nice, and hopefully better low light performance too.

Personally, the 150 is so good, I might just hold onto that, but the 130 is very tempting, much more so than the competition.

Yes, it might be nice to have the AVC intra codec as well, but realistically, that was not going to happen without P2. Maybe on the next update in 3 years or so SDXC performance might be more reliable and they will release a camera which has the option to record in AVC Intra 50 as well as AVC Cam onto SDXC.
 
Oh yeah. . .the other thing I was concerned about was the AC3 audio vs LPCM in the 130 vs the 160, respectively. How big of a deal is that? I have an XL2 now, on that cam has always sounded fine to me. . .what compression scheme is that? Heard plenty of EX1 audio as well, that sounded fine. I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if I'm used to hearing LPCM-recorded audio or not. . .that's one thing I've never thought about with the cams I've used. What does the HPX170 use?
 
If your audio levels are very good the difference will not seem great; but the compression becomes an issue if you need to add gain in post. Recording music events with wide dynamic range, and then working with the sound in post, I get much better results with my LPCM HVX200 than with the HMC150.
 
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