Panasonic is slacking with P2

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Jeff Anderson said:
the 60 extra gb's of memory...
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Uh...you guys.

4, 8, 16, 32, 64....these are all numbers.

Normally a difference in price is justified based on production costs. If it costs the manufacturer so much more money to produce the product, then fine. But I don't think that's the case, unless someone can show me figures. I say they charge that much more simply because they can get away with it, and making a monsterous profit per unit sold.
 
studio1972 said:
To be fair to Panasonic, they do provide a much cheaper (similar quality) option in the HMC150. You cannot really complain about P2 costs when they are offering you an alternative like that.

To be fair to Abadon:

I am a chartered professional engineer and I have worked in the electronics industry for several years. From my experience, I very much doubt that there is a huge cost difference in the components of P2 cards and, for example, CF cards.

All these cards contain memory chips which are a cheap commodity item.

The P2 cards made by other manufacturers are (I'm quite sure) made under licence as Panasonic will have patents on the P2 design. This explains why the costs are similar.

However, panasonic will have some extra costs as the P2 cards sell in much smaller numbers than CF cards, so there is less economy of scale. Do these costs justify the price difference? Hard to tell, but I would expect that the profit margin on P2 is much higher than on CF cards etc.

The same thing goes for the sony alternative of course.

Incidentally, video is a relatively undemanding use for these cards. SSDs have a much harder time as they will be continually written to and erased from by the computer operating system. It is the amount of read/writes which eventually damages the chips, and this will be relatively few in the video field.
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Thank you for the great response. I agree with all of this.

Just coming from a business standpoint, I wonder if Panasonic would profit more or less if they sold their cards for much cheeper. Sure, they make a fair amount now, charging high, but if they dropped the prices significantly, myself and many other low end consumers would buy right away, getting more product out of their factories.
 
Abaddon said:
Normally a difference in price is justified based on production costs.
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No, it most certainly does not. Price is set by supply and demand, and what it costs to produce has pretty much no bearing on the end price. An ounce of gold costs $800 one year, and it costs $300 the next year - no difference in the cost to produce it, but a huge difference in the demand for it.

Do you really think the lettuce and onions that Wolfgang Puck uses cost all that much more than the lettuce and onions that Red Robin uses? But his dishes sure cost a lot more, don't they?

Let's get to the bottom of this: you, Abaddon, have pretty much harped on this subject for YEARS. We keep pointing out the economic realities, and you keep coming back with what's basically a smear campaign. I mean, let's take this example:

If it costs the manufacturer so much more money to produce the product, then fine. But I don't think that's the case, unless someone can show me figures. I say they charge that much more simply because they can get away with it, and making a monsterous profit per unit sold.
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That's basically a smear. That's like saying "I know for a fact that Joe Shplurplebarger runs a whorehouse out of his basement apartment, and until he proves otherwise then I think he's doing it because he can get away with it."

You're making statements based on no factual information whatsoever, basically throwing gasoline on a fire. It's tired, it's old, and it's counterproductive. Give it a rest.

If you want cheap memory cards, go with AVCHD. It seems like a format that was tailor-made for your needs, it uses the cheapest commodity memory cards on the planet. P2 is not for you.
 
Abaddon said:
Don't worry so much about what I do. No need to stalk my posts.
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Not worried at all. And I certainly wasn't "stalking" your posts. The fact of the matter is I've heard this all before and I was searching for a specific post by JAN CRITTENDON where she talks about some of the specifics of how P2 cards are manufactured. I wasn't the least bit surprised when I happened to notice you complaining on that thread too.

You may think I (we) are "hating" on you but I really don't think that's the case. Maybe we're perplexed by your continued comments, perhaps even a little annoyed. I think I speak for many of us when I say we're tired of hearing these same old complaints. They're virtually duplicate posts. Barry Green green really summed it up nicely in his previous post.

So, Abaddon, please don't shut up or go away. I like having you here; I just wish you'd switch gears to a new topic (and preferably one that is more productive for discussion).
 
I wouldn't worry too much Abaddon. If the Scarlet ever becomes reality P2 prices will drop faster than the DOW. Until then it is what it is
 
My $0.02 - until there is significantly new information from Panasonic on this issue (directly or indirectly), threads like this ought to be closed as soon as they are started.

What a colossal waste of time.
 
I am with you Abaddon, but it is just business. Panasonic charges more for there P2 cards because they can. Simple. The Ferrari analogy was spot on. They could sell there cars for less but why?
There is a company called Monster that sells overpriced cables. Are they better than the other cable companies maybe not but there marketing campaign is way better.
So yes I admit it. I believe Panasonic is charging more for it's P2 card than they need to.

But I would be charging double. :)
 
I'm still waiting the day that a 32GB P2 card will cost 160$...

That day will be the last day that we gone see tapes...

If they don't understand that for just a verify function they stalling their success...

Because when 32G P2 = DVCPRO 126L tapes then Panasonic will be the total winner...

I'm looking forward to put on my next laptop the Sandisk... with 200M/s... it will fly...
 
To me a P2 card is just like the MxR Expresscard Reader or those card adapters for the EX1's expensive ExpressCard/34. PCMCIA Adapter + SD card + RAID = P2

Is there anything proprietary about P2? Or just licensing issues that prevents an affordable third party P2?

Maybe the guys who made MxR Expresscard can make a P2 alternative?
 
Retrospective said:
To me a P2 card is just like the MxR Expresscard Reader or those card adapters for the EX1's expensive ExpressCard/34. PCMCIA Adapter + SD card + RAID = P2
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Wrong. There is a special RAID controller built in, plus special intelligence as well.

Retrospective said:
Is there anything proprietary about P2?
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Yes. Pretty much everything. Even the SD cards it uses aren't available to the general public.

Retrospective said:
Or just licensing issues that prevents an affordable third party P2?
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That too. Proprietary technology is almost always patented, and that prevents just anyone from making similar products. Hense why the other brands making P2 are selling for similar prices.

Retrospective said:
Maybe the guys who made MxR Expresscard can make a P2 alternative?
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Only if they have hundereds of thousands of dollars like Spec-Comm did when they developed and sold the Cineporter... oh, wait.... they never released that, even after spending hundereds of thousands. So no, then.


Time to lock this thread...
 
Retrospective said:
To me a P2 card is just like the MxR Expresscard Reader or those card adapters for the EX1's expensive ExpressCard/34. PCMCIA Adapter + SD card + RAID = P2

Is there anything proprietary about P2? Or just licensing issues that prevents an affordable third party P2?
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And as near as I can tell, it's nothing whatsoever like those things. It's a microprocessor-controlled little computer in there. The Spec-Comm guys found that a P2 card has a processor that the host system sends something like 40 different commands to, and the microcomputer in the card works to process that information. There are other cards that work in the P2 slot too, like the proxy generator card. The way I understand it, the relationship between the camera and the card is not the same as the relationship between a computer and its RAM slot (like everyone seems to think); it's more like the relationship between a computer and its expansion slots. You can plug just about anything into a PCI slot in a computer, and apparently you can do the same thing with a P2 camera.

I think it's probably more a case of "as a firestore is to a generic hard drive, so also a P2 card is to a generic memory card."

Maybe the guys who made MxR Expresscard can make a P2 alternative?
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We all wish someone would, but after Spec-Comm's foray into it, and Hoodman's failed venture at trying it, I don't know if or when we can expect anyone else to try.
 
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