Third Party P2 cards?

A

aryk

Active member
P2 cards seem to be made up of pretty off the shelf parts, PCMCIA interface, SD memory cards; I am suprised that there aren't any third party companies (that I know of) making P2 cards.
I can't imagine that the huge market of HVX owners will go unnoticed. Has anyone heard of any companies developing media for P2. A nice open market on these would help drop prices and speed up delivery of larger storage sizes.
 
I really hope Panasonic doesn't implement some type of proprietary technology that doesn't allow 3rd party P2 cards from being developed... I'm sure other companies would be able to make them for a lot less, even though we'd probably have no support from Panny if one of them dies. But that's ok.

Please somebody make cheaper P2 cards available!!! I'd gladly pay $700-$1000 for an 8GB card... but $2000 is just too much right now. :embarasse
 
Would not expect to see third party P2 cards any time soon. HVX is not a mass market product even while SD cards qualify for such a denomination. Remember, there is
quite some enginering involved to transform 4 SD cards plus electronics plus PCMCIA interface into a P2 card.

So far there is no such thing like a "huge market of HVX owners". More or less it is a best case estimation within a certain time frame from initial sales onwards.

If someone else could sell them for 200$ less then Panny, would that be worth the hazzle in case of a failure? Better pay the full price and be safe. And take into account that the Panny price will not drop as fast as anticipated if a third party offers the same thing again. There is only a limited market to be shared.
 
I think the deal is that panasonic is trying to break P2 as a format. The more companies to license the technology the happier they'll be. They don't need to be manufacturing the products to bank.

This is why they are coming out with such a cool camera in the low end market. They know that if the HVX takes off bringing real HD to indies, then P2 will have a chance to fly aswell.

Get a bunch of people comfortable with P2 and then you'll see the P2 Varicam.

I personally hope they succeed. I'm probably going to buy the HVX as much to support the technology as anything. I think it's a good idea.
 
Haha. I think the comfort level with P2 will be inversely related to the price. Jan's already mentioned that Panny will license P2, but as PKraft mentions, the market has to be big enough to justify making a product. It also depends on how much the license fee is. I did hear some interesting news today. Apparently Samsung has offered Apple 4 GB of flash memory for the same price as a 4 GB hard drives in an effort get them to switch to flash memory in the 4 GB iPod Mini's--and they can still make money at that price. So the MP3 player (and phone) market is really going to drive flash memory prices down.
 
Hah, I'm sure someone will get them made, maybe not for the market but for their own use. Image a 100 GB! I'm sure if I can get just a few of my MIT,ITT, Crazy electronic cousins to put one together for me I'd be happy! :)
 
Folks the magic word is "RENT". Don't let the expense of a P2 card stop your production or change your mind about getting an HVX. Even though I will be renting the P2 cards until they come down in price. I will probably get a 4gig card for short steadicam shots. Just to own one - just in case the rental store is out of them and if I don't need rent but I have a short steadicam shot.
 
If Pany wants P2 to take off, it needs to be lisenced out to other manufacturers. They have to be careful if they are going to avoid a "betamax" affair.

HD to P2 only has been the topic that I have heard the most complaints about surrounding the HVX. To me it feels like a bit of a backstep, having got used to the cheap freedom of DV. However, this will obviously change as prices drop. Prices need to drop fast otherwise customers will move on though.

The HVX is certainly designed to sell P2 cards. If hard disk was a real plan, surely they would build a controller into the camera.
 
..just to be clear.. ANY company .. can RIGHT NOW.. make P2 cards and sell them for whatever price they want.. the only thing they have to do is work with pana and meet meet panasonics manufacturing standards.. thats all. panasonic just doesnt want P2 becoming some cheap unreliable media made by some crackerjack company trying to make a buck.. they want it to be a PROFESSIONAL standard that means prooven 100% reliability, excellence, and performance, every time. if another company thinks they can do that cheap er ..it will be done. but its not about cheap media.. its about professional excellence. IMHO if the price tage looks too big to people to buy it.. they are likley biting off more than they can chew by entering the HD world. the problem with the HVX itself being so affordable. is that ALOT of people are simply going to bite off more than they can chew.. or need to be chewing for what they are doing. .. the reality is that while HD aquisition has become affordable via HDV and the soon to be HVX.. the professional HD workflow is still somewhat costly. and P2 is the awaited creme de la creme of professional HD aquisition. surely it will come down in price over time, but i has always been that if you want the best.. you will pay for it. .. and if you actually need it.. the price isnt an issue.
 
Yes it is true. I actually saw one taken apart, it had 4 regular 1gig SD cards arranged in an array (basically parallel like stringing up batteries in a series). No big deal actually. I don't know why they cost so much......especially since they are made overseas by people making 50 cents a day....
 
iamloser said:
and P2 is the awaited creme de la creme of professional HD aquisition.
Click to expand...

Well, it is really pretty bottom of the line professional HD... especially if people aren't considering HDV as professional.

What I mean is that for the price point at which this camera is aimed, P2 cost WILL BE A MAJOR ISSUE. If people have big budgets, they are not going to be shooting on a HVX. The other use of cheaper cameras (eg DVX PD150) is for fly on a wall stuff where you must be inconspicous. In those run and gun circumstances P2 is out of the question...for now. Luckily the feature I am in pre-production on is set in very controlled enviroments so I should be able to link to a laptop if I end up shooting on the HVX. But I shouldn't need to be considering such things - that is a step backwards as far as the freedom of my camera is conserned.

I know this is a well trodden path, so I won't wander along it again....

Pany can hype up P2 as much as they want, and personally I think it will sell reasonably well but if it didn't have the weight of Pany's strong camera line up behind it, it might have sunk without trace.

I doubt it will become a market dominating force, because it is just too expensive at the moment, and by the time prices come down, something else may have taken its place. So I think it is very important that third parties do go into P2 manufacture, because it will help push prices down sooner.

I definitely think solid state is the future of aquisition, but tape is the present. There may also be something else inbetween - optical, hard drives etc.
 
couldn't you use a p2 card in a mac/pc laptop as a secondary hard drive? By the way the technology "seems" to work, this should be possible. Right? If so, there will be a huge advantage and reason for third party developers to develop cheap and higher disk space P2 type cards for both the panny camera and computer enthusiests. Think about it, a few years down the line, add 64 or 100 GB of REALLY FAST Storage space to a laptop? Sounds nice to me!
 
Inexpensive P2 cards key to HVX/P2 format success

Inexpensive P2 cards key to HVX/P2 format success

Well, the camera is selling pretty well in predistribution. But Panasonic ought to ease their way out manufacturing a niche proprietory format once the camera hits the streets. I agree with the betamax argument. Once the camera hits the streets Pana ought to offer two-fers, anything to create a rush on media to further establish and entrench the HVX-P2 concept...ease their way out of the niche media business. The cards are currently high priced because they're predominantly associated with the higher priced broadcast camera/setup.

The 2-4gigs are pretty much standard technology, etc. I can see pricier 8-16gig but $2000 is a chunk. How would anyone feel if they paid 2k, three-six months later they were $500. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

Just my opine.
 
robotx21 said:
couldn't you use a p2 card in a mac/pc laptop as a secondary hard drive? By the way the technology "seems" to work, this should be possible. Right? If so, there will be a huge advantage and reason for third party developers to develop cheap and higher disk space P2 type cards for both the panny camera and computer enthusiests. Think about it, a few years down the line, add 64 or 100 GB of REALLY FAST Storage space to a laptop? Sounds nice to me!
Click to expand...
Yes that is possible today. You can use a P2 card as a plug-in "hard disk" type of device right now.
 
Last time I saw a P2 card it was possible to open it. It is made of 4 fast type SD cards which are easily replaceable. I imagine that it is possible to buy a low cost P2 card and with time replace the SD cards inside to achieve a larger capacity one - for example from 4GB to 8GB or 16GB.

Bibo
 
thats interesting bibo.. i never thought of the user-upgradable concept. I am sure it would void the warranty, but probally would be the cheapest roadmap for upgrades.
 
Bibo, an interesting idea but not feasible IMHO.
It is said that the SD elements in a P2 card must meet certain requirements (timing behaviour, etc). So opening the P2 card, if technically possible at all without destroying it, and trying to replace the SDs with newer ones with higher capacity would be a pretty darn try and error thing. I, for myself, would never dare to endanger my video recordings that way.
 
mmm said:
Well, it is really pretty bottom of the line professional HD... especially if people aren't considering HDV as professional.
Click to expand...

..no no.. now your confusing the compression format with the recording medium. the HVX records DVCPRO HD.. not P2 .. P2 isnt a compression format. ..its just the medium tha the camera stores the DVCPRO HD files on.. other cameras store DVCPRO HD to DVCPRO HD tape. but anyway you get my point. :) what i was comparing in that statement is P2 solid state memory storage to tapes of all sorts and direct to hard disk recording. P2 is at the top for HD aquisition media recording. if you wanted to talk about HDV.. well then you have to compare it to DVCPRO HD.. and thats a different story altogether.
 
Having P2 be based on an extremely common and growing media format really helps it. With the huge demand for flash memory from mp3 players, to phones, to even solid state PC harddrives-all that product development will increase the size and speed of P2 cards; hopefully even faster that that P2 card release projection cart Panasonic has.

As for professional, I have no doubt the HXV will make a lot of people recoinsider renting a HDW-F900 or Varicam. If DV can be accepted to be used for motion pictures and TV shows, I think the HVX will have more respect than "bottom rung HD."

I would imagine renting P2 cards would be much cheaper than equally priced hardware. Rental places factor in wear and tear into their rental fees. Replacing and reparing products is a major cost. P2 cards can't be worn't out (well till that 100,000 rewrites they say.) The greatly reduced cost of maintence on they would help the rental fee.
 
iamloser said:
..no no.. now your confusing the compression format with the recording medium. the HVX records DVCPRO HD.. not P2 .. P2 isnt a compression format. ..its just the medium tha the camera stores the DVCPRO HD files on.. other cameras store DVCPRO HD to DVCPRO HD tape. but anyway you get my point. :) what i was comparing in that statement is P2 solid state memory storage to tapes of all sorts and direct to hard disk recording. P2 is at the top for HD aquisition media recording. if you wanted to talk about HDV.. well then you have to compare it to DVCPRO HD.. and thats a different story altogether.
Click to expand...


Sorry, I was only thinking of it that way because DVCPRO HD is the only HD format that can be recorded to P2 at present...well with the HVX. That combination is a low end professional HD solution.

Still, P2 isn't really top end pro HD either, that is still reserved by raid hard drives. Does anyone know P2's maximum data rate? I guess P2 can handle better formats if Pany introduce them though, so I get your point.
 
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