Worth it without P2 Cards?

MLCinema

MLCinema

Well-known member
Hello,

Will the 200 be worth it's price without the P2 cards? I mean if I buy the camera when it comes out and wait on the cards will the camera be that much better than the DVX100a?

Thank You
MLCinema :shocked:
 
You can still shoot HD without the P2 cards onto a laptop or Firestore drive. If you already have a suitable laptop, that may be a good option.

If you just use the DV tape drive, you will have native 16X9 and a few other smaller improvements over the DVX. However the camera will be heavier and bigger. We'll have to wait for the camera to comment any further on picture quality.

If your DVX does everything you need, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
From what I get, it would be like a DVX100 with native 16x9. Without P2, you will need an alternative to capture the HD to. I think that it being around what the XL2 debuted at with the ability for HD when you or the market is ready, especially 1080p, it’s well worth it. I would rather pay that much for HD capability instead of a removable lens.

That’s the way I look at it.
 
I was at Costco today and noticed a self-powered, portable hard drive (Western Digital "Passport"). It was incredibly small and lightweight, fitting into the palm of one's hand. It offers 80GB of storage for about $150.

By contrast, 80GB worth of P2 storage would cost about $42,000.

While I don't expect this particular hard drive to work with the HVX (it was USB 2.0, too slow for video), I don't understand why Panasonic can't create something like this for the camera.

What am I missing?
 
I believe Firestore (and a few other companys?) are planning it. However, it will cost a lot more than $80. They have to use very fast hard drives, the ones in Costco may be slower than required.
 
The other option until prices drop is to rent the cards. Not sure if there will be any companies in the MD area, but I know that both our LA and NY rental departments are planning on stocking the cards to be able to rent out. Final pricing has not been set but, depending on the length of your shoot, that may be the most cost effective method for some.
 
MLCinema said:
Hello,

Will the 200 be worth it's price without the P2 cards? I mean if I buy the camera when it comes out and wait on the cards will the camera be that much better than the DVX100a?

Thank You
MLCinema :shocked:
Click to expand...


I think you'd be getting a much better camera than a DVX100a. After all, R & D on this model supercedes the DVX.

The HD quality lens alone will make it at least 5 or 10 times better than a DVX.
 
Sean Michael said:
I was at Costco today and noticed a portable hard drive (Western Digital "Passport") offering 80GB of storage for about $150. It was incredibly small and lightweight.

By contrast, 80GB worth of P2 storage would cost about $42,000.

While I don't expect this particular hard drive to work with the HVX (it was USB), I don't understand while Panasonic can't create something like this for the camera.
Click to expand...

P2 cards are fast, silent, rugged, reliable, shockproof, etc.
Hard disks are (comparatively) slow, noisy, temperature-sensitive, humidity-sensitive, and huge.

A P2 card is superior to a hard disk in every possible way except two: cost per gigabyte, and gigabytes per size. Other than that, P2 is just way superior.

Both Sony and Panasonic looked at making direct-to-hard-disk cameras, and both companies ultimately rejected it. Hard disks are great for stationary setups, but they simply aren't made to handle the rugged environments that a camera will be put through.

That's why products like the FireStore exist. They isolate the hard drive, protect the daylights out of it, etc., and if it fails, you can't blame the camera manufacturer. The camera manufacturers know very well that people want to record to hard disks, but I don't think they're convinced on the reliability issues for live shooting circumstances.

So you can choose a hard disk recorder if you want, and if you're comfortable with the restrictions and limitations that a hard disk imposes. Many people appear to be; the FireStore seems like a reasonably successful product.

The thing is, you *can* use that drive you talked about with an HVX; you just can't stream directly to it. You'd capture to the P2 card, and then when things settle down and you've got a little time, you plug in the hard disk and dump the P2 contents over to it. That way you get to use the P2 card for what it's best at, and the hard disk for what it's best at.
 
mmm said:
I believe Firestore (and a few other companys?) are planning it. However, it will cost a lot more than $80. They have to use very fast hard drives, the ones in Costco may be slower than required.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's another thing -- there's no way for the camera to know how fast the hard disk is. Dropped frames would be disastrous during recording, and if you were to try to stream video straight to an off-the-shelf hard disk, the camera may be sending data faster than the hard disk can readily absorb. That's never the case with a P2 card, but with the hard disk there's no way that Panasonic could guarantee it would work with all hard disks.

That's why the FireStore works the way it does -- with its own internal, permanently-mounted hard disk. They know for sure that the particular disk they use will be up to the task.

Now, for dubbing (using SBP2 instead of AV/C) it's a whole 'nother ball game -- the HVX can dub to any hard disk easily, because dubbing is not a time-sensitive process (unlike capturing live). So you can use any hard disk, and it'll take as long to dub as the hard disk requires.

I think the ideal solution, for those who want hard disk acquisition, would be a removable hard disk system. Something like a FireStore "head", but with user-interchangeable hot-swappable hard disks. The "head" would include the necessary intelligence and electronics to handle it, and probably a huge buffer (like 512mb or 1gb) to protect against dropped frames. Then you could pick up off-the-shelf hard disks and attach 'em to the "head unit" and go from there.

I think that would be a pretty good-selling product, if someone were to make such a thing.
 
The firestore seems to be the way to go since I think it is much more cost effective than P2....at least for me right now.

Also I know even if I don't get the P2 cards right away....I have a HD camera for the future when I can afford the P2's

MLCinema
 
What about a device that wirelessly transmits the contents of the P2 card to a reciever on your hard drive device. So that while you are busy setting up the shot (moving the camera etc.) you could be offloading the info onto the hard drive without wires getting in the way. Someone needs to get on it. I would buy it.
 
Barry_Green said:
I think the ideal solution, for those who want hard disk acquisition, would be a removable hard disk system. Something like a FireStore "head", but with user-interchangeable hot-swappable hard disks. The "head" would include the necessary intelligence and electronics to handle it, and probably a huge buffer (like 512mb or 1gb) to protect against dropped frames. Then you could pick up off-the-shelf hard disks and attach 'em to the "head unit" and go from there.

I think that would be a pretty good-selling product, if someone were to make such a thing.
Click to expand...

Well, that's exactly what all the other FireStore (non-FS4) products are, no? And my biggest disappointment with the FS4 itself... The FS-1 is exactly what you describe, and requires you to plug in a FW drive; the FS-2 and 3 have drives, but allow daisy chaining additional ones... I think the FS-3 lets you just drop naked IDE drives into a pretty cheap carrier which you can plug in....

The FS-4 Pro allows you to chain an additional FS-4 Pro, but that's far from economical. I really hope that they do indeed make a version of their DVCPROHD recorder that allows chaining of FW drives...
 
The other FireStores are that, yes. They're just not designed to be portable. I mean, you can drag an FS-1 into the field, but it's not really a portable solution, it's more of a jerry-rigged thing. And the FS-2 is a desktop-only unit, isn't it? The FS-3 is more along the design I'm hoping to see, with user-swappable onboard hard disks. Maybe they could build it as a shoulder-mount rig or something...

The FS-4 is designed around portability, but I think it's exactly the type of product we *don't* need on the HVX. I think hard drive interchangeability is paramount. I mean, I do think the FS-4 has a place, but considering you get 3.5 hours of recording when using it in DV mode, vs. 40 minues on the HVX, it just makes that type of device far less practical with the HVX. I think the swappability is key.
 
Exactly. Also as insurance for the future, since drive prices are constantly dropping, and capacities increasing... and the drives are the fragile part of the system.

I wouldn't mind something like the FS-1, as far as portability is concerned... with the shoulder bag that holds the battery and a small drive, it's not terrible. The FS3 kinda snaps onto the back of the camera, which won't work too well with the HVX, and a good solution with swappable drives would likely be too heavy to mount like the FS4 without major balance problems. So, without a shoulder mount of some sort for the camera, I think anything would have to be in a shoulder bag of some sort...
 
Barry_Green said:
I think the ideal solution, for those who want hard disk acquisition, would be a removable hard disk system. Something like a FireStore "head", but with user-interchangeable hot-swappable hard disks. The "head" would include the necessary intelligence and electronics to handle it, and probably a huge buffer (like 512mb or 1gb) to protect against dropped frames. Then you could pick up off-the-shelf hard disks and attach 'em to the "head unit" and go from there.

I think that would be a pretty good-selling product, if someone were to make such a thing.
Click to expand...

Barry, I wrote Matt at Focus Enhancements (FE) asking if they were considering or would consider such a Firestore design for the new HVX. He didn't give a direct answer, instead just saying that FE would need to test the new cam. I'm skeptical that we'll see such from FE. Maybe someone else.

I'm not the SLIGHTEST bit interested in P2 technology until it can record (for my needs) at least an hour's worth of continuous video. I'd love to be wrong, but from what I can tell it looks like that won't be possible until mid-2007?:(
 
You can record an hour's worth of DV or DV25 immediately upon the camera's release.

You'll get an hour's worth of DV50 or 720/24p by April.
 
At 20 mins of HD on a P2 card (is that a 16bg card?) that's more than enough for narrative work. Now, this won't be an ideal doc camera until you can get an hour or so on a p2 card.
 
While I won't be shooting HD for awhile and won't be able to afford P2 media for a bit after the camera's release, when I do start using P2 for narrative I'll probably be bringing my ibook along and dump the footage to it in between shots. Then I could go home and transfer the footage to my powermac. That should work shouldn't it?
 
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