I did it, decided on CAC Fujinon with extender, x6 16GB P2 cards, P2 Drive
 

Hello,

After carefully observed posts here and reading magazine articles, I decided to own CAC Fujinon lens for the HPX555.

Also, I debated a lot for buying FS100, but I decided to get six of 16GB P2 cards instead. P2 cards becoming larger in size, I thought it is not so efficient to get disk recording or even P2 store with only 60GB (assume it will be over 100GB soon but). By end of the year, I could purchase a couple of 32GB P2 cards, that is going to be plenty enough.

However, to accommodate having many P2 cards, I wanted to transfer the contents faster, so I decided to buy P2 drive, too. This way, I can insert up to 5 cards in the unit and copy them over to mac with firewire 800 connection.
I can even take my Mac Book Pro out with the cams & the P2 drive, LaCie Little Big Drive (the raid version) and do fast copying during the brakes. I will report how fast when I get it.

So, spam here, if you are in Tokyo and want to rent my rigs then just shout at me.

Kaku,

I definitely appreciate the ability to copy 5 cards at once, that's a cool feature! But one question: does the P2 Drive actually have a FireWire 800 connection? I thought it was only USB 2.

The original P2 Drive was USB-only, but the new one is USB and FW800.

If your working with P2 everyday, even only with 2 or 3 cards the PCD20 is worth every cent. Makes the workflow so easy.

Cheapest deck i've ever bought!

seems like I made a good decision here.
I bought six 16GB P2 cards because I also have a HVX200.
Try to be fair for the little guy!

Oooh, I didn't know that. That's great! If I end up with a camera with 4-5 P2 cards, I would definitely consider getting this thing.

I was thinking about the P2 drive being USB 2 only before, so it was out of my consideration. I went through many different ways, iPOD60GBFW, battery operated firewire drives, Epson M5000, OTG USB drives then all are not reliable in the workflow or many weren't reliable in operation because of the battery life, so I was giving up on those then wondering if I should buy FS100 or P2 store.

Although FS100 does over/under crank recording, it has only 100GB and takes extra battery to worry about and P2 store currently being 60GB and takes extra battery to worry about, then I found out that P2 drive has Firewire 800 connection. I have a duel adapter and Mac Book Pro, it copies really fast, but that route is so bulky because the internal drive in the MBP is not large enough then I have to connect external firewire drive. Anyhow, I always wanted fastest ways to have P2 transfered to my Mac Pro. I have tons of disk space on Mac Pro. So, this is it. Buy as many P2 Card that I can buy, even used 4GB and 8GB at good price, buy 32GB cards when they come out, just use most reliable, lightest, fastest, no wire method to shoot with P2HD.

The USB-only model was called the PCD10, the USB & FW800 model is called the PCD20.

Barry, thanks for the clarification.

The next production I will help, I'm going to tell them to rent the P2 mobile for the recording and editing, viewing and making play list and stuff.
The last production, they were'nt so sure about using only P2, so they ended up recording with AJ-HD1200. I guess they had to go with the traditional way for shooting.

Barry, do you know if P2 Mobile Recorder can backup from its P2 slots to external firewire drive? I guess it can. P2 Moblie Recorder seems to provide ultimate P2 solution on the road. It is great that it records with AVCIntra, too which HPX does not have.

Yes, the P2 Mobile and the P2 Gear can both offload footage onto external drives. IINM, they can do it to both firewire and USB drives too, unlike the cameras which can only do it to firewire drives.

The Mobile has some limited editing capability (it can make a timeline, and trim clips, but it's not much more than a basic assemble editor). Both of them can export a subclip -- meaning, you set a TEXT MEMO at the in point, and another one at the out point, and then they can export a new clip that consists of only that portion. So that's a sort of editing capability.

The P2 Gear also has a software keyboard that lets you name volumes and metadata. It's kind of neat, but a laptop would do that job a lot better. :)

The P2 Mobile is meant as a bridge product for something like a news truck -- it has all the inputs, outputs, upconverting, downconverting, and cross-converting to bridge the worlds of P2, tape, live baseband video, etc. The P2 Gear is more of a portable P2 logging/offloading/verifying station.

I believe one of them, if not both of them, can actually copy clips back from a hard disk back onto the cards. And they can copy clips from one card to another.

The P2 Gear could also be used as a sort of "director's monitor" through firewire; in that mode it can be used as a live waveform or live vectorscope too. But not if you're shooting 720pN mode; the firewire output of the camera is disabled during 720pN mode so the P2 Gear couldn't be used as a monitor or live recorder in that case.

Barry thanks,

Panasonic's Japanese contents don't clearly mention those things. Didn't realize the P2 gear even can do it.

The use of P2 Mobile or P2 Gear with a monitor is going to be exact ways that you mentioned for the director and the video operator. Renting that for the shoot will make those people more comfortable to work with P2.

The full function remote would be useful for the operator, too.

I got everything today, yeah!

great Kaku ...
 

Have fun with that cam! How's the Chromatic Aberration Correction on that lens?

Thanks Dean,

I went through the shading adjustment and selecting the right CAC script and WOW! Comparing to my shots with none CAC HD lens and SD broadcast lens, I finally got fuller potential on this cam now. Oh man.
I will post some clips after I shoot good ones.

let me know ...
 

I'll drop by and check them out!!!