went to HVX200 demo....

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

Jeff, I don't know who your clients are, but I never a) have the time to dub the tapes at the end of a long day or b) have the authority to say I own the masters. This would never fly with VH1, Discovery, Paramount or any other client. They wouldn't hire you again if you claimed to have "full & exclusive rights." Matter of fact, they wouldn't hire you in the first place.

Well, I've shot a small bit of video for one of the studio clients you just mentioned on more than one occasion. And the tapes were delivered the following day for both instances and I still retained partial rights to them. I suppose it depends on what you are shooting and for what purpose and we're getting way off topic on this one. I wasn't intending to start an argument or anything but I obviously wasn't looking at it from the same point of view of others... When I freelance, I'm not usually just a cameraman for hire. Just about everything I shoot or produce is a value-added production and rarely do I ever just deliver raw video or video alone. I'm usually contracted to do at least some editing or post work, primarily animation or effects. So while the shoot and deliver freelance approach may not be something I do, I suppose I overlooked the fact that many others probably do.

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

That said, it's a bit silly to keep arguing about what the P2 workflow WON'T work for. Nothing ever works for every scenario.

Yep.

Originally Posted by Kevin Wild

Oh and by the way...so far I haven't had a single request for HD anyways. I know it's coming...but nothing yet. We could only wish that things moved as fast as we do here on the boards...

And it seems thta most people claim the very same thing... And I was saying that until about 2 years ago, I decided to move all my animation work over to HD. I snagged a couple small contracts with some HD broadcasters and I have been renting HD cameras and trying different ones over the past year. Now all I get is requests for HD. Our local NBC affiliate is really beating the HD drum and they're all over independent HD sources. HD.Net is owned/operated local to me as well and they're starved for content. You mentioned Discovery above... They're pushing HD like crazy and you're a lot more interesting to them if you can deliver HD material. So many people on here are doing weddings and corporate video or local news and documentary projects. HD hasn't hit home yet for those markets, but it will in the not too distant future. I know the HVX200 isn't for everyone and the limited capacity of current P2 offerings will make a lot of tasks difficult. I do a lot of shooting outdoors and often in extreme conditions. I may not be able to shoot HD all the time with the HVX until larger P2 cards become available, but I think this camera will be a nice addition to my DVX and will allow me to do more HD level work without renting a camera and so much of what I want to do I just can't do with a rented unit.

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Jaime Valles

We weren't talking about recording directly to an off-the-shelf Firewire Hard Disk. For that, you do need the Firestore. What we're talking about is recording to P2 cards, and THEN transferring the footage from P2 cards to an external off-the-shelf Firewire Hard disk WITHOUT the use of a laptop. Simply plug the drive into the HVX and dump the footage. This was confirmed by Jan, and is one of the coolest features of the HVX.

Sorry still catching up on the HVX - very cool.

[Heath McKnight]

Hey I'm not 100% up on the HVX200 or the P2 technology. Been busy with HDV lately.

heath

[Ash Greyson]

WHen I am shooting only, I generally have to sign a WFH agreement and hand the tapes over on the spot. If you retain rights you are the very rare exception and a lot of the stuff I do, it is unheard of. I shot 4 days at a NASCAR event a couple weeks ago for a nice fat check but had I asked for any rights... I would have never got the job. It is worth noting that most places WANT tape, not DVD/HDD/etc.


ash =o)

Originally Posted by Jeff Kilgroe

Uh, no.

I do tons of freelance shooting as you describe. Not that I want to keep beating a dead horse, but once again as others have said, the cards stay with the camera. With the HVX, you will show up, shoot and hand over the data files to them on a compact USB HDD or DVD media.

In your current freelance approach, do you not keep copies of what you shoot? I *NEVER* (almost never, anyway) give away my master tape. The client must wait the extra hour or so for me to dupe them a copy. If it's a serious time crunch I charge them extra to take the tapes and this extra is refundable once they return them to me (in the same condition I gave them) and then I will give them their COPIES. In my freelance agreement, it's rare that I ever give full or exclusive rights to anything I shoot (photos, video, whatever) and on the rare occasion I do, it costs them.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Ash Greyson

WHen I am shooting only, I generally have to sign a WFH agreement and hand the tapes over on the spot. If you retain rights you are the very rare exception and a lot of the stuff I do, it is unheard of. I shot 4 days at a NASCAR event a couple weeks ago for a nice fat check but had I asked for any rights... I would have never got the job. It is worth noting that most places WANT tape, not DVD/HDD/etc.

Point taken... Others have already called me on this to. :)

Yeah, I don't do much direct work for hire type stuff. But then again, shooting video is only a small portion of what I do and what I deliver.

[Tung Bui]

I'm rathered tired of people complaining all the time about the cost of p2 here and elsewhere. In two or three years when the dust settles people will be wondering what all the fuss was about. I remember a huge fuss about the reliability of the dvx100 when it came out more than 2 years ago because it looked "plasticky" and toylike. Where's the dvx now? Some see it as a conspiracy for panasonic to force us to buy expensive recording media but that is so silly. It is the cheapest way to go hd as a tape mechanism would cost a fortune.
Panasonic is giving smaller people like us( lets be frank most of us are "small" when you see the kind of money that gets splashed around the film business) access to what really is revolutionary technology at a relatively affordable price. It will be future proof because the cards will only get bigger and cheaper. It is tapeless for crying out loud. If it doesnt work for some applications than the firestore should work. All bases covered. Make a copy once the shoot is finished and there's your backup. I for one would be glad to see tape die.

[Michael Pappas]

I couldn't agree more Tung.

One day we will look back and say " remember back in the day when we used tape"....... Yes P2 and an IT way of moving footage around will not be easy at first. Every great advancement has a slow start up, but once it gets up to speed and takes over.. "" watch Out ""

P2 and flash memory Hidef recording is the future and the future is beginning today.....


I welcome it with open arms........

Pappas

Originally Posted by Tung Bui

I'm rathered tired of people complaining all the time about the cost of p2 here and elsewhere. In two or three years when the dust settles people will be wondering what all the fuss was about.

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Originally Posted by Tung Bui

I'm rathered tired of people complaining all the time about the cost of p2 here and elsewhere. In two or three years when the dust settles people will be wondering what all the fuss was about.

I know. Panny must be scratching their heads. Take a DVCPro-HD deck that costs as much as a new car. Shrink it down to 1/100th of the size and cut the cost by 90%. Run screaming into the street --

"Revolution, stop the presses!!!...er, no forget it.."
"whaddya mean, forget it"
"they say it still costs too much - they want for 1/50th of the price"
"sigh..."

Sure, it would be great if P2 cards cost $50...and if the HVX cost $500. But, life is after all, real, so I guess not.

However, Chris should lockdown camerafantasy.com (it's still available Mr. Hurd). Oh the website ecstacy he could showcase for only $29.95 a month...sexy 1 TB P2 camcorders with two huge prime lenses for under $500...

I'm sorry...I need to log off :)

[Kaku Ito]

Remember we used to use tape for audio recording?

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Kaku Ito

Remember we used to use tape for audio recording?

Tape for audio recording has long since been exterminated, just like tape in most applications...

Computer programs -- remember loading Apple II or Commodore 64 programs off of tape?

Answering machines -- those little tape cassettes have been almost entirely replaced by solid-state now.

Video editing -- we used to edit tape-to-tape. Not anymore, hard disks revolutionized that arena.

Music playing -- don't see too many cassette-tape-based walkman devices around anymore; the CD and the hard-disk ipod and now the solid-state Nano pretty much took care of that.

Professional audio recording -- the reel-to-reel and 4-track and Nagra and DAT have gone the way of the dodo, yielding to hard-disk and solid-state recording.

Video distribution -- VHS is pretty much extinct for rental or movie sales.

Home video recording -- does anyone still record TV on VHS tape anymore, or has everyone migrated to hard-disk-based DVR/Tivo and DVD-recorders yet?

Voice memo recorders -- remember they used to have those little cassette tapes, same as answering machines? Long since extinct, replaced by solid state recording now.

Hey, tape was first, and in most technologies it always is the first recording technology. And it's familiar. But tape is on its way out. It is an obsolete technology. Dropouts, crinkling, fast-forwarding and rewinding, searching for footage, taping over something you didn't mean to tape over, format incompatibilities, timecode breaks, linear access, head wear, head clogs, cleaning heads -- that's all just so... so... "primitive", I guess is the word. Why put up with it if you don't have to? And as soon as viable tapeless technologies are introduced, people will flock to them. Already we're seeing the FireStore, DV Rack, XDCAM, Ikegami's EditCam, Panasonic's P2 & consumer SD recorders, the Wafian recorder, JVC's Everio and their new hard-disk-based GY-HD7000U, the Viper Filmstream, DVD camcorders, the Infinity which records on Rev drives or CF cards... all tapeless systems...

Tape is like those ghosts in The Sixth Sense -- they're all dead, they just don't know it yet! ;)

[Anhar Miah]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

Home video recording -- does anyone still record TV on VHS tape anymore, or has everyone migrated to hard-disk-based DVR/Tivo and DVD-recorders yet?

I shamefully have to put my hands up to this, I know , I know.

I did (a while back) record TV programs from DVB-T on my PC, via a DVB-T PCI card, and record the direct stream off the air and then do some funnky stuff and burn playable DVD's without any format conversions !!! i.e this was complete lossless recording no transcoding. But in the end it was too much hassle (audio sync, bad frames, list goes on).

I guess bad habits die hard.

Anhar

[Craig Seeman]

There's been a hot & heavy discussion about the HVX-200 vs HDV at the NYCFCPUG (Final Cut Pro) users group list. One (only one) well known person in FCP circles believes HDV will expand and make tapeless DVCProHD a very tiny niche, with no great client demand. That said, I'd thought I'd breakout the niches. Some have already been mentioned on this list.

Wedding/Events
Corporate - Training, marketing, VNR
Coporate - Conference
Feature Movie
Feature Documentary
Performance Entertainment
Broadcast/Cable - series
Local/Regional spots
ENG (ING?)

Currently the only high demand for HD production is in niches that need to future proof their content (Broadcast/Cable series, Feature Movie, Feature Documentary). In that group I see only Feature Documentary benefiting by HDV over tapeless DVCProHD due to long records and possible remote locations. The others all allow time to "offload" and/or have short record times and would benefit by DVCProHD (and 4:2:2 for compositing work!). It's also possible that certain "Reality TV" formats need the long record times of HDV.

Wedding/Events and Corporate Conference require long record times but I don't see much demand to HD content for some time. They'll probably benefit by HDV over tapeless DVCProHD.

Corporate training, marketing, VNRs all involve short record offload time. Training and marketing can by FX intensive at times and benefit by 4:2:2 for compositing. HDV is 4:2:0, add the heavy MPEG2 compression and the artifacts on fast motion and HDV can have a "painful" FX workflow. When the "corporate" folks present to their clients in board/conference rooms with HDTV, there will be a market for HD in this area. HD VNRs will be useful when news heads in that direction.

Performance Entertainment - record times for a typical concert/band, play, dance preformance might be anywhere from 45 minutes (or less) to around 3 hours. If the Firestore can hit 100 minutes it might cover many of these situations. I'd love to see how the HVX-200 performs in bad dark club lighting (etc.). HD demand will grow with consumer demand.

Local/Regional spots - Tapeless DVCProHD makes much more sense than HDV with short records and offload time as well as 4:2:2. The demand will grow for HD over time. I shot a :30 sports commercial last year on DVCAM and later used on ESPN and in the local Regal Cinema chain. HD would have been appreciated for both those targets.

ENG - stand ups and b-roll are short. A few situtations might warrent long record times but the looped prerecord of tapeless can help one catch the "moment" without running tape nonstop. It'll move to HD as news does. Tapeless workflow is much better than an HDV workflow.

Wedding/Event market is big here so I'll make some additional comments about HDV vs DV. Most of this work is Flat Fee. HDV downconvert or render for output adds time to your workflow. Long GOP structure (whether 6 or 15) can make a dropout a nightmare compared to DV. Without going to an expensive card, there's no way to accurately color correct HDV (downconvert on input?) without a means to send it to a monitor. Unless a customer is willing to PAY MORE for your shooting HDV, you're actually hurting your income by a longer and riskier workflow. Better to shoot in 16x9 DV (which the various HDV cams and the HVX-200 do . . . to DV tape). That 16x9 will still look decent on the customer's HDTV (if they have one) and you can deliver on standard DVD.

[Michael Pappas]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

Tape is like those ghosts in The Sixth Sense -- they're all dead, they just don't know it yet! ;)

Darn! That was a good one Barry.... Wish I had thought of that line.

How true it is..................

[Kaku Ito]

I love it when Barry and Michael come in and put my ideas in more intellectual terms. Thanks guys.

[Adrian Vallarino]

Like Zorrilla wrote in Don Juan Tenorio «los muertos que vos matáis, gozan de buena salud» (the dead that you kill enjoy very good health)

I wouldnt kill tape, at least not just yet. And for P2.... I dont know....XDCam seams, at least for a good number of years to come as a MUCH better option.

TV stations, production companies, etc,etc,etc. all over the world have a lot of money invested in tape machines, not to mention millions of dollars in libraries.

2 key words here : Distribution and Archive.

In a P2 enviroment you will have to dedicate an entire department of your company just to Archive footage.... think about it.