Laptop, what for?
Just 2,5'' HDDs - you can buy few HDDs (they're cheap today)...

I don't think 4 minutes flash cards is a good idea.

I guess I didn't make my point very clear. I will try again: if the AJ-HDX100 and AJ-HDX400 have P2 slots, and if, as I have been led to believe, a P2 card is basically a PC-Card with four SD cards inside, then it will be perfectly feasible to pop a hard disk into that slot, just as it is possible to pop an IBM microdrive into my Cassiopeia's CompactFlash slot.

Perhaps that IS the Panasonic strategy and we will see P2 cards with IBM microdrives inside instead of the more robust solid state versions of the cards for professionals.

Of course, just like Sony makes you use their batteries with some camcorders, Panasonic could keep us from using anything but a Panasonic-branded mega-$ card. But I hope they don't do that.

Having a PC card interface on a good high resolution camera is the best possible solution. You could add solid state, hard disk or even wireless digital to the camera through a card. It's like applying the PC revolution to camcorders! There is great potetntial here and now is the time to ask Panasonic to let us use that card for more than just their propietary solid state memory.

Well, then again guys, we don't know anything about the tape situation. Who knows? Maybe they do have DVCPROHD tapes but have P2 for convienience purposes when someone wants to shoot P2. Or, there could be NO tape drive at all. Yes, I agree, the whole 2.5" HDDs should have had their day with this camera and Panasonic could have just released an external 2.5" HDD to Firewire or USB 2.0 adapter for them when you need to dump everything. Which is exactly what they're doing with P2.

Also, where is everyone getting their P2 pricing information? I looked on Panasonic's website and couldn't find a single listing for P2 cards. Don't tell me we've been going at this based on the price of what four 1gb SD cards would cost! If that's so, then maybe Panasonic will price P2 cards to a more reasonable level, like $200 for a 4gb card instead of the $2000 mark I've been hearing about. Unless I totally missed the pricing on the website, can someone clear this up for me?

Your right there is no pricing of P2 on the panny site.

Might have to look up and see what the cards costs for their HD P2 camera. Now I reading so much I can't remember if there is such and animal.

Howdy from Texas,

The thread you're reading was split off from Kurth Bousman's original Panasonic AJ-HDX100 topic. Although it tends to wander around a bit, it tends to focus mostly on speculative pricing and a few other related things, and even includes the first signs of F.U.D. pollution. It even survived a hijacking attempt by myself and Greg Boston, where we dabble in the subject of riding mowers like some "King of the Hill" episode, and I'm pleased and grateful that it managed to bounce back from that. Anyhoo, the point is, there just ain't no pricing info to be had until Panasonic chooses to make the whole thing official, which will probably happen around NAB in April.

I don't know where the 4-minute duration figure is coming from. DV, at 25 Mbps, records 60 minutes on 11.25 GB. A little arithmetic yields a duration of 5 minutes and 20 seconds for 100 Mbps and 4 GB. But that's assuming that DVCPRO HD records the full 100 Mbps at all frame rates on P2 cards as it does on tape. However, if it records only 40 Mbps for 24p, then the duration is 2.5 times as great, or 13 minutes and 20 seconds. This is just a roundabout way of saying that we just don't know yet and should wait until we hear the facts.

Good points, Lawrence, and besides, I doubt anyone is going to limit their recording to a single 4GB P2 card anyway. Most likely the P2 arrays most commonly used will be 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. Besides, the camera will have two slots, for two cards, so if you're stuck with just a pair of 4GB P2 cards it's still not all that bad.

c'mon, you guys! how often do you replace your hardware? if the answer is once every 3 years(way past the technical obsolesence limit, which is about 1-2 years) and you drop $3k-$3.5k on an upgrade, you can afford one of these cams every 9 years instead of every 3 years. Simple math.

I'm saying it will be $4,995.00 without cards. They have to match the Sony's price, no question.

"They have to match the Sony's price, no question."

I would say there is definitely a question.
I don't see why they would have to match the price of the Z1 at all.

The Z1 shoots HDV and DV to tape, both to 25mbps (if I'm not mistaken). The Z1 does not have true 24fps progressive shooting.

The new Panasonic camera will shoot various formats of larger bitrates and color sampling levels. It will also include true progressive 24fps shooting.

On top of that, it includes solid state recording which, whether or not everyone agrees, is quite an advancement.

I think all these things point towards a camera that will cost a bit more than a Z1.

Now, if they want to really grab some market share, hopefully they WILL price it at the Z1 level. But I for one won't be suprised to see this cam at the 6 to 7 thousand range, which I think is completely justifiable.

Hopefully I'm wrong. Lord knows it won't be the first time.

It might hinge on whether or not a P2 card is included. Even if it's just a "starter" 4GB card, you know like a digital still camera, you usually get a low-capacity memory card with it so you can start shooting right away.

There might even be some options on top of baseline pricing, such as the camera with no card, or the camera with one 4GB card, or the camera with one 8GB card and so on. With a pair of 8GB P2 cards, you've got 18 minutes of DVCPro HD, about 36 minutes of DVCPro 50, and well over an hour of DVCPro.

I wish one of these OEM's would provide a camera with re-programmable firmware, much like the photo cams. At least, for this kind of purchase price, the camera might not get obsolete as fast. Once the purchase price goes up over $4K, it really does get more difficult for a small business to keep upgrading every time the technology takes a leap.

"I wish one of these OEM's would provide a camera with re-programmable firmware"

It's only a matter of time before we start seeing things moving in that direction, and the move to solid state (or hard drive recording) is the first step. Reprogrammable firmware is virtually impossible to take utilize when a camera is tied to the mechanics of a tape transport.

Once we get rid of tape and moving parts, these cameras will function much more like the photo cams.
That's my view anyhow.

Regardless, the entry price will go up at first for new technology.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : With a pair of 8GB P2 cards, you've got 18 minutes of DVCPro HD, about 36 minutes of DVCPro 50, and well over an hour of DVCPro. -->>>

Actually, it should be over 20 minutes (21 min 20 sec) of DVCPro HD at 60 fps. If the 24p data rate is reduced to 40 Mbps (which is not certain), the duration should be more like 53 minutes. The prices and capacities of P2 cards at release of the HDX100 are unknown, but I am confident that Panasonic knows that to make P2 a viable medium for prosumer products, prices must drop and capacities rise -- but "more for less" is the general trend in electronic commodities anyway.

Has anybody looked at the specs on the Panasonic site to see how the current P2 cameras work?

I took a look the other day and it seems the SDX800 has a USB2 port so you can hook the camera up to a computer and then camera (with the P2 cards inside) will then act exactly like a hard drive for your system. You could even edit your footage right from the camera since the bandwidth is more than fast enough.

I am not sure is the camera will ouput live from USB2 but that may be one solution to not even using P2 cards.

Also to add to the person that talked about having a hard drive with a p2 connector I think as soon as this camera comes out there will be people trying to make such devices. Other devices should work as well.

On the Panasonic site they have a P2 adapter for the SDX800 that gives you a wireless network feed for proxy video from the camera. Clearly a wireless network isn't fast enough for even dv material let alone HD but what about a P2 gigabit network adapter. Such as the ones for laptops.

I guess it all depends on how much Panasonic has limited the P2 slot. If they left it fairly open there should be a way to trick the camera into thinking it is shooting on a much larger P2 card.

The one thing that kind of scares me about P2 cards right now is having backup for shooting. What I am talking about is card failure. If you buy 2 cards and 1 or both of them break or stop working you are kind of screwed. With tapes we could have dozens of them around just in case. This means for serious shooters you will need at least 4 P2 cards to have backup in case of a problem.

As I've said before I love the idea of P2, but it's not ready for the masses yet.

However you can bet your bottom dollar that if Panny release the camera with a low capacity 4gb card included that the 'dream' will take over some people. You can guarantee someone who REALLY wants to make a high def feature will take that 4gb card and a laptop and do whatever they need to do with it to get the footage they need.

I just wish people would let things hapen as they happen. Whatever Panasonic do they will do.

I do wonder what the really high end developments have in store. Consumers are always a step behind, so I don't think it will be long until much higher res high end formats become available as CMOS sensors etc start to replace CCD's.

<<<-- I do wonder what the really high end developments have in store. Consumers are always a step behind, so I don't think it will be long until much higher res high end formats become available as CMOS sensors etc start to replace CCD's. -->>>

Yup, the high-end will probably be seeing more Genesis style cams.

Also, I don't think Panasonic intends the P2 system to be "for the masses" yet anyway.

Exactly. Here's my theory. High def is really in it's infancy. Yes I know it's been around since the 80's, but it was experimental then and it has certainly not been around anywhere near as long as SD. HD is still looked upon with suspicion by some high end guys, with the use of it in programmes like The West Wing comparing it to S16mm rather than 35mm.

My theory is that once HD matures and digital end to end production becomes totally standard in the feature film industry much higher res cameras will be available to that sector. The result being that we will be back to square one LOL! What we have as HD now will be considered SD compared to new cinema picture developments.

LOL, maybe this is what is fuelling people like Sony to make low end HD models. Perhaps they are developing something much better for their higher end market. Who knows.

My hope for a high def future is that 35mm cameras come down in price and 35mm film can be obtained for very low prices. Then I can shoot high def with all the latitude of film ;-)

The new super16mm stocks are, imo, great looking. I'd still take super16mm over HD. HD is putting pricing pressure on film and digital intermediates, which is good too.

HD is good for interior dramas, where it's weaknesses are not so readily apparent. I haven't really seen an HD film that looked as good as a 35mm film.

? ARE SOME OF YOU SERIOUS?
 

ARE SOME OF YOU SERIOUS?

gonna pay $9000 plus for a 1/3 3ccd cam?

honest pana is pretty fair about priceing unless some of you shmucks actually convince them they can charge double and still make sales(hey sony does it)

it will be under $4999 street and maybe special package with hard drive/big p2 card for the $6000-$9999 range

I dont work for Panasonic but i should.. L.J.

I'm liking the JVC, Matsushita is really going after all of us (looking foe prosumer gear)

Since P2 uses sd cards from what i gather. A 4gig card to shouldn't sell for to much. Remember what we pay for SD cards is much more then it costs for them to make them. I can get Lexar 1 gigs for about 80 to 90 bucks. The PC card technology is 50 bucks worth of materials. So these P2 cards shouldn't cost all that much, unless there is something I'm missing.

The SD cards form the basis of the P2 card, each P2 card holds 4 SD cards, and then there's some hardware to basically stripe the SD cards into a RAID to get the transfer speed up high enough for them to be usable for HD or DVCPRO-50 data.

As SD cards come down in price, that seems like it should have a corollary relationship with P2 card prices. Let's hope it works that way in reality.

Man, come on guys . . .

People pay 10 k for a car/ a used one that is/ 15 to 20 k for a new one. They probably pick a "comfortable" car as opposed to a economic car, which brings it up even more. They drive the car a few years and it starts having problems and more money goes into it . . . yada, yada.

You're telling me that you guys, being "filmmakers", and that's what you wanted to be all your lives, suddenly have the opportunity to spend roughly 10k on a camera that at the very least lets you truely compete with major motion picture filmmaking. (Like Once Upon A Time in Mexico-resolution) and your going to complain about it. Please. This is a god send. For serious indie filmmakers anyway (not to say you're not serious). But the serious filmmaker, the guy who can't do anything else and be happy, the guy who MUST be a filmmaker to find enjoyment in life, has a real opportunity here to finally start doing what he always wanted; real movies on a budget. Once you have the camera and the editing system (like FCP HD) The rest of the expenses can go straight into sets or actors or having to pay your rent. If 10 k is all you have, then grab that camera, write a great script that all takes place in pretty much one setting (Like Resivoir Dogs/ most of it was in the warehouse with just a few simple scenes elsewhere and one simple bank heist scene that didn't really show anything but a little gunplay with blanks)

With this camera, you can do take after take without incurring extra costs. You can monitor the picture on set to see EXACTLY what you're getting. No hairs will get caught in a gate and screw up shooting days. The equipment is 10 times more portable and there are no fees for film/ processing/ excess lab costs/expensive camera rentals/ the pressure of insurance for renting equipment/whatever.

The point is, this one price of 10 k will give you a freedom like you've never had, with a quality that isn't too much of a compromise. Take your tiime to light it right and use that vectorscope and waveform monitor and pack that DVCProHD codec choc full of the best signal it can get, and believe me, you'll have a movie to be proud of, and one that can be shown in theaters without embarassment. For 10 k and a little hard work, the dreams of your movies have now gone from your head to your hands.

Don't knock it, USE IT. It's not going to get much cheaper than this for at least a few years, and by the time it does, you'll be competing with so many other HD indie films that yours will get lost in the mix. Grab that camera when it comes out and SHOOT THAT MOVIE.

If you need to, get that pizza job for a half year and save every penny you can. The camera will be worth it.

It is a blessing, not a curse.

Well said laurence. This is an incredible opportunity for filmmakers.
And these are liberating times. In only five years I have learned enough about the craft of filmmaking to allow me to Shoot, edit, primary/secondary color correct, do a few modest effects and burn the lot to dvd for... and now in true HD24P for 10K and no deck required. Not much left to cry about.

Hi Barry.. The SD cards have dropped quite a bit over the year. I have been doing this since the earlier eighties from film to HD and this is the first time we are getting really far away from analog/tape technology. I look forward to this. I hope Canon will also offer a memory based recording system too. I do wish Sony had on he FX1/Z1U.

I hate tape, Going back over twenty + years I have everything from umatic, 1"in Type A, 1" Type C you name it I've got it eeehhh! I even have some Recam and Mll Panasonic. So whatever comes out, I won't buy, if it only has tape. No more tape for me. Hard drives or Memory based media on this next camera only.


Michael Pappas
temp home page:
http://www.Pbase.com/arrfilms



<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Green : The SD cards form the basis of the P2 card, each P2 card holds 4 SD cards, and then there's some hardware to basically stripe the SD cards into a RAID to get the transfer speed up high enough for them to be usable for HD or DVCPRO-50 data.

As SD cards come down in price, that seems like it should have a corollary relationship with P2 card prices. Let's hope it works that way in reality. -->>>

You guys do know what JVC is supposed to be pricing their "pro HDV"
shoulder mount camera out at $20,000.00?

I would love a Canon XL3 that outputs DVCPro100 via firewire and I would gladly
pay $10K for just the body.

I think this new panny is going to have to be seriously limited in features in
order not to rival the varicam.

20K for JVCs 2/3" camera. JVC is coming out with a 1/3" camera with interchangable lenses for under 10K as well.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jacques Mersereau :
I think this new panny is going to have to be seriously limited in features in
order not to rival the varicam. -->>>

I have a feeling the main differences between the two are:

Varicam- 2/3" CCDs, interchangeable pro lenses, variable frame rate up to 60p, shoulder mount ENG style body, record to tape.

HDX- 1/3" CCDs, fixed lens, 24p/30p/60i only, palmcorder DVX size body, record to P2 or Firewire stream only.

To those that can afford it, the Varicam's features are well worth the price. For the rest of us, the HDX will seem like a miracle of cinematic engineering.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jaime Valles :
To those that can afford it, the Varicam's features are well worth the price. For the rest of us, the HDX will seem like a miracle of cinematic engineering. -->>>

Jaime, you are a very bright man. The Varicam will always be the coolest HD camera, on a price performance basis. Are there cameras that do more, yes; do they cost more, yes. Point here is, will the little camera be used on a VariCam shoot, yes. I can see this being the camera in the underwater housing, it costs less to insure. Or the crash cam, or the crane cam.

And then for the indy filmmaker that cannot afford the VariCam, it will be the main camera. We have worked very hard to put in as many features as is possible. I think many will agree. It is absolutely killling me that I can't say more, but soon, very soon.

Best,

Jan

Jan, your wetting my appetite and NAB still feels like a year away though it's next month.

Jan I hope Panasonic is going to make enough of these to serve the demand?

Jan does Panasonic do firmware upgrades on there Varicam system, if so will that be something that might be done on this new HD camcorder?

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms


<<<-- Originally posted by Jan Crittenden Livingston : <<<-- Originally posted by Jaime Valles :
To those that can afford it, the Varicam's features are well worth the price. For the rest of us, the HDX will seem like a miracle of cinematic engineering. -->>>

Jaime, you are a very bright man. The Varicam will always be the coolest HD camera, on a price performance basis. Are there cameras that do more, yes; do they cost more, yes. Point here is, will the little camera be used on a VariCam shoot, yes. I can see this being the camera in the underwater housing, it costs less to insure. Or the crash cam, or the crane cam.

And then for the indy filmmaker that cannot afford the VariCam, it will be the main camera. We have worked very hard to put in as many features as is possible. I think many will agree. It is absolutely killling me that I can't say more, but soon, very soon.

Best,

Jan -->>>

Jan, can you comment on if this will have 24p/30p/60i or 24p/25p/30p/50i/60i framerates, or said in another way, will it be international like Sony's Z1 and the Varicam, or regional like the DVX100a?

sorry I just dont' get it. I can get a 1 GIG SD memory card for $100!!! can someone not take them and build a "raid" for the p2 camera system? or better yet go out to a harddisk for HOURS and HOURS of HD footage? \\


what is it with this P2 stuff?

The P2 system already *is* a RAID of four SD cards working together.

The advantage of P2 flash memory over hard drives is that recording to flash memory requires less power, is more quiet, and much more robust in terms of g-shock than hard drives.

what is the cost of 4 1 gig cards in the p2 system?

100 bucks, hell I can get 1gigs for 75 bucks. I believe Panasonic is going to bring SD base P2 media cards to the level of a logical value.

The reason they have been very high priced is the result that P2 is a very very very niche technology at this current point and not many people own them at all. Actually I don't no anyone who knows anyone who knows so and so that owns or uses a P2 system.

When it goes mainstream soon, Panasonic will adjust the price for volume sales.

Michael Papppas
http://www.pbase.com/arrfilms

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : sorry I just dont' get it. I can get a 1 GIG SD memory card for $100!!! can someone not take them and build a "raid" for the p2 camera system? or better yet go out to a harddisk for HOURS and HOURS of HD footage? \\


what is it with this P2 stuff? -->>>

One arm, either left or right doesn't matter. A knee cap and two toes, your choice on which toes and which knee cap. Not pricey at all.

Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/ARRFILMS


<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : what is the cost of 4 1 gig cards in the p2 system? -->>>

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : what is the cost of 4 1 gig cards in the p2 system? -->>>

There is no 1 Gig P2 card.

I think he's asking about the 4 gig P2 card.

Jan, you just got married?

<<<-- Originally posted by Simon Wyndham : Jan, you just got married? -->>>

Yes I did, but in October 2004, to the man of my dreams. We make a good pair, he is a geeky as I am, so to speak we are two geeks in a pod. ;-)