So no 25 or 50 frame rates then!

Steve, there will be a PAL version for Europe, Australia and New Zeeland with 1080/50i, 108025p, 720/50p, 720/25p, 576/50i and 576/25p. No 24/30/60.

I know NAB is only two weeks away, but can anyone point me to anything besides speculation to support that this camera will NOT have a tape drive? Every bit of news I read (jan, etc) seems to say that it will. Isn't DVCPRO-HD a TAPE format?

It surely will have P2. But still we do not know, how many P2 cards it will take of. And regarding the question of a tape drive or a (built-in) hard disk drive - no comments from Panasonic until now. But also they have not disclaimed anything. So we have to wait... DVCPRO-HD is not a tape format, but a format of recording. There is no determined specification regarding the recording medium.

John,

This isn't exactly speculation.

EVEN IF there were a tape transport on this camera, you won't be shooting DVCProHD onto tape. The tape transport would probably only work with DVCPro.

MiniDV tapes don't have the strength needed for the higher tape speeds of DVCPro50 and DVCProHD (Jan talked about this on here about HD specifically).

Also, Jan has mentioned that the DVCProHD tape transports require 16 recording heads, which are not only expensive but also take up a lot of space. So, if this camera had an HD tape transport, it wouldn't be anywhere near as small as it is, and neither would the price.


edited to add:

Okay, in case those points weren't enough to disuade people from thinking this cam might have tape, here is what Jan had to say in another thread.

" ... this little camera will not record to tape, rather to memory, P2 cards. No moving parts except those in the lens."

But maybe there will be a (MiniDV) tape drive for DVCPRO25 - that would be possible. We will see...

If the alternative is paying $1,700 for four minutes recording on a P2 card, surely paying $2,000 for a tape transport would be a bargain?

I don't understand why people complain about the price of tape heads if they're willing to pay $400 a minute for P2 cards... unless those HD tape head are going to cost you $20,000.

The P2 recording times are not that great yet. Don't want to get into the doc guys or event guys who shoot forever (hard drive will work hopefully).

But I don't think most people understand. If you use your camera a lot, you'd be paying that much for tape stock anyway over the course of years.

So your just paying for it up front, but in the end it's going to cost you the same.

"paying $2,000 for a tape transport would be a bargain"

A DVCProHD tape transport would cost roughly $6400 for the record heads alone. So you're talking about probably doubling the price on this new camera, as well as the size.

I doubt we'll be spending $6400 on P2 cards.


Also, a 4gb card will hold about 5 minutes of 720P60 footage.
The data rate is cut by 60% when you shoot 24P (to 40mb/s). So, on a 4gb card you can fit roughly 13 minutes of 720P24 footage.

And again, prices will drop for P2. New prices will probably be announed at NAB. Panasonic knows what they're doing.

The camera won't be available for months probably, so we can't make many judgement based off the cost of P2 cards today. What matters is the cost of P2 cards when the camera is released.

Who has not seen the p2 card reader picture at dvxuser ? Sorry I'm tooo lazy and it's too early to go looking for the link but it's there . It's got its' own hd - now why can't a p2 slot adapter to p2 slot adapter be made and problem solved. It's about the size of firestore 4 w/o 3rd party interface problems. And no one has mentioned if it's got firewire ?

Actually I posted on here about Firestore supporting DVCPRO HD with the FS4 and Jan said that they had been made aware of the camera ahead of time and that they were thinking of supporting (I guess based on customer demand). I infered (or assumed, if you will--and I'm fully willing to take the repurcussions of that assumption) that it thus has firewire on it.

It shouldn´t have tape
 

You realized if it has the tape recorder it looks there wont be place for the P2 slots? Just look the size of JVCs tape, they could´nt possibly put something more there than a needle button... So on one side the LCD and in the other, P2 slots (It´s discussed if one or two?). No moving parts... Uncompressed audio... my money pig looks scare... Maybe it´s because of the hammer i´m holding.

But i would like to know how they´ll (p2 slots) be shaped. Anyway i think i´ll be using 720p nearly all the time for storage sake.

Could it be improved in the future via firmware to record 1080 60p?

I'm with you Ivan, until computer processor speeds get better and whatnot (and I can afford them, since this camera will take just about all the cash I have set aside for equipment for the next year or so) I'll be shooting 720 30/24p pretty much exlusively... but I can go HD!

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Niemann : But maybe there will be a (MiniDV) tape drive for DVCPRO25 - that would be possible. We will see... -->>>

What does DVCPRO25 = too in other cameras? Normal DV or something like DVCAM?

It would still be nice to get this camera shoot in PRO25 then later buy the cards when they get cheaper.

Like DVCAM :)

Also shoots 50mbps SD!