I wasn't following your other train of thought too much, but I agree with what you're saying about better final product, and I'd like to add to it. My tests with HDV, CC and/or filtering/FX, and then out to Mpeg2 yields artifacting that I simply am not getting from similar treatment and output from DVCPRO HD (or even DV) source.

Can anyone explain in technical terms, the ramifaction of HDV (Mpeg2) source getting compressed to Mpeg2 distribution? And god forbid, Mpeg2 source, out to Mpeg2 master, out to yet recompresed Mpeg2 for broadcast, then recompressed Mpeg2 to DVR. I'm suspecting it's like chopping at a tree trunk. But what if there is nobody there to hear the tree fall? Okay, I digress. Cholly HA HA HA.

You can simultaneously record to MiniDV tape while recording to the P2 cards or out to Firestore device or whatever. So at the end of the day I, or the producer, or whoever, could look over the MiniDV tape to watch the footage, all while the "original" high HD res stuff is in hard drive form getting handed to the editor.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, if I did any variable frame rate stuff, that will show correctly on the MiniDV tape. So if I shot slow-mo, when I pop in that MiniDV tape at the end of the day i would be watching the slow-motion footage in actual slow motion. Pretty dang cool if you ask me.

Ummm.... No you can't. You have to choose your record media P2 or Tape. You can dub HD to a DV tape in camera when you're not recording, but there is no simultaneous recording to both. The firewire stream is always live, streaming whatever it is you're recording.

LOLOLOL. You sure about that? Absolutely positively stick a needle in your eye sure about that? *smile*


LMAO. You certain about that statement too Brian??. I mean, cause if you were wrong that could be disasterous....I know you're kinda new here and all, and may not have done your due dilligence, and may be blindly following a certain manufacturers camera without doing any research, but I doubt that's the case....correct? Even worse, I would hate for you to be wrong about this information and actually preaching it to some unsuspected guy who is taking your advice on buying the camera, but in reality, you gave him bad info and didn't know what you were talking about, because you were so gungho about the camera you missed the specs and capabilites...... so now this person who took your advice went out and bought the camera based on your incorrect recommendation....and found out it didn't do what you told him it could....... $10,000.00 after the fact. *smile*

Are you sure buddy?

- ShannonRawls.com

HDV as a final delivery format
 

Sorry to butt in on this interesting discussion with a point that is indeed way off topic.
I think the biggest issue with HDV is the cameras used to shoot it and how it's shot. Biggest killer for mpeg-2 compression is noise, from my experience the more pristine the source the better it survives high levels of compression.

Years ago now I used to make VCDs from off air VHS, the results looked absolutely horrid, barely watchable. And then the same clients gave me a SP studio master to turn into a VCD and the results were remarkably good. In other words the amount of degradation suffered by the VHS was dramatcially higher than what happened to the SP.

I've seen the same thing with DVDs, given footage from a 2/3" DB camera and the results look pretty close to the original, start with VHS or poor DV and things go downhill really badly.

Same has got to happen with HDV, I'd bet starting with HDCAM you could produce a HDV master that held up very nicely, run some upscaled noisy SD through the same process and it'll fall apart real quick.

Starting with noisy HDV and as said decompressing and recompressing that is a formula for things getting ugly quickly, so much of the available bandwidth is being used up by the noise. When the bandwidth is exhausted artifacts creep in and they need more bandwidth during the next pass.

Given that mpeg-2 is the standard for HD broadcasting I think an issue that needs more attention is the noise level of any of these camera. Recording DVCPRO HD to P2 cards avoids the issue at acquisition, but still the footage has to pass through the same process during broadcast. Perhaps some form of noise reduction in post would help out, certainly that'd work better with DVCPRO HD than HDV acquisition.

Yes, and he is correct.

Shannon -- seems like you're into some heavy trolling recently. If you're happy with your Canon, that's great, but let the JVC and HVX guys discuss their products in peace without you ragging on them or laughing at them, okay?

Sadly, I seem to have put my phrase "if I'm not mistaken" in the wrong paragraph. I should have put it in the paragraph about the dub to tape, because I was remembering that function incorrectly. It can't do it simultaneously.

But, I shouldn't have included that phrase in the paragraph about watching the slow motion on MiniDV because evidently I got that right, according to Barry, whom I believe. So yes, buddy.

And I'm so sorry for anyone that went out and bought a HVX200 based upon my posting. Please let me know if you did because I will gladly refund your money. I am sorry for spreading such misinformation on such a clean pure-fact only forum. I hate myself.

And if I only read the thread after this one first I would have seen my mistake and not posted about the simulataneous P2 and tape things. I was so close to being cool, then I blew it.

But Shannon, I did tell you about 2 features that you weren't aware of. The "good take" button and the slow motion on MiniDV. 2 out of 3. Not too bad right? I know I'm a newbie (techinally "regular crew") Shannon, but please oh please don't kick me out. I know I'm not "inner circle" but someday. Someday. A boy can dream. Don't crush my little dreams. Please. Let the boy dream.

This is the best advice I've seen yet in this thread. It's a great suggestion. I would hate to be the one who had to enforce it, but I will if I have to. The trolling is seriously starting to drag down the quality of our community here. Thanks in advance,

Trolling?
Camera Flamming?
Because I said I prefer a Tape after shooting and gave an explanation why?
Ahh man, you guys ain't fair!

But, OK. I'll lay low. I think it's because I have too much time on my hands every December and I like it here so much.

and Barry & Brian...It has "selectable" frame rates, not Variable. Only the Varicam has Variable.

- ShannonRawls.com

Correct, but of no relevance to the point we were discussing.

And no need to lay low. I feel like I know you since I've seen the pix you posted of you in your white living room. Plus I want to see some Canon footage from you. The watchmaker stuff is of no use to me since it was made using an DVCPRO-HD deck, which I would not have access to.

You! Oh, I'm gonna... It's all YOUR fault! Er... How 'bout I just PM you with my address so you can mail the check. :)

hehehe

I am not format or camera specific in my views. I am currently working on several projects, some being edited on Mac, some PC, some shot with a Varicam being edited in DVCproHD, some shot on a DVX100b, XL2, SDX900, etc. etc. etc. and I can tell you that in 10 years of doing digital video I have never had anyone ask for freelance stuff on anything but tape.

The tapeless workflow, while a dream for many, has some serious issues. What becomes of the "master" back-up? A project I just helped out on was going directly into an Avid system on the fly but was ALSO being recorded to tape via a Varicam. I actually really like this workflow the best, you have the benefits of tape and the benefits of HDD recording. The shots were all logged on the computer and an offline edit was done. The only capturing was to rebuild via an online edit. Of course, this only works in a studio environment.

As more people go tapeless and tape begins to dissapear (going to be longer than most of you think) I think a wise investment would be to pour a bunch of cash into a data recovery company because I PROMISE you, their biz will be going up.... way up...



ash =o)

I really don't understand why so many people have these false beliefs and why everyone thinks that data backup solutions in the form of DLT, LTO, MO, etc.. are any less reliable than DV/HDCAM/DVCPRO or whatever video tape. How do you think large financial institutions archive their data? What about insurance companies that archive tens of thousands of gigabytes annually consisting of photographs, audio recordings, some video, documents, etc? I have yet to lose any project I have ever properly archived. There are several archival technologies out there that I would trust a lot more than MiniDV tape. I'm not saying that DV tape is bad, on the contrary, it's great, we all know it is. But all the naysayers would rather scoff at the tapeless possibilities rather than admit that they just don't understand or are not truly aware of what options are available.

Anyway, fine with me... Live in the past. Once tapeless production workflows catch on a bit, tape will die a swift and painless death. I give it about 5 to 7 years. And I feel that is being generous...

Regarding the simultaneous recording to P2 and miniDV, or any other tape format for that matter (Barry please feel free to chime in here): Wouldn't it be possible to simultaneously record to P2 and go Firewire or component out to an external deck? I can't imagine this isn't possible, as I'm sure the HVX supports the capability to view on an external monitor, and the only way to GET to an external monitor would be through one of these methods (or S-video, or of course composite). So, in a way, Brian is right.

Peter

I think the concern here is that if you're only recording to a DTE drive while shooting with no P2 backup, then there's a risk of losing some or all of your footage until you can get it off the DTE into more robust storage solutions. This came up in a discussion with Panasonic reps at WEVA back in August, and someone said he's heard of people having problems with Firestore drives for DV shooters...so presumably the same thing will apply to DVCProHD. In other words, for anything really critical it'd be prudent to record to both DTE and P2 cards, with appropriate planning for managing both recording solutions.

Makes sense. I like the idea that the end product can be high-bandwidth (25-35 Mpbs) HD MPEG2 which could be re-edited in the future if the master isn't available, but it stands to reason that having higher quality (e.g. DVCProHD) originals is a good thing.

This type of topic will never end. Some will go to no end to stick up for their investment and work flow they are used to. Are they wrong, not in their minds, and why should they be.

Fortunatey, there is a drive for advances in technology. I remember when I was an early adopted with DVDs. Blockbuster had maybe 40 titles in the corner of their store. When I mentioned to the sales guy, don't worry the day is coming when all you will have is DVDs, he laughed. Guess what, that day is now.

I happen to like the idea of a tapeless recording solution. If I need to hand out a tape at the end of the day, I'll bounce it to the internal miniDV tape.
If they want the HD. I'll hand them one of my cheap external firewire drives.

My main work is in the audio field. I know this is another world and different reasons reside for hard disk verses tape recording. On thing for sure, I don't miss is the waiting on the transport!

Steve

Steve: camera comparisons aside, I gather that there is a legimate concern (based on user experience) regarding the reliability of hard drive based recording solutions. If the P2 cards don't have that problem then that's a point in their favor, but the DTE approach many will use with the HVX200 is something to think through before going on a critical shoot. This doesn't mean the trend away from tape is a bad thing, it's just something to be approached with caution.

Thanks Kevin, Agreed!

Regardless of your workflow, there will be its shortcomings. We've all learned what they are and how to handle them.

It will be interesting when more DTE solutions are offered to us. I'm scared like everyone else when it comes to losing footage. I can only hope as memory demands increase (which they are), we'll be offered capturing and backup solutions that offer some sort of redundancy.

Man, I'm already taking chances with my NLE by running RAID 0 drive arrangements.

I think a lot of this worry will be put to rest as more higher data capacity media solutions hit the market over the next couple years.

By the way, I do have an HVX200 preordered through EVS, but I must admit that the Canon XLH1 is one NICE package!

Steve

FWIW, George Lucas shot SWII, III almost exclusively with DTE drive arrays and used them for a limited shot selection on Episode I. ;-P

But in all seriousness, I do agree these are things to be concerned about. Those shooting LIVE EVENTS will have the most to be concerned about. Studio setups are really not that concerning (and I'm pretty much a studio workflow guy). I do a lot of shooting in the outdoors, some scenary and wildlife, but this is for my own use as stock footage. If the hard drive craps out when doing this, I may be disappointed, but nothing critical is lost. The other crowd who may have some concerns is the ENG people. For ENG, it makes the most sense to have 2 or 3 P2 cards with the P2 store clipped to your belt. But you never know what could happen. IMO, the P2 Store looks very solidly built and I wouldn't stress over it too much as long as you take care of your gear (and hope your employees do the same).

Overall, I've had very good luck with hard drive reliability. I won't say that I've never had one fail. But it's not something that I stress over on a daily basis. Yes, I would be nervous about an HDD recording unit failing in the middle of shooting a concert or live performance type event. I probably would refuse to shoot with anything less than a RAID-5 array, preferably two of them mirrored. Then I wouldn't think anything of it, probably less of a concern than P2.

As for DTE record solutions for the HVX200, Firestore makes me nervous. It seems overpriced and we're putting a lot of faith into a single 100GB 2.5" HDD running at 7200rpm. The CinePorter seems like a better solution as it connects to a P2 slot and will have all the metadata in addition to the A/V stream and timecode. Word has it that the Cineporter will hold 2 x 2.5" drives. Sure, with current capacities that would give us 220~240GB. But how about a 160GB record drive with a second mirror HDD? I suppose it would also be possible to record to both the CinePorter and a Firestore simultaneously. If one fails, the other should still be OK.

This also brings up a question I have been wondering... Can the HVX200 record the same thing to two P2 cards simultaneously? Seems like a no-brainer and no real technical reason it couldn't, but did Panny think of implementing this feature? May be helpful to record to two CinePorters at a time or if nothing else, it would facilitate future situations where P2 cards are cheap and you shoot one for yourself and the second can be instantly handed off to a producer or client.

You've got some big, hairy balls. :)

Actually, I run RAID0 on a few minor systems and my gaming rig at home, etc.. But for a production environment, it's pretty trivial and not all that expensive to add the third HDD and run RAID-5. If you have a 4-drive config in RAID-0, add just one more and reconfigure.

Yeah, I think a lot of these concerns will disappear over the next few years as more solid-state options become available in the form of larger P2 cards or other formats. And I'm sure there will be plenty of lessons learned this next year for all us HVX200 adopters.

I have mine on order thru EVS as well... I'm probably somewhere at the bottom of the list, which is fine with me. As for the XLH1, I would have already bought one if it had the frame rate options of the HVX and didn't build 24F mode from an interlace scan. Although, I still may pick one up as I do run a 2 camera workflow and I'm planning to start by replacing my B camera (a DVX100) with my DVX100A and making the HVX my primary. If all goes well, I'll be replacing the 100A with either another HVX or an H1. Which I will probably have to do anyway to keep everything in HD.

Gee Chris, that was me over at gyhduser. I've never been quoted before, thanks.

Hmm, after reading all these posts, you all have convinced me of one thing,
I should hold out for the upcoming XDCAM HD which will give me the best of both tape and Disk recording on a nearly indestructible Mini Blue Ray disk. You can use the camera as an external removable media device for your NLE via firewire if you want to. Tapeless, yet better than tape or magnetic disk.

Thanks folks, thanks a lot, now I have convince my better half why the budget went from 10k to over 20K. Just to save you from her wrath, I won't tell her I got help from DVINFO.
(just kidding folks, almost).

The bottom line....
 

Tape is on it's way out. There's no question about it. I stated I want a tape after production is over, but in reality...I would in fact prefer to be tapeless. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just blind.

Just like 8-track, just like VHS, just like Cassette Tapes, and now...CD's. In fact, you couldn't PAY ME to buy a DAT recorder for field recording today. Compact Flash all the way!

When I slow down and think of that silly statement I made about prefering a Tape after production.....Well, my only Gripe, and the reason "I prefer Tape" today, is the price of P2.

See the reason why you couldn't PAY me to buy a Fostex PD-4 DAT player today, is because the Fostex FR-2 takes a Compact Flash Card. Quiet, Clean, Fast and Just as good! The CF Cards is someting I can get at Circuit City or eBay for a few bucks. If HD or HDV cameras were able to accept MicroDrives or 8GB Compact Flash cards, and I were able to buy them on eBay as readily as I can now then I would drop MiniDV tape in a HEARTBEAT! But that's not the case. MOREOVER, if HD or HDV cameras were able to record directly to 2.5mm laptop drives directly....I would say "GOODBYE MINIDV, HELLOW LAPTOP DRIVES"

Alas, that's not the case. P2 Cards are proprietary and expensive and hard to find and usable for one thing and one thing only. (unlike laptop drives and CF cards).

So I guess that's the issue. But yes. TAPE IS ON ITS WAY OUT.....FLASH MEMORY IS ON ITS WAY IN, and it's a better way of working in ALL workflows. There's no arguing that fact. And anybody who owns a digital camera and takes it on those special one-time-only vacation, honeymoon, wedding moments should not say otherwise.

WHEN...is the only argument.

and personally, I don't even like the XDCAM discs. FLASH MEMORY is what these companies should be concentrating on. Sony should be trying to figure out a "SUPER MEMORY STICK" or a way of implementing a CF card rather then pouring into XDCAM discs. The xdcam recording format is fine, the recording medium is not.

- ShannonRawls.com

That was you, Joe? Well, you said it very well, better than I could, so I appreciate that very much, thanks. I'm glad I found it to begin with.

For firewire, it'd have to be to a device that supports the same mode as what you're recording on the card (i.e., if you're shooting in DV50 mode, the firewire will output the DV50 signal, so you could record that on a DV50 deck. If recording in HD mode, the firewire's outputting an HD signal, so you'd need an HD deck to capture it). For component, yes you absolutely can. The component outputs can set to output the same signal, or a cross-converted signal (i.e., you're shooting 720p but component output can be forced to 1080i) or a downrezzed-to-SD signal.

FireStore is supposed to have all that same capability. They're developing it in partnership with Panasonic, so the firewire port is apparently going to output the same metadata to a firestore.

Regarding the CinePorter's dual-drive capability, presumably they'll build in a mirrored RAID potential for those who want additional protection. That could be a big advantage for those concerned about ultimate reliability.

Interesting -- an expensive and clumsy solution, but one that should absolutely work.


I haven't found any menu option that allows it. But remember, the cards are meant to work in serial with each other, not in parallel -- i.e., rolling over from one card to the next. Recording to both simultaneously raises some issues, such as: what happens when one is half-full and the other is freshly empty, and so when recording you hit the limit on one but not the other? Or, what if you have a 4gb card in one slot and a 16gb card in the other... does it stop recording when the 4gb is full? I don't know... I'm sure that prior to the cineporter being announced, there was probably no real reason to allow parallel recording. But with the cineporter prospect on the horizon, now it makes a lot of sense.

Comparing 4gb to 4gb, a P2 card isn't expensive at all, considering its speed. The fastest 4gb CF card is the Sandisk Extreme III, and it retails at $599. The P2 card is 4x as fast and costs $51 more.

Now, with that said, what I'm hoping to see is a CF-to-P2 adapter. I'd love to see something developed that lets you plug in an off-the-shelf CF card and record straight to it. The problem is the speed of the cards -- the only card fast enough for full-bandwidth HD recording is the Extreme III. But for 720/24p, or for DV50, you should be able to get along fine with an Ultra II.

I'll ask Spec-Comm to consider developing such an adapter. With their CinePorter they've already reverse-engineered the P2 card slot and all the associated LSI functions; it would seem reasonable that making a CF adapter wouldn't be that much work for them, yet it would be a delightful addition to the recording options!

Yep. And it's not like P2 is truly proprietary... They're just a PCMCIA storage device. These have existed for years. The P2 obviously has some extra ID features and whatnot so that devices like the HVX know for sure they have a proper P2 card inserted rather than just a 32bit Cardbus hard disk. P2s are built out of commodity components into a commodity interface, prices will drop as the format gains acceptance and expands to third party manufacturers.

That may be a bit tricky as CF doesn't have the I/O speed needed (although, like you said, the Ultra III would possibly work). I bet a P2 adapter that uses two CF cards in an interleaved fashion would be just great and not a big challenge. Likewise, the same thing using 2 to 4 off the shelf SD chips should be easy to make as well. However, I start to question the logic of this because the actual cost savings (if any) would be minimal to the end user. Buying 4 capable SD chips plus a P2 adapter for them is going to be about the same price as buying a P2 card of the same capacity...

It's 4 SD cards in a raid if I remember correctly from NAB. I think the controller is proprietary (just a guess) and that's what Panasonic is making their money on. The price will come down when Panasonic decides to lower it... but only part of the price is the SD price, the rest is whatever that raid costs + profit margin.

Tape may be on the way out but it will not be replaced by HDD. Too many moving parts IMHO. We are a ways off from reliable solid-state (be it flash or burnable) media that is large enough to make tape obsolete. If you have a tapeless workflow I hope you are backing stuff up to DLT or at a minimum a mirror or Raid5.

Even then HDDs fail, check out the testimonials from GIANT projects with redundant back-ups that were recovered over at drivesavers.

I agree that, like audio, video will move tapeless but it wont be as fast as you think. Remember, almost every single TAPELESS recording studio backs up all their data EVERY NIGHT... to tape...


ash =o)

The noise does not increase in all digital domain chain.
Or did you mean compression artifacts?

The difference between vcd/dvd and hdv is that priors are used for distribution and the latter for acquisition.
It wouldn't look so good if you'd take that vcd made from db and used that as a post production original.

And I think the biggest problem with these "barely acceptable quality" solutions (like digital broadcasting many times is with demanding material) is that they limit the artistic expression. You can't use noise or grain to make certain look, because it will get blurred at some point of the chain. Or shaky handheld. Or special shutter speeds. Etc.
Well, actually compression artifacts can also be exploited in artistic way... ;-)

50GB BluRay disks. That'll hold nearly 50 minutes (some head room of course probably 45 minutes) of 1080p60 and more at lower resolutions. That's certainly more than BetaSP 30 minutes tapes many pros are used to shooting with. I think we'll be at that point by Q3 or Q4 2006, not years away.

How fast the movement is in the "prosumer" market vs the "pro" market depends on the price of burners and media.

Write and copy times will have impact too. Even if 50GB BluRay is only 2x that makes redundancy back up faster than cloning a digital video tape.

The one advantage tape has is if there's damage one can work around it to retrieve the rest of the material. Retrieving a corrupted file or data from a physically damaged disc may be near impractical.

Probably something closer to a practical "field" workflow would be recording to 16GB P2 cards and then backing up to a portable self powered (battery) BluRay recorder at 2x or 4x speed. Otherwise it might be something like an XDCAM like camera attachment . . . all the more reason to believe Sony will make a 1/3" XDCAMHD camera if the HVX proves popular . . . and another reason why I don't think the HDV format will be around more than a few years as a "dominant" prosumer format.

One obvious answer would be when tapeless solutions are more cost-effective and practical than current tape-based options. If you shoot DV or HDV that's probably a long way off in the future; if you shoot on more expensive tapes it might happen a little quicker. This is also dependent on what and how you shoot: if you're a solo event shooter who needs to be able to record several hours of footage unassisted, that's a different scenario than if you're shooting short takes for a movie with a big crew of people around. In the latter situation it's a lot easier to work with current tapeless options than it would be for event work.

You could also make a comparison here to film versus digital options for photography. If you do a lot of photography, today's digital solutions can quickly pay for themselves and the cost of new digital cameras compared to the cost of shooting film. The same may hold true for film versus the alternatives for video, but we're talking about videotape versus tapeless video recording. In several years of shooting video the cost of the tapes I've used would pay for (at best) a few hours of DTE recording capacity, which might just barely match the cost of tapes I'd use in the next few years. And that same amount of money would only buy a few minutes of P2 memory card recording capacity, so that's not even close to being a cost-effective option.

As far as wokflow is concerned, one thing tapeless solutions have going for them is that they give you instant access to your data for editing, something you can't get from tape. But if that's not a vital concern, today's tapeless options don't necessarily offer much workflow benefit compared to tape-based recording. In this discussion we've seen it suggested to record video on tapeless solutions and then archive the resulting data to DLT tape -- which is essentially just the opposite process of recording to tape and then bulk-capturing that to a computer hard drive. Maybe not quite the same in terms of time requirements, but not substantially different either. I suppose if you're still batch-capturing your footage from tape by reviewing each clip first then tapeless solutions would look appealing, but that just shows how out of date the batch-capture process is. So it's not tape-based recording which is on its way out here, it's batch capturing. Tape-based recording will be around for at least another five years or more, until some really cheap and effective alternative becomes commonplace.

Not exactly "RAID", but yes it uses a quad-channel, interleaved memory controller. I wouldn't guess that it's a proprietary memory controller as there are already several commodity controllers on the market that would more than do the job.

Yeah, we've been over the whole P2 pricing issue on here and current prices of the 4GB aren't bad at all. We're probably paying about a 15% premium just because they're only available branded with the Panasonic name right now.

I'm late to this conversation, so I apologize if this has been drummed to death (which it probably has).

It seems to me that Panasonic is probably protecting some part of P2 as proprietary and wants to make money selling "ink not printers".

I think we agree that the technology behind it is probably reasonably straightforward and would be easy to copy. But I wonder if you'd have to pay a licensing fee to Panasonic to do so. I'm not a patent lawyer so I don't know.

Bottom line for me? I'm on the preorder list for an HVX. Will something I read change my mind? Maybe...

No big deal.. We have been beating a lot of P2, tapeless workflow, etc.. type discussions to death around here lately.

Actually, P2 is pretty open. You would have to contact Panasonic directly for details, but anyone with the proper manufacturing capabilities could easily become a P2 vendor. As of right now, Panasonic is the only one distributing them (I'm sure this will change as all these HVX cameras ship out). So obviously we pay more, just as we do for Panny branded batteries or whatnot. But the prices aren't out of line at all (ignore the 8GB price, it's not available and the price hasn't been adjusted just yet).

I think just about everyone here is on a preorder list somewhere. :) So far, I'm reading all I can about the XLH1 and the HVX200 and as of now, the HVX200 looks like its a go. The XLH1 is tempting and if it were about $2500 cheaper, I probably wouldn't have fought the impulse to buy it. If video from both cameras can be cut together fairly well, then I will probably end up owning both and selling both my DVX100s.

Not at all. Remember, Panasonic has a formula for that -- it's called tape. Panasonic makes an absurdly massive amount of tape each year, I believe I read at some point that they make 70% of the DV tape sold. Tape is where the "ink not printers" formula works, because people just keep buying more and more of it.

P2 cards are the opposite. P2 cards are reusable, ink isn't. It is more likely that someone may only ever buy two or three cards during the functional life of their camera. P2 cards are more like RAM sticks in a computer; they're not consumable media like blank CDs or blank tapes. They're reusable temporary flash storage. Buy two or three and you'll never need another one.

Plus, don't forget that Panasonic is actively helping people to develop alternatives to P2 as well. They're partnering with Focus on the FireStore, and they made streaming HD possible out the firewire port so someone can use a computer or a tape deck to record the signal at full quality, completely allowing them to bypass P2 if they so choose (and if their workflow allows).

P2 is one option. But it's not in any way a "razor & blades" type of business model. If the cards were cheap enough to be classified as "one-use" (such as a 64gb card for $50) then yes, that may apply. But it'll be a long, long, long time before flash memory reaches that state!

It is my understanding that they will license to anyone who wants to manufacture a P2-compatible product. But in order to carry the P2 label, those manufacturers would have to meet the quality standards that Panasonic expects -- it'd have to be a certain write speed, certain reliability, etc.

However, if someone wants to invent a new product and not call it "P2", I don't know that they'd even need to talk to panasonic about that. I believe that's what spec-comm is doing with their CinePorter -- I don't believe I've heard mention of any sort of licensing or Panasonic approval on that product. So it would seem possible for alternative manufacturers to come out with their own product as well, and just not label it P2.

Do we know if partners are paying for licensing?

If not, then I guess you're right. That's the "ink" I was talking about... not a physical product necessarily. There's no need for Panasonic to make P2 cards or storage devices themselves really. But they DO need to make a profit... and I'm not sure how profitable these cameras really are after all the R&D etc.

This totally doesn't matter, but I'll toss it in because it's fun to think about... in the same way it's fun to think about "why are aliens gray".

My bet is that it was Panasonic's original intention to corner P2. They didn't really open up P2 until AFTER NAB and AFTER there was a helluvalotta negative feedback about P2 on places like this board. As a RESULT of our feedback they quickly realized P2 could fail and so could the HVX.

I specifically asked a Panasonic rep at NAB if there would be a hard drive solution and he said "NO, can't be done, firewire's not fast enough". Well, we KNOW it CAN be done and he was dead wrong in saying that to me. Soon after NAB Jan was saying "Oh yeah... 3rd party vendors are going to make hard drive solutions."

Does anyone who's signed an agreement with Panasonic actually KNOW if there's a P2 licensing fee? I wouldn't be suprised to find non-disclosure on that topic though. But kinda like "Microsoft Certified" I bet "P2 Approved" costs money.