Peter, it was just on the director's PB. But I did a little googling and it looks like if you email p2genie(at)andersholck.com. The developer will send you a beta test copy. Of course, I didn't know it was beta until after the shoot (maybe I would have thought twice before using it).

Hmm, $250/day - that is nuts. I rented an HVX, 4 4GB cards and a P2Store for $500/day. They (PM me if you want the rental house name as they're not a sponsor) told me they rent the cam alone for $400, so that cards and P2Store for $100 effectively. This is in NYC and I heard recently that there are places in the city that rent the same package (cam, cards, store) for $400/day.

Kathy, if you use Windows, you can use the P2Store Manager software to check on the SMART status of the P2Store's hard drive. Other than that I don't think there's any maintenance required. I found a PDF manual online awhile back - PM me if you want a copy.

Very interesting Chien. In LA, things are renting for up to:

305/day for camera
100/day for each 8GB P2 card (so two cards is 200day)
P2Store: up to 250/day


Pretty crazy. In Oregon (where I live) it's a little more reasonable:

Camera: 250/day
P2store: 75/day
1 8GB card: 50-75/day

High rate of return
 

Very interesting indeed. I'm impressed by how much these cameras are renting for (the shortage helps for sure). I was talking to an AC friend of mine who owns an SR3 and SDX900 package and he says a good rule of thumb regarding rental rates is that if he can get about 1% of the package value/day he's happy.

Using that calculation, say a typical cam/card/store package costs about $10K to buy. If you're renting it out for $400/day on average, then you're making 4%/day. Makes me wish I pre-ordered and bought one.

Very interesting Chien. The 1% number I think is derived from the "100 day rule" that says an item should recover it's original cost after 100 days of rentals. The only reason I think rental rates should be higher for video equipment is because cameras become obsolete so quickly that you need to be able to recover your cost more quickly as well.

Peter

RE Rate of return
 

The old 1% rule worked for larger purchases when models didn't change very often. By the time the DV revolution came about the rate of return changed with some of the reasons being the cameras were less durable, models changed faster so you needed a faster rate of return and just the cost of getting and keeping them ready was the same as the big cameras so you had to charge more than 1% just to make it worth your while. For most owner operators it also meant the camera couldn't cover the cost of accesories since its rental price was so low. I have radio mics which cost almost as much as the camera. I am not going to throw them in where before they might have been included since the client was already spending $600 per day.
Also if you looked at other items in the video world the rate of return was much higher say on a Projector than it was on an expensive camera.
As for the price of P2 rentals, I predicted some high prices because you had to get your money back before they announced a bigger size which would make your 4 Gig and 8 Gig cards useless for the rental markets. Who here thinks an 8 gig card will still cost $1350 this fall.

What does the Verify function do? Just ensure the footage gets copied correctly? Anyone know how it works?

Footage got corrupted when transferring from P2 card to your laptop? Could footage get corrupted going from the P2Store to a computer? How does that corruption happen?

Thanks for your help.

I'm not sure the exact technical process of the Verify function, but it is basically as you describe. I think the footage got corrupted due to the hard drive. The lesson is: use good hard drives. Anything is possible, though, including ftg getting corrupted coming from P2Store. Just have to give yourself best odds.

Peter