Robert Lane |
June 22nd, 2006 02:31 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Heath
This really begs the question of whether the HVX200 will be the last P2 camera marketed, at least in the sub 2/3" market. P2 was originally conceived of necessity, an ingenious way of getting a realistic amount of solid state memory into a package with write/read speeds capable of handling 100Mbs.
If 32GB SD cards really do make an appearance later this year, then surely P2 becomes unnecessary, and cameras recording directly to SD/CompactFlash will potentially make far more sense, and make the use of solid state viable for a far greater number of people? Especially combined with the likelihood of more efficient codecs such as JPEG2000 and AVC-Intra - the quality of DVCProHD at 50Mbs!
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There is one factor not mentioned; the advantage of the P2 architecture isn't just being solid state, but that it's SD in a RAID configuration. As the P2 whitepapers show (and if I had a 4GB card to test against my 8GB I could prove) that as capacity increases so does R/W speeds. A single SD card cannot compete in R/W speeds to that of a comparable P2 card. Consider the same comparison of a single HDD of any capacity vs. a 4-HDD RAID in the same capacity.
So while larger SD cards are about to hit the market the spin-off benefit is that the P2 cards will then get the larger capacites and become faster.
Panasonic didn't design P2 as in intermediate step for eventual migration to another media, it is and will be a long-term technology investment just as XDCAM is for Sony.
My guess is that within 2 years, P2 capacities and speeds will be fast/large enough to handle full-res uncompressed HD from Vari-cam type bodies or, more advanced P2 bodies.
Although the ENG version of the P2 body has been on the market for almost two years, the P2 system is very much still in it's infancy and within the next 2 years you'll see it become much more powerful and versatile on both the hardware and software sides of production.
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