How about P2 Gear when it is available? You won't need to lug a notebook around once P2 Gear is in the market. Just bring a couple of 160GB or higher 2.5" disks with their USB2 and/or Firewire connection casing ... and you can shoot for hours and hours without worrying about running out of space. It should be better than carrying the P2Store.

Not available till August... I checked... I start shooting my current doc (for which I'm getting the 500) in June and will be mostly finished by Aug/Sept...

That's kinda the problem.. There are lots of nice options - in the future - right now I'm having to make do...

After some months with my HVX200 I think that P2 workflow is really great.
The camera itself is, in my opinion, a jewel and the HVX 200 picture on my monitor is wonderful. The only real problem, at this moment, is P2 cards price and storage capacity. For this reason I think that P2 store is the best available solution to minimize the recording and storage cost. The P2 store (priced in Italy around 1.500 euros) can record the content of almost four 16g cards (priced around 1.000 euros each) or seven 8g cards (priced around 800 euros). Moreover the P2 store is very light, small and efficient. At this moment, even if I could afford the cost of, say, seven or eight 16g P2 cards the use of the P2 store would add a good 50% to my recording capacity for only a fraction of the equivalent P2 cards price. P2 gear is certainly a grat machine but is priced around 5.000 euros in Italy and in my opinion is not an alternative to the P2 store (it's a completely different thing).

P2 is great for aquisition, I'm convinced. And getting your footage off of P2 cards and on a hard disk, fairly straightforward. What do you do with the original footage once it is edited. Delete? Surely not. If I'm using 4 16GB cards at a time and most likely more, what are my options for archival. Blue-ray? Does anyone here have workflow that includes P2 archival. What do you use? Have any problems. We all know the advantages of tape. Does it end up on tape?

Francesco: Your points are well made... The problem for me isn't only offloading files to free card space, but being able to view the clips so I know they're there and I can sleep at night..

Since I'm a Mac person (and I gather this process is best done in a PC environment) I am needing (I think) to offload clips, using the G4 TiBook, to a FW drive, then import clips into FCP (again, using the PowerBook) to view them.. The result of this is that I will be double filling hard drives in order to keep the original file AND the file on the Scratch Disk.. True?

Please, if anyone has a better way let me know... I don't actually have a camera or a card or any of this to test, so I'm only surmising...

I broached the subject of HHDs with my computer guy, who writes code and is a software BETA tester for various companies in Silicon Valley, and he emailed me the following...

"HHD is a hybrid hard drive, and I disagree that they are any better for video... actually, they are worse. The Hybrid is a 1 gig cache RAM built into the drive. For "regular" use, it might be useful, since 1 gig can hold a lot of files. The way they work is to load up the built-in RAM, and then spin down the drive, thus making for faster access, and lower energy consumption.

But for video, where the files are larger than 1 gig... it's actually a poor idea. You don't want the drive spinning down all the time when you're accessing video files.

And for archival storage, it's a waste of money.

Let's see... what else... oh yeah: they won't work with Macs...*"

I would appreciate anyone else's POV on this, because everyone here seems to be recommending HHD for archival storage.

Mac programs P2Log/HD Log both allow viewing of mxf files directly from your p2 card /HDD w/o converting to QT.

Thanx Chris - Do you know if there's a tutorial somewhere that will lead me (like the blind, er - vision impaired) thru this process with PowerBooks and FCP etc. so I don't have to keep asking these stupid questions?

Hell, I got so nervous I just ordered a P2 Store for backup...

Hi Steve, I do understand the jumping off the cliff feeling, I have talked to dozens of people that have felt this way. Moving from something you know how to do vs moving to something you have not done before. I can encourage you to set up a set of behaviors for the off-load and always follow them. Mirror your transfer drives, that way you will have a Master and a back up. Always use the software to eject the P2 card. Never just use the button on the side. Put the icon in the trash, this erases the ghost image in the Mac. Then mount the next card.


I heartily encourage you to purchase P2 Log Pro, they have an automated offload with verify on the data. This is worth every penny and yes it will allow you to look at your footage as well. I know that Barry says to buy a PC but he and I go round on this all the time. We did the Iditarod, 3.5 TB of stuff and not a single glich, except for the 2 cards that had not been write protected, and those were easily resolved.

This is the easiest. FCP will give you the option on output to reinsert the 3:2 pull-down, it there you go. That simple. And yes, we were all wishing that the 2000s had 24pN in Alaska, would have saved us a number of P2 cards.

I know you will love it once you have it and set up your work flow. Do this in advance of starting the project. Know what you are going to do and practice it so that you are doing the flow by second natur, you want to be sure that when things get crazy on the set, the process is still very clear.

Best regards,

Jan

Jan: Thanks... Yeah, it's always difficult to change from something you're used to... but I like change - after over 20 years of shooting nothing but film I changed to DV, then to HDV, now to tapeless (I still have my super16mm camera though)...

This camera (and the other new Panasonic entries) will obviously bring a lot more people like me into the P2 environment -

As useful as this forum is (and I've really grown dependent on it) , it would be nice for those of us who have to land running and make a living with this new technology if there was an all-in-one-place website devoted specifically to P2 workflow issues - not "look at my clips" or "where do I get a matte box?" but workflow only - an online tutorial with a Q&A page...

For instance, the suggestion of P2 Log Pro (I just looked at their site) solves most of my problems (although it looks like it may have a "learning curve", and that is an expression I've learned to dislike). In fact, since so many of us have been using Macs since the Media100 days, Panasonic should consider bundling it with the new cameras...

Steve,
I know where you're coming from. I sold my Aaton pkg. last year (should have saved the superspeeds for the RED :) , bought the HVX, a Powerbook (never needed a laptop before P2)and haven't looked back.
No one stop/shop tutorial available, but if you hang around these boards lurking long enough you'll pick up what you'll need to know.
I've shot all the cassette video formats and initially I missed the security blanket of being able to clutch the shot tapes in my hands. Now I'm getting weaned off that nasty habit and there's no going back (sounds like an AA rant!).
Think what the sound dept. has gone thru over the years - tape reels, cassettes, MD, DT, MP3 , etc.
It's a whole new world out there.

chris

Steve, you heard it from the expert (Jan C.) - I use P2 Log Pro all the time.
You can view footage direct from cards using a G4....
I use it to check footage on location. Clients like it because we can view full screen. I copy the P2 contents to an external Firewire 800 drive.
I then go back and look at the clips from the hard drive for a double check.
I have never had any glitching and I am using FCP 5.1.2.
Good Luck

Steve,
Just want to add that if you are using the P2 store, make sure the battery you are using is well connected (sometimes 3rd party batteries don't connect well to the HVX or the P2 store) when transferring data. If there's an interruption in the power supply it can corrupt the footage.

This is the route to go with MacBook Pro: http://www.duel-systems.com/products/adapters.aspx