-
P2 wishlist
I have a possible doc in europe this summer and would love to shoot it with a shiny new P2 cam instead of my old HDCam. I had an SDX900 and loved the look. For my project I predict I’ll be shooting about 120-160 gigs of HD video a day for 3-4 days per week. So my problem is storage. Even with a few sets of 4-5 16G cards, the current P2 store (with it’s laughable 60 gig hard drive) won’t work for even a day. External storage devices attached to the camera are not gonna happen on a shoot like this.
Schlepping a notebook, a multi card reader and external drives with all those cables and setting it up on many locations just won’t work with a small, fast-moving crew.
So, why doesn’t Panasonic wise up and realize that a 60 gig P2 store just doesn’t cut it for documentary filmmakers like me? A couple of high capacity P2 stores would be perfect for my needs…say 250-500 gigs each. Large hard drives are cheap now, so why not put ’em in. People like me don’t need a shoebox to store our video…we need a barrel! Or maybe better yet, put a couple of large hard drives or blu-ray burner into the HPM100 rec/player…it would be perfect to have one box that plays and stores…and no flimsy cables and mutiple power supplies. It seems to me that there’s a gaping hole in the P2 product lineup for a large chunk of us pros out here.
I’m ready to make the jump…my hand’s on my checkbook…the question is, when will Panasonic ready for people like us?
Thanks-
John
-
4 Replies
-
I asked a Panasonic rep at their NAB booth about the paltry P2 Store sizes. He had no idea if a larger P2 store was in the works. I asked about adding my own larger drive to the box and he catagorically stated that it wouldn’t work. With 120 and 160 GB laptop drives standard on most computers these days why isn’t Panasonic uping the storage capacity of the P2 Store? Or at least allowing users to do it themselves. Within six months we’ll have 32GB P2 cards on the market. A P2 Store won’t even hold 2 full cards of that size!!!!
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc. -
The other problem is you really do not know if your transfer is good or not without hooking it up to a computer. I tried a P2 Store once and it would be very scary to transfer data and then erase the card before verifying the files.
So add a LCD screen and playback to the wish list.
As I understand it is the way this devise works you really don’t even get 60 GB, It has (8) 8GB blocks to hold a P2 “session” so if you transfer a half full card you lose 4 gb of space.
-
You should be looking at a “P2 Gear” hpg10
It functions somewhat like a P2 Store, but it allows one to use their own usb drive of any size.
It has other functions, like HD-SDI out for on set monitoring, and a flip up LCD screen.
The problem is that it will not be available until August.
–
Art AldrichLeader, NJ FCP UG
-
The P2 Genie software we use on our PC works well for copying but the preview software from Panny crashes every time. I still think the laptop is the best way to copy assests from cards – IF – you have a proper viewing solution. Then it’s just a matter of how big your laptop HD is. The Toughbook would be key for this.
I wish for Panny to develop preview software that’s more robust and also make it cross platform…or are they doing this already?
-Matt
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up