2GB Memory Stick: Zero to 80Mbps

[Brian Deviteri]

That is my point exactly. The memory prices for this camera are simply overpriced. I’m not knocking or complaining about the price of the camera itself or trying to make some pseudo-engineered hybrid “SoCanPan” HD camera on steroids. I’m just getting to the dirt of the matter, seeing what I am really getting for the price, and weighing all my options… that’s what I think a lot of people on this board are doing right now.

In order to effectively use the HVX200, you need P2 cards, plain and simple. For $2000 you can purchase one 8gb P2 card, which will be the largest card on the market for at least a year, if not longer. Until someone can come up with an alternative P2-style card, I really do not think the prices will drop. (Anyone at SanDisk listening?) That is the main reason I’m looking for cost-effective P2 storage alternative options, as well as the desire (and need) to increase my “tape” load to more than just 8-16 minutes.

Emery – can you share any info that Jan told you about the price of the P2 cards?

[Emery]

During Jans presentation she had a diagram showing the construction of the P2 cards. As we all know there are 4 2GB cards in there. As she herself and others have discussed on this board before, one of the main differeces when it comes to manufacturing costs for the SD cards used to make P2 is they are error free. She made the example of buying a 60 gig hard drive but only have 57 gigs available when you install it. This is due to the drive having errors in certain sectors of the disk that will never be usable. Due to the already limited space on the P2’s, Panasonic has made sure all SD cards that go into the P2 are error free. Take this, add the other disk elements used to construct the card, add in the R&D and marketing… put it in the oven and bake at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes and out pops $2000 P2.

And in response to Nick…

Im in love with technology. I love to talk about it, I love anticipating whats around the corner. I dont consider my time here and other forums I frequent a waste of time. Its these boards that have contributed a large percentage of my knowledge. The cow is not just a place to come when you have a problem, its also a place to share and discuss experiences and opinions. And you are correct, I wouldnt use a PD-150 for a project. Im a pixel snob, what can I say? However, that doesnt mean Im turning down jobs because i cant use the camera of my choice. The majority of my jobs/clients wouldnt consider anything but HD or 35mm. Occasionally Ill do an SD job shot on the SDX-900 or Digibeta.

Some of us feel the need to raise awareness of what is a great product with a seemingly slightly unjustified media price. If all of us just accepted whatever manufacturers shoved down our throats and never questioned or judged their actions, then you probably wouldnt even have a PD-150. It is our voice, our response, out outcries that shapes the products of tomorrow. Jan herself frequents these boards and our feedback to her has a direct effect on the next camera down the road. So you can continue to hapily shoot your projects with the equipment available on the market and Ill do the same, however Ill also make sure the companies that are shaping my future have my interests in mind.

It is not a coincidence that the large percentage of users on this board feel the P2 is expensive or overpriced. I think Panasonics price is somewhat justified but I feel they should have swallowed profit margins on P2 until costs come down. It puts their users in a bad spot.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Emery] “I think we get what you are saying Ron. However, does that mean that everything a company puts out is fairly/appropriately priced?”

No. But MOST times it *is* fairly priced to the market niche that the product is actually targeted to serve.

But in no case do we encourage people to say things to manufacturers present in the Cow such as your pricing is going “to bite you guys in the ass” and such things.

You do not like the perceived insult and so why dish them out to others???

We like having our manufacturers reps presnt here in the Cow, they contribute a lot to the forums. We do not wish to have people chasing them off by brandishing insults and such…

*That* is my point.

You are entitled to your opinions about price, features, etc. But we do not allow opinions to cross the line into insults. We have never allowed this and have no intention to start now.

Thank you,

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

Nick,

Thank you. I couldn’t have said it better. You are the man, man. ;o)

Boomer

[Emery]

I never intended to insult Panasonic and I hope it was not perceived that way. I think they have done a truly amazing job with this camera and I will be buying one or two when they are released. I also have a firm understanding of P2 and its pricing. My opinion has been stated regarding that matter so no need to repeat it. However Id like to note that Ive mentioned several times that I think Panasonic has priced P2 reasonably appropriate. Id like to mention how much I personally appreciate the manufacturers themselves posting on the boards. I told Jan today how much I, and we (the collective cow) appreciate her efforts to answer questions. The HVX-200 is still the most revolutionary camera in my book and my sincerest apologies If ive offended anyone.

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

I have to say that the price of the memory cards discussion is pretty tiresome. I recognize that many say that they are over-priced but that is probably because they do not understand the process. Take the zero defect statement above, add to that the knowledge that it is under 1% of all quantities available. Add to that, the card is constucted like a small army tank, able to withstand 17Gs of gravitational force. On top of that add the LSI and various other components. Add to that that the transfer speed of the individual cards, 20MBps, has a potential of 640Mbps when set up as an array, and at this point in time nothing else in the chain can match the speed, but the card is ready for when the rest of the chain catches up. There is future built into the design.

The point at which prices come down is where the quantity of produced SD cards go up, so that the number of SD cards that become available is greater and those that meet the defect free requirement goes up and thus the cost of the P2 card can go down. As the example with the 4GB card. It was introduced last fall at $2000. Today it is $1750. Later this fall, we will see it take a tumble in price as the manufacturing of 1GB SD cards has hit a quantum that ups the total of defect free cards available.

And while folks may not fully appreciate the fact that you will never have to buy tape again because they relate it to not having to purchase DV tape. The point is that this is not an HDV camera nor will it ever be. It is a DVCPRO HD camera and as such where the tape price consideration should be steered is towards the DVCPRO HD tape. If you shop, you can get it for $35 for a 30 minute, but if in a hurry, you will likely pay around $45. As I know from my own experience, one production in DVCPRO HD tape can certainly add up, and over the course of about 3 substantial projects you have spent the same amount as the cost of 2 cards. I mean we have one tape that only has 2 minutes of good dialog on it. That 2 minutes is pretty expensive and because it is on tape at the end, and so we had to save all of the bad takes.

Had we done that on P2, we could have erased all but about 2 takes. It took 27 takes to get the script read the way we wanted it. Point being is that the cards will replace tape and you won’t have to buy acquisition tape ever again. Add to that the cost of you sitting in a chair digitizing the footage. With P2, you sit down, review the footage and make edit decisions.

So the cost of memory will always come down and the cost of the P2 card will also come down. You may see that the cost of 4 4GB cards is less than 2 8GB cards. Same amount of time, less money. The reality is that the camera is not here yet, neither are the 8 GB cards and time is on the side of the memory costs coming down.

Hope that helps,

Jan

PS. Thanks, Ron.

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Ron Shook]

Jan,

[Jan Crittenden Livingston] “Point being is that the cards will replace tape and you won’t have to buy acquisition tape ever again. Add to that the cost of you sitting in a chair digitizing the footage. With P2, you sit down, review the footage and make edit decisions.”

All this is assuming that you are shooting for yourself and works fine for broadcast entities and full production/post-production entities of whatever sort, but so much of the production/post-production process in our industry has moved towards different entities being involved at different stages and I just don’t see how the P2 technology fits into this now, or in any foreseeable near term unless you Pana folk have something coming that we don’t know about.

80% of the production work that I do is for outside producers coming in, overseeing the shoot, grabbing the cheap tapes of whatever format and running for the airport or post house or Sattelite uplink, while we are packing up to leave. I can’t give them $2k memory cards or hard drive units, or even $200 memory cards which despite the best of intentions I’ll never get back. I suspect that it’s going to be a very long, long time before memory card technology will allow for that, so we need some quick, easy, transportable, cheap way to get from P2 cards or hard drive recorders to media that’s disposable and overnite shipable. Have you-all got anything like a P2 and/or hard-drive to Optical portable, DC unit in the pipeline that would meet such a need?

Like a lot of folks posting here, I’d very much like to consider this camera over the comparable HDV offerings from others, but without a way to move the files quickly to cheap media of whatever sort, it doesn’t make sense. This is a problem not only for production that demands fast, inexpensive transportability but for longer term archiving as well.

I respectfully part company a bit with DeUdder Ron who contends that this camcorder “… isn’t for everyone.” At this price point it must be designed to be, to suck up market share, promote a better technology, and justify that better technology at higher price points. If part of the workflow makes that technology worthless to too many folks, then the HVX200 isn’t doing its job, no matter how good it is.

I realize as a company rep you can’t divulge proprietary information, but if you-all have something on the drawing boards, for at least previewing at NAB that speaks to the concerns expressed here, a “maybe” and a wink might be in order. (g)

BTW, I have been experiencing your participation on various newsgroups and forums for years and you do your company a great service. I doubt whether a little course language is about to put you off too long from the rough and tumble and enervation of these forums, so please keep comin’ ’round.

Ron Shook

[Ron Shook]

Jan,

As an addendum to my previous response to this post:

[Jan Crittenden Livingston] “Take the zero defect statement above, add to that the knowledge that it is under 1% of all quantities available. Add to that, the card is constucted like a small army tank, able to withstand 17Gs of gravitational force. On top of that add the LSI and various other components. Add to that that the transfer speed of the individual cards, 20MBps, has a potential of 640Mbps when set up as an array, and at this point in time nothing else in the chain can match the speed, but the card is ready for when the rest of the chain catches up. There is future built into the design.”

Does the future built into the design of this technology allow for the possibility that there would be multiple tiers of memory cards delivered by Panasonic as the cost of solid state memory drops?

To clarify what I mean, let me set up a future hypothetical that I’m sure is far from just around the corner. Let’s assume that 2 years from now the solid state industry is delivering 64 gig solid state memory card technology which would allow for about about 2 hrs of DVCProHD shooting using the two slots on the HVX200 (my numbers may not be real accurate here but that’s not the point.) Might we have that tank like technology you talk about above for $1k/64gig cards for repeated production use, perhaps a mid-range $500 card for post-production use that needs to be near as perfect electronically but not as robust physically, and a more throw away card for $100 to handle gently and hand to the client, that only promises that 60 gigs of the 64 gig card are usable. The exact hypothetical numbers aren’t important here, just the concept.

Panasonic sort of pioneered this concept in the digital tape world with DVCPro tape. DVCPro tape is so much more robust (and much more expensive) than run of the mill DV25 tape that it isn’t funny. I’ve got a friend in another state who has reused his DVCPro tape for production up to 20 times without ever a problem, something that you could never hope to do or consider doing with DV25 or DVCam tape from any manufacturer.

Ron Shook

[Toke]

[Ron Lindeboom] “But MOST times it *is* fairly priced to the market niche that the product is actually targeted to serve.”

I think that’s the biggest problem p2 might have in the future: staying in niche.

I believe that most of us in this forum who are conserned about price of p2 is because the hvx200 seems to be very attractive camera, but if the memory’s (or hdd unit’s) price does not decrease rapidly enough, it may make the camera obsolete very fast when some other manufacturer brings similar model to the market with cheaper mainstream memory.

I’m still strongly considering buying this camera, but not a day before I see a p2 card also from another manufacturer (so that there will be competition) or CF-card adapter.

[Brian Deviteri]

[Ron Shook] “80% of the production work that I do is for outside producers coming in, overseeing the shoot, grabbing the cheap tapes of whatever format and running for the airport or post house or Sattelite uplink, while we are packing up to leave. I can’t give them $2k memory cards or hard drive units, or even $200 memory cards which despite the best of intentions I’ll never get back. I suspect that it’s going to be a very long, long time before memory card technology will allow for that, so we need some quick, easy, transportable, cheap way to get from P2 cards or hard drive recorders to media that’s disposable and overnite shipable. Have you-all got anything like a P2 and/or hard-drive to Optical portable, DC unit in the pipeline that would meet such a need?”

As far as I know, this is the only solution that even comes close to what you are really talking about:
https://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=94262&catGroupId=14595&modelNo=AJ-PCS060G&surfModel=AJ-PCS060G

you could dump all the media onto a regular external hard drive, but that will require copying files after a shoot, maybe not as quick as your clients want it? that option is DEFINATELY cheaper and the drives are as large as you want them to be (or as large as you can find them today).