4 (6) cam comparison

[Toke]

[Jan Crittenden Livingston] “Which is why we did finally win the BetaSP war with DVCPRO25.”

How, where and when did you win this war?

[Häakon]

[David Battistella] ”
How do you handle out of town clients who might be getting on an aircraft at the end of a shooting day?

Have your unloader make a 1:1 backup on DVD-R after he copies the files over to the PC. You should be doing this anyway for your archival/backup purposes.

[David Battistella] ”
How much time do you save against digitizing vs. making backups of the media?

About 2x, and it’s moved to the back of the workflow instead of the front – which means you can start editing and get your product out to the client faster. That can only mean good news for you and the client.

[David Battistella] “What will you do with your P2 cards when removable media disk based cameras (ieHD XDCAM) become the widespread standard?

Keep using it. Unlike tapes, film, XDCAM, or any other disposable media that you must keep buying continually, the P2 system will last the lifetime of your camera. That’s the entire point. Buy one card and you never have to buy stock again. Doesn’t matter if P2 as a container fades over time; as long as you have the camera and a P2 card, you’re all set.

Perhaps a better question would be “what will you do with the HVX by the time DVCPROHD is phased out?” since it’s the codec that’s replacable, not P2. And by the time that happens the camera will already be outdated.

[David Battistella] “P2 can fly if it is rapidly accepted and that has not really happend except for a few “closed shop” news gathering organizations.

P2 hasn’t been given the chance to be “rapidly accepted” because up until now, you had to spend $20K+ for a camera that could use it. Now that it’s in a $6K, handheld package, a lot more people are going to be interested. The preorder demand for the camera is already staggering and unlike any other camcorder product launch I can recall by memory…

[David Battistella] “The stock arguement only works in places that reuse stock until the have to repurchase (NEWS GATHERING).
What kind of nonsense is that? I’m not a news gatherer, I’m an independent narrative-based filmmaker. Not having to pay for any stock ever again AND never having to capture/digitize my data is HUGE. The limited run-time of the cards right now is not a concern as there is always plenty of time in between setups to offload/format the cards. It’s no different than changing magazines of film.

I’m not really concerned about convincing anyone about the superior workflow advantages, because that concept will be widely understood and accepted in a couple of months when the production levels of the camera have made it accessible enough for everyone that wants one. I don’t know a single person who’s shot on P2 that hasn’t proclaimed that they’ll never shoot on tape again – regardless of their style workflow. It just makes SENSE.

[David Battistella]

Haakon et al,

I do not want to be the P2 basher. I know that I have made statements here that would make it seem that way. P2 is being hailed as this miraculous thing entering the hands of low cost HD camera’s and there is a lot riding on this technology.

I should put things in persepctive from what I see in my own town of Toronto. This is a SONY town. This is not to say that I am a SONY lover, but I can tell you that the major rental houses have about 30 F900 camera;’s to one varicam or DX30’s to SDX 900’s or ZR1 HDV camera’s to HVXes. I know that Chicago is a town that is much more Panasonic friendly. The major broadcasters here are SONY shops from top to ground floor. (the war that Jan says DVC25 won was not won in this city.

When I look at P2 i see a fabulous idea. I have stated many times that I believe that the widespread use of P2 will be dependant on market penetration. Panasonic was LATE with their handheld HD offering. An entie season of stuff was shot on SONY HDV camera’s. (one rental house has told me the 11 that he owns are out every day. WHY? He makes an investment in the camera and the renters make a small investment in the tapestock. They rent the camera and take the tapes home.

Does Panasonic have any plans to get the gear into the rental market by offering it to rental houseswith umpteen numbers of P2 cards to rent? Why aren’t P2 cards so readily avaiable that I could rent them? Maybe I want to rent a bunch of cards and not have to worry about all of this offloading? It seems like there is no plan to saturate the market and if they do not I am afriad they won’t get enough market share to make a move. People might go with SONY because it is “what they know”.

Same goes for if an out of town client is looking to hire you. “What camera do you have?” Major television networks and large production companies still ask you if you shoot Betacam. I have never heard anyone ask for M2 and I doubt you can even get a part for or buy an M2 cassette. (let alone play it back somewhere).

So in walks Panasonic with P2, a fantastic idea. NO TAPE, great! So the posters into this forum suggest that you add a laptop, an offloading firewire device, a person to do the downloading, that you tell your client to show up with a firewire hard drive to take back to New York with them. ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS. Are these people sending their producers out in the field with P2 cards and Firewire drives? Not yet. So the question is not whether this LATE hd technology is good or not, it is whether the speific headaches can be overcome. I am sure that as I begin to shoot P2 I will be a convert too, BUT the very big but is, what is happening out there to make it a standard. At some point I have to interact with the rest of teh world and that is important too.

The new Apple laptop does not have a PCMCIA slot. I see this as a major setback. The technology while excellent, is not cheap, so how will Panasonic assure people A) the drives will be more available. B) that its going to be widely used.

For 2400.00 I can buy 6400 minutes of DVCPRO tape. I can buy 1 8 gig p2 card for about that too.
6400 minutes of DVCpro 50 is about 106 hours of footage. So my one time capture and archive cost is 2400 dollars. Using P2 for the same production I spend 2200 upfront, then I need to consider that I will need about 500 DVD’s (AND THE TIME IT TAKES TO MAKE THEM) spend at .80/dvd. So about 2700.00 for the same amount of stuff assuming the time to make them is free. I only break even on an 8 gig P2 card after I have shot 106 hours of media. Double this becasue shooting with one 8 gig card is impractical. This is why I think it is better suited to high tape things like new gathering and why I state that it is a longer term investmant than tape.

Haakon, I am also a narrative filmmaker, so the time I save editing is less important because my footage does not have to be on the air that night. I conduct longer, research style interviews for my films. so the short record times are an issue.

I want to state very plainly that not every solution being presented on either side of this is bulletproof, but we can not take it all at face value either. P2, like any other product on the cow should be discussed and debated, there has been much spin and anticipation, but what the longer term on this technology remains to be seen.

I for one hope it is worth the wait.

David

OK. I’m taking the Steelers, 23-21 !

[Häakon]

David,

Your points about the rental situation are somewhat valid, but I wasn’t aware that “rental” was this camera’s main market. I’d rent a F900 and I’d rent a Varicam, but I’d buy an HVX. Isn’t that the point? You can now own HD technology for what it cost you to rent it for a week one year ago. The P2 solution for me just seals the deal, as the camera AND stock costs are now covered for my entire run of shooting in the coming year and the only additional cost I’m going to incur by going this route is the price of a few DVD-Rs (pennies) to archive my footage. That’s it. To me, that’s huge.

Although I don’t have to get my material “on the air the same day,” I still appreciate P2’s no-capture approach significantly. I shot a documentary in July on DV and ended up with 50 hours of footage. Instead of being able to sit down and start getting creative, I had to take an entire week’s worth of time just to get the material onto a hard drive. Not only is that incredibly time consuming, but it’s draining and monotonous.

I’m definitely not saying P2 is bulletproof, nor is it for everyone. But I think that a lot of the concerns that many people seem to have are really minor issues or problems that can be avoided or solved without great difficulty. The low capacity is an issue – especially for people in the field or doing event work – but beyond that, there isn’t much to criticize. At least I don’t think there is. Put another way, the benefits strongly outweigh any detriments that the system presents.

[David Battistella]

Very good post.

I guess you could record the interviews to DV (as most of the dialoge is audio anyway. For me, the main drawbacks are. 1. Short record times. 2 extra gear in the field. I wasn;t suggesting teh rental of the HVX, but I would love to be able to rent P2 cards and offload them at the end of a shooting day instead of offloading as the day rolls along. The thing is, the P2 cards seem to be rolling out at a trickle and Panasonic can’t seem to fill orders. ANother month has passed and I still haven’t been able to hold one in my hands in a store here in Canada.

David

OK. I’m taking the Steelers, 23-21 !