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Considering a HVX200 purchase
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[Lars Wikstrom] “I got to say that I don’t think I would buy a 64 gig card.”
Agreed in many situations 64gb may be more than necessary but, Justin is shooting long form and multicam. Early on with P2 you could barely do that work with this system and then with a dedicated assistant running around swapping and dumping cards it became feasible. There is enough chaos and confusion going on on some sets that remembering which cards were off loaded and which ones weren’t could be a hazard too. With 64gb cards this is a non issue. Even with 64gb or 128gb cards installed there is nothing stopping you from pulling and dumping the card at 16gb or 32gb capacity unless you need to continue shooting because your assistant hasn’t shown up with your fresh card on time. Acquisition is #1 and Archiving is #2. Any tools that aid in trouble free acquisition are good things. Underwater, air to air, feature films, war zone shooting, or any other hostile environment will all benefit the bigger cards for acquisition. I have a long form multicam shoot coming up and I wish I had some 64Gb cards for it.
My 1st CF card was $450.00 and it was 96MB. Today I can get several super high performance 8GB cards for that money. Do I shoot till they are full? No, I dump the files off after the shoot and often don’t bother re-formatting them unless I know I will need all the space for the next project. I’ll probably do similar with the 64 and 128GB cards (we can actually set the cam to rewrite the earlier footage). I also have new uses for my CF cards. I transport files to labs or other workstations.
The cards are continually getting less and less expensive so hopefully someday 128gb cards will be a few hundred bucks. Maybe they will reach 1 TB and are so cheap we can use them for archiving. Don’t forget the 1st 2 and 4gb P2 cards were $2500.00 ea.!
Your solution will work for backup in these capacities as will more solutions as they emerge. Many folks have been backing up to bluray for some time now and hopefully DL BE discs will come down in price to where DL dvd discs are now. I’m currently using HDD’s.
“everything is broken” ……Bob Dylan
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I agree, for some people it will be great. Every one uses different work flows that best suits the style of recording. I was just speaking from my experience and my work flow. I purposely keep my system to 1 terabyte raid with a 1 terabyte FireWire back up drive that Retrospect backs up to automatically every morning at 4am. I keep a 160 gig partition for finished projects and when that fills up I write and Exabyte tape back up.
Do you give the clients the hard drive when finished or do you keep it?
-Lars
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Lars,
I offer the hard drives to the clients however I underscore why it makes more sense for me to keep them. I’ve never had a client take a hard drive at the end of a project. They know there’s not much they can do with what’s on the drive. This in turn will lead to more business for me down the road because they have to come to me to get access to the material again.
JimJim Carswell
Spyhop Productions, Inc.
Savannah, GA
http://www.spyhopproductions.com -
That makes a heck of a lot of sense. Thank you. For my multicam shoots that may be a better option seeing as how I don’t have extra hands available to transfer footage during the shoot.
“Sorry, I misunderstood. You actually can get 2 hours per card with the AVC-I codec @ 50mbs so this whole capacity thing is getting confusing.”
First, is that 2 hours per 32GB card? So I may only need 1 card? Second, what is the disadvantage of shooting AVC-I codec at 50 MBS?? My guess is it is slightly more compressed or something, but it will still be a huge step up from my current DCR-VX2100, right?
1 final question for everyone who owns these cameras…
I do a lot of zooms that slowly creep in from a standstill and ramp up smoothly and down smoothly in speed. This is the reason I chose a Sony over Panasonic last time… The zoom on the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and Canon XL1 seemed to “step up” speeds slightly rather than slowly increment in speed. Has the zoom been improved in the HVX-200 over the DVX series??? If so, I will probably buy one today. If not, I have to weigh the pros and cons of limiting my shooting style.
INCREDIBLY great answers to my question! Thank you all!
Justin.
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[Justin Hawley] “irst, is that 2 hours per 32GB card? So I may only need 1 card? Second, what is the disadvantage of shooting AVC-I codec at 50 MBS?? My guess is it is slightly more compressed or something, but it will still be a huge step up from my current DCR-VX2100, right?
“I’m sorry, the whole thread is getting off topic because of the discussion of the card capacity.
To clarify a few things:
The HVX200 doesn’t record in the AVC-I codec. I referred to it just because Panasonic now uses it in their capacity charts but it is only available in the higher end more recent cameras at this time. Although the HVX200 records in 81 different formats AVC-I is not one of them. On the 32GB P2 cards available today you can record aprox:32 minutes in DVCPRO HD
80 minutes in DVCPRO HD 720 24p native
64 minutes in DVCPRO 50
128 minutes in DVCPRO[Justin Hawley] “I do a lot of zooms that slowly creep in from a standstill and ramp up smoothly and down smoothly in speed. “
I have barely ever used a DVX100 but I can tell you the HVX200 has a 3 position switch to give you 3 base speeds on the zoom rocker. This allows for very slow creeps. A lot of users still like the Bebob controllers for even more control.
[Justin Hawley] “If so, I will probably buy one today. If not, I have to weigh the pros and cons of limiting my shooting style. “
If you need the camera fast there is no time like the present to buy one and let it start earning you money. However if you can wait till April 15th you may see some announcements at nab for new offerings.
“everything is broken” ……Bob Dylan
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