Homemade P2 card?

[Emery]

These “home made” P2 cards already exist…

https://www.psism.com/expusbhd.htm

Sure this models data rate is not fast enough but this clearly shows the concept. Not only would this be very easy to build but it would give a TON more storage at a fraction of the cost.

Emery

[Emery]

btw there are Compact Flash cards out there that can sustain the required data rate.

https://www.sandisk.com/retail/ext3-cf.asp

A 4GB card goes for about $450 and the capacity for these cards currently goes up to 8GB. So you could definitely build your own P2 cards cheaper than the Panasonic P2 cards.

Emery

[Chris Baldwin]

Am I going backward here?

What about a PCMCIA card that acts as a converter to firewire?

https://www.psism.com/psifirewire.htm

Bottom line it seems possible for some sort of cheaper work around. Jan does make the point of the P2’s being very reliable and a one piece solution with no battery needed.

But until the P2’s are applicable to long capture filmmakers these might be the way to get the HVX200’s off the shelf…

My wish list would be for FireStore to figure this out and to make the battery life keep up with the camera and the storage capability. Probably more though so I could offload the content when finished recording and then charge up again.

Second would be for us to figure out a battery operated PCMCIA/harddrive solution oursleves.

Third would be a PCMCIA Adapter/Compact Flash Card approach.

And Fourth would be a AC powered or camera powered solution, although admittedly these are not so attractive.

Let’s keep refining a solution for a PCMCIA/Harddrive and then see what the power issues are.

Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com

[Eleventy]

[toke lahti] “How does pro still photographers cope with cf-memory, if that is somehow less “Zero Defect Tolerance”?”

Memorycard-wise, they probably are just as good. Panasonic probably just wants to make sure that the stuff they sell lives up to certain standards of quality( and make a buck for their ‘seal of approval’). Most/all CF cards should be pretty reliable: My collegues at the radio-station have been using them for over 5 years, and never had a defect once.
Harddisk-wise, it’s a different story. They are much more error-prone, susceptible to shocks etc… So if a HDD fails in the field, and you loose a days work, a lot of people are going to get very angry, and there goes the good name of Panasonic. Solution: let a third party design a S-ATA adapter, Mini-HDD, CF-cards, whatever, and if the thing hickups, it’s their good name, not Pana’s. Broadcasters will probably buy Pana’s ‘A-grade’, and Indies cheaper third party solutions.

Looking at the specs for the Sandisk PC-card adapter from the OP, the thing should work up to DVCpro50: 9MB sustained write = 72 mbit. Which leaves a ( very little) bit of headroom in a 50bmps stream for metadata. And they have a 8GB version for around $750,-

[Toke]

I think you are right.
And my guess is that this “panny approved” reliability is gain by testing the card thoroughly before selling it.
Same thing you can do with your cf-cards by yourself.

[Toke]

So when you are in hazardous conditions (nature/outdoor/bad wather/handheld), solid state is more reliable.
By the camera ships, you can get about 5 16GB cf-cards with price of one 8GB p2.
That’s 80GB!
With less demanding enviroment (urban/indoor/studio/static) you could use firestore or bulk fw-disk with pc-card-fw-converter.

Doesn’t sound so bad anymore!

Maybe next HVX model could have those p2 slots changed to cf-slots. Cf takes less space…

[Eleventy]

[toke lahti] “Doesn’t sound so bad anymore! “

I think their is a difference in workflow for ENG news broadcasters and Indies:
ENG: Use the P2 cards. Reliable! Afterwards, dump all material on the redundant video servers ( ie Avid Unity, ….) If you need more space in the field, use the P2-store HDD. That HDD stays in the newsvan, so it doesn’t get too beat-up, like a Firestor-disk attached to the camera.

Indy: use whatever you can to store your media cheaply. Here you have to make the cost/reliability picture yourself. Most likely: something like the FS-4 firestore, connected through firewire( not a PC-card -> firewire adapter), or cheaper P2-card solutions from other manufacturers. Unlikely: a PCMCIA to whatever cable solution ( S-ATA, firewire, …): fragile, dirt in the system, unnecessary( there is already a USB / firewire out)

All this until the P2-cards become dirt-cheap in ’08.

[Chris Baldwin]

Just so I get this straight once and for all…

DVCPro50 needs a 9MBps data write speed?
DVCProHD(100) needs a 14MBps data write speed?

I’ve heard conflicting numbers… Where’s the official graph that shows this?

I’m also very interested to know where the prediction comes from that the 16 gig CF cards will be out in September? I was under the assumption that the Samsung 16 gig CF card that was scheduled to come out was not going to have fast enough write speeds.

So I guess that goes back to the original question. Can we provide some official documentation of the necessary data spec for P2 operation?

On a different note:
I still don’t think an external firewire hard drive conected to a PCMCIA card adapter would be a bad thing. I have some jobs that just want a long capture of multiple hour events from a steady stick shot. I might be able to sell these clients on a Hard Drive captured show so they don’t have to digitize or capture into their system.

Any feedback as to if a PCMCIA firewire adapter to a robust 7200RPM firewire harddrive with greater than 14MBS write speed would or wounld not work?

Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com

[Eleventy]

DVCpro50 = 50Mbps ( bit) = 6.25 MBps( byte)
DVCproHD = 100Mbps = 12.50 MBps

Mind, this is the raw datastream, not including any metadata, or headroom
For example Sony XDCAM:
IMX50 = 50Mbps = 6.25 MBps
including metadata( proxy, …): 60 Mbps
Disk write speed: 72 Mbps ( = 12 Mbps headroom)

An external HDD connected to a PCMCIA-card adapter is a BAD idea: You have to put a very fragile connector into the P2 slots, so you have to keep the dustcover open.
GOOD idea: connect the external disk thru USB2 or firewire.

[Luis Caffesse]

[eLeventy] “DVCpro50 = 50Mbps ( bit) = 6.25 MBps( byte)
DVCproHD = 100Mbps = 12.50 MBps “

I think part of the reason some people are getting confused on the datarate issue is due to the fact that since the HVX is recording to solid state there is no need to record duplicate frames the way the VariCam does to tape.

Because of that, the datarate in 720P mode can vary depending on the frame rate you are shooting at:

720P60 = 100Mbs
720P30 = 50Mbs
720P24 = 40Mbs

In 1080 mode, the camera should always carry a 100Mbs datarate.

Just wanted to clarify that.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas