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P2: Does It Work for You?
To all HVX-200 droolers like myself,
I’m gonna bring some concerns from several threads out into a new thread in the hopes that someone can add clarity:
B>[Harry] “You WILL be able to record the data streaming from the Firewire output of the camera by hooking it up to Final Cut Pro or another NLE and a laptop or computer firewire port. I checked this some weeks ago with Jan. And, yes, there are battery driven external firewire drives available. It will be a bit of a bore having to put the NLE into record etc but you sound like the kind of enterprising feller who would tackle this for long form projects. You will NOT need P2 cards for this operation and the computer will ingest it direct via Firewire.”
Sure I could do that. The real question is, “why should I have to use such a complex cludge with extra personnel and kit to drag around in a high pressure production environment, with a $6k camcorder that is designed to be highly portable? It doesn’t compute, or as John Stossel would say, “Give me a break.”
[Dale West] “But, when I get calls for DV or HDV or minidv it seems that the producers are looking for a lower cost solution. I’ve been spending some time thinking about how I would have used the 200 on some of my recent shoots and be able to keep up with the shoot and dumping the material off the cards. All I can see is adding a person with the drives and perhaps a computer to do that while my soundtech and I fill ’em up. Most of what I shoot is eng or doc style so having the time between fill ups to download seems like it is going to put a dent in the flow.”
Exactly, a very large dent! Thank Heavens, someone else sees my dilemma clearly.
[Dale West] “I know that I can get more cards but again the costs keep expanding.”
More cards and multiple Firestores, but suddenly a $6k camcorder becomes a $20 or 30k camcorder, and still at the end of the production day you have nothing to hand the producer unless you drag around more kit and that extra production assistant you’re trying to avoid to get the production results off onto something that the client can walk away with. If you must have that sort of rigamorole, you’ve lost the benefits of the $6k camcorder.
[Dale West] “Don’t get me wrong I am looking foward to the P2 or similar answer but would like to wake up tomorrow morning and have all of the variables worked out!!”
Don’t get me wrong either, I’m looking forward to having the choice to shoot DVCPro50 or DVCProHD with a relatively inexpensive camcorder so bad I can taste it. But…, P2 is so expensive at this point in time as to be irrelevant to me, and Firestore is also irrelevant, because it can’t deliver on its own, media that anyone can walk away with.
Come on Panasonic! There’s a real-production world disconnect here, and I have to believe that you-all could solve it relatively easily. You’ve essentially got a computer built into this camcorder that can host the Firestore and stream files via 1394 to it. Computers aren’t that hard to reprogram if that’s what it takes to be able to stream those files to any self-powered 1394 compact hard drive that can sell for under $200, that I attach to the camera or stick in my pocket. I need to be able to be able to buy into the promise of IT commodity pricing, and 3rd parties would fall all over themselves to supply such a drive to me. I can format this drive in the studio before the shoot, and I can push 2 buttons to start recording far easier than I can drag a computer station and someone to run it along to meet my needs. I don’t need a recording device that you could drive a truck over because I take care of my kit. I need something to hand the client without pushing the cost and complexity of production with this camcorder into the stratosphere, until P2 can meet those needs. This I can sell to clients, because it’s not much different or more costly than the tape based workflow that they are familiar with, with the tremendous advantage of file import rather than image capture into the NLE.
If the camcorder can already do this, then I’ll be the very first to apologize for this rant and jump for joy. If it can’t, then make it happen, and start shipping this camcorder by the boat rather than container load.
Ron Shook
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1 Reply
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I have crunched the numbers for a major cable network show. It is a 12 episode 1 hour show. It consists of 8 offline and 1 online.
The cost is huge and the workflow is rather involved.
For now, until P2 reaches 32 GB at $800 a pop or less, it is not the medium I would recommend.
I am also helping on a show shot on rented Varicams with 6 edit rooms and 1 ingest station. Working well and cost is less compared to the infustructure needed for an all P2 environment.
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