P2 DVCPRO, 50, HD recording times chart?

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “Is there any word on if we can take the firewire out of the HVX200 and put that into a regular firewire external hard drive (Lacie, Maxtor, Western Digital, etc) for recording? Or do we have to go into a laptop then to an external drive? Or do we have to use a Focus Enhancements style external drive?”

Hi Brian,

I feel as though I have asnwered this before but that may just be a memory of my saying it to someone; keep in mind there are no new questions about this camera. I just keep answering the same ones. 😉

Anyhow a plain firewire drive would need to have direction to go into record and this is not possible, however you should be able to transfer to a firewire drive from a P2 card after recording. You could record to a laptop under a Capture Now scenario or something like the Firestore that has DTE capability.

Hope that helps,

Jan

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

[Brian Deviteri]

Not to throw fuel on this fire, but I work with DVCPRO a lot. A client of mine uses a lot of Panasonic AJ-D450 decks (yes, the ones without firewire) to record a lot of event video. Generally there are no “stops” or pauses while recording and they use 2-hour loads to record about 8-12 hours per day to two separate decks. They are now using 1-pass and 2-pass tapes to record in the field and I have to say I am EXTREMELY surprised there has not been any dropout on these tapes. An engineer told me that you can probably easily get 4-5 passes on the tapes (with this style of “dub” recording) but recommended no more than 3-4 at most. So the tape is definitely reusable, but to what extent for sure, can anyone really say with absolute certainty?

[Brian Deviteri]

thanks for the formula, that will help tremendously!

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “An engineer told me that you can probably easily get 4-5 passes on the tapes (with this style of “dub” recording) but recommended no more than 3-4 at most. So the tape is definitely reusable, but to what extent for sure, can anyone really say with absolute certainty?”

But Brian, those are DVCPRO tapes, Metal Particle, completely different than Metal Evaporated which is what the HDV, and DV are based on. In fact the DVCPRO can go for many more passes than 4. I have a tape I have play for now six years as it tends to prove my point, I still do not have a drop out on it. But that is DVCPRO, MP. So no fuel on the fire at all. If we put a DVCPRO HD tape mechanism in the HVX200 it would immediately cost $16,000 more and would grow to a much larger size.

Hope that helps,

jan

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

[Brian Deviteri]

Maybe we should post an FAQ with all of your answers? 🙂

I think I remember reading awhile back from a lot of people that said this camera should be able to send the command out to record to any firewire drive because it is based on a Linux operating system, but it looks as if that is no longer the case. Unfortunately for the people questioning a “cheaper” alternative to the P2 cards, it does not look they will have an option outside of a 3rd party partner solution. Hopefully the Focus Enhancement people will come up with a cheaper solution or else someone can find a way to adapt a PCMCIA (PC Card) external hard drive to work as a really large P2 card… Granted, this would only work for studio style shooting or event coverage with a tripod, but at least it could satisfy some people’s needs.

[David Battistella]

Jan,

Thanks for answering allo f these questions, it is great that you do. How is Panasonic marketing this camera? To me it seems that it is a DV camera all the time first with HD capabilities. I would say that this would be a greeat companion camera to a varicam, but there are limitations to it’s use. I’m not sure you would tell Varicam owners to carry a laptop with them on field shoots to record on to, nor would they expect that with a camera that costs 10x as much.

I think that this is the steroids version of the 100A. If I bought it, it easily replaces my DVX100A and gives me very limited SD and HD recording capability, but I can certainly see it as a perfect camera for indy filmmaking for sure and I am sure we will see films shot in this format.

Here is a question. Let’s say I am shooting DV and I want some varicam style sloomo to blend into my production. Can I record those shots on the P2 cards with variable frame rates or can I just record those shots to tape?

David

[Brian Deviteri]

Personally I am not even considering HDV as a solution for low-cost HD production. I’m not exactly confident in the fact that it is writing an MPEG-2 to tape… just one of my major concerns with HDV. That is why I am looking at other options.

Like many people, I am considering the HVX200 as a viable option, but I have to look at my budget. Originally, that is what led me to this first post. I wanted to know what recording times I could get on the P2 cards using different frame rates and different frame sizes and how much “memory” per minute I would be using for each flavor of the DVCPRO HD format. I am looking into less expensive options for field recording and archiving my data files. The Firestore-style solutions might work temporarily until the P2 card prices come down, but I’m still searching for workflow options without the Firestore. I like the idea of recording to a laptop or directly to an external hard drive, but I’d really like to see the camera act as the computer without needing the Firestore. Personally, I doubt I’ll be able to afford more than two of the 8GB P2 cards (if I can even get that) until the price comes down drastically (hopefully in about a year). I get the feeling a lot of people are in the same boat I am in – how do you make this work within your budget?

I think we are all trying to make this work because we all see this camera as a real solution, but we are all used to the very cheap costs of tape. Even regular DVCPRO tape is pretty cheap and it’s achievable, something that we are all thinking about now as well. The LTO option right now seems like the cheapest alternative to purchasing a lot of hard drives, but the cheapest drive is over $5000.

If the camera lives up to all of the hype and the specs on paper, I will eventually be getting one. I just need to work out all of the other details before I do that.

[Brian Deviteri]

doing the math, does 1080/24p have the same rate as 1080/30p? doesn’t make sense if it does…

[David Battistella]

Brian,

I am thinking about it fromthe same perspective you are and in the short term at least it seem s very cumbersome to be hauling everything around with you. I stillthink it would be cheaper to iunvest in a Varicam for HD aquisition and work in the same manner.

P2 cards are a very very smart idea, but as I said in a previous post I think you will see the HD part of the camera used in very controlled situations.

What do you hand the client at the end of a shoot if you have been hired to shoot for a day? Does this speed things up?

David

[Brian Deviteri]

you could have the client pay for all the P2 cards and keep them all… it’s an option… or else maybe a P2 store drive. they can have digital copies of all the files in their hands at the end of a shoot and you can keep copies too.