P2 pricing

[Rennie Klymyk]

These are out in 32Gb now as well.

The one sony and sandisc are building for the xdcam-handicam are aiming at 800mbps speeds.

https://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=3770

One thing for sure, it’s only going to get better for us.

[Ron Thompson]

B&H is actually listing it for $899…. but I guess that’s besides the point.
Would the cameras be compatible with the cards??

[John Foley]

Heres the splain’ – That P2 device has 4 memory “cards”,inside and a chip that allows them to be RAIDed for speed sake. Just like a disk system RAID, this P2 device also has the bandwidth to capture up to 1080p frames.

Please visit http://www.thefinalcutstore.com for all your Final Cut needs.

[David S.]

That would be megaBITS per second, not megaBYTES per second.

Things will shake out.

Panasonic has had a monopoly on p2 cards and with Hoodman in and Maxell rumored, competition will improve pricing.

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,
First the cost of the 16GB card is $900 List. Second, should the Hoodman device work as well, that is performance wise it may impact pricing, but frankly they are talking about 640Mbs, which is what the P2 can offer. They may have some performance but not the same performance. This would be fine for the short haul, but we all know that systems get faster and faster and pretty soon a low transfer rate is the slowest thing in the system. The P2 Card right now is still the fastest piece in the system.

The good news here is that the 16GB card is bein introduced at a price below that of the 8GB card’s introductory prices.

It is happening, the costs are coming down, and anyone that is usiing their P2 card knows, the price goes down every time they use it.

Best,

Jan

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

[Harryd]

Hi, Jan,

True enough, I know the P2 cards are raided, and I like the workflow. But this is all about datarate and memory price, and to go back to my original point – the PCMCIA bus at 132 MBps is almost half the speed of Expresscard, yet the Expresscard memory modules are about 1/4th the price.

With PCMCIA being about what – 12 years old? – and flash memory being cheaper than dirt (I just got a new 2GB 150X SD card for $20), I can’t get my mind around why P2 cards still remain high in price.

I just don’t get why, considering the prices of the hardware and the age of it all, that the P2 prices are so high.

My Big Point: Sony’s coming on with memory card recording, which looks to be cheaper and promising. P2 prices are holding back P2 adoption, and that’s a shame. If Sony combines native 1920×1080 chips in a tapeless package at a low price, watch out.

But it’s about time for Panasonic to make a major mistake and lose market share. Isn’t that what all companies do nowadays? Be greedy and lose it all? Is Panasonic next?

HarryD

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[HarryD] “True enough, I know the P2 cards are raided, and I like the workflow. But this is all about datarate and memory price, and to go back to my original point – the PCMCIA bus at 132 MBps is almost half the speed of Expresscard, yet the Expresscard memory modules are about 1/4th the price.”

And the express card is unproven for what we do which is 100Mbs sustained along with ECC and other overhead. The Express card camera that Sony is introducing is only having to write 35Mbs at max. So the point is that when you start to make a family of products you have to find a standard that is stable and is not viable to market fluxes and keep in mind we started this 4 years ago.

As far as the price the cards are built in a clean room and there are 5 QC check points in the process. The cards we use are a level 7 card which is the most stringent card available. These are the most perfect cards, and they have a 20MB transfer speed. If we move the PCMCIA slot out of the computer and move to say the 1394 bus from a P2 device there is room for improved speed there. The PCMCIA is only a connector to us.

[HarryD] “With PCMCIA being about what – 12 years old? – and flash memory being cheaper than dirt (I just got a new 2GB 150X SD card for $20), I can’t get my mind around why P2 cards still remain high in price.”

Only because you have not seen them made. I have and so I can understand. They are not made by a machine. They are made by hand, and as I said there is a lot of testing that goes on with these cards all through the process. The good news is that there has been a price decrease with the 8 GB now at $700 and the upcoming 16GB at $900

[HarryD] “I just don’t get why, considering the prices of the hardware and the age of it all, that the P2 prices are so high. “

It is a guarantee of quality performance over the lifetime of the product. And if you count the number of times you will be able to reuse the P2 card, they are not very expensive at all. And while I am sure you will just say hey that is not the point, it is the point. The fact is that on your 50,000th use, it will be as reliable as the first.

[HarryD] “My Big Point: Sony’s coming on with memory card recording, which looks to be cheaper and promising. P2 prices are holding back P2 adoption, and that’s a shame. If Sony combines native 1920×1080 chips in a tapeless package at a low price, watch out.”

But it is still an HDV camera recording 18MBS, 25Mbs, or 35Mbs and it is still a 4:2:0 camera. And if the adpotion of P2 got any greater or faster our Back-orders would grow larger than they have as we are selling every single one we can make.

[HarryD] “But it’s about time for Panasonic to make a major mistake and lose market share. Isn’t that what all companies do nowadays? Be greedy and lose it all? Is Panasonic next? “

And you know this remark is the bait that made me write. In bringing memory recording to the market and into the production arena, we have wedded our customer to the IT industry and not to a machine centric domain.

By this I mean for $119 you can purchase a Duel Adapter for the PCMCIA slot to Express card slot and that my friend is your “deck” and that is only needed if you don’t happen to have a computer that has a PCMCIA slot. I will be recieving my new computer next week and it still has a P2 slot, and in fact 2 of them. Point is I do not need a fancy machine to make it work. And we did this starting 4 years ago. Sony is now going to deliver a memory option, and I repeat going to deliver, in as they have not delivered anything yet. These are the same folks that said Memory is not the way to go and if you want the really cool stuff, the 2/3″ camera, you have to go to their propriety disc. Hey with the P2 is is in the IT domain the minute it is recorded and the IT domain is one that is driven by Moore’s Law.

Point is that if we were greedy we would have continued trying to find a format/device that required other expensive Panasonic only machines to make it all work well. In reality we gave up the VTR business by doing P2. Do we have some machines that play P2 and act like VTRs, sure, but you don’t have to buy them. Heck you don’t have to buy anything more than the camera.

Best regards,

Jan

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

[Barry Green]

[HarryD] “the PCMCIA bus at 132 MBps is almost half the speed of Expresscard, yet the Expresscard memory modules are about 1/4th the price.”

Yes, the top speed of the PCMCIA bus is half the maximum speed of the ExpressCard bus, but the ExpressCard SSDs you’re talking about are less than half the speed of a P2 card.

There’s a lot of misinformation flying about because of the ExpressCard bus’s speed; people think this will make for faster memory transfers. The fact of the matter is, the PCMCIA bus is not the limiting factor! The P2 card runs at 80 megabytes per second, the Lexar ExpressCard SSD runs at 30 megabytes per second (250 megabits per second). Just because the ExpressCard bus is capable of a theoretical top speed twice as fast as PCMCIA, that SSD isn’t going to go any faster than 30mbps. It’s like if you took a 27mph-top-speed moped and put it on the freeway, it’s still not going any faster than 27mph.

So the Lexar 8GB SSD is about 1/3 the speed of the 8GB P2 card, and about 1/3 the price. Doesn’t seem all that out of line. And again, multiple sources of cards are coming; Hoodman’s H2 card is due next month, and there was another manufacturer being buzzed about on the NAB floor; I don’t remember exactly who but I think it was the “Venom” card or something like that. Competition will make sure that the customer is getting the best value possible.

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[Harryd]

Hi, Jan and Barry,

Jan, sorry if I tweaked you with that comment. You may not realize it, but we know each other face-to-face and I have used and like Panasonic cameras for all my long career. I am now invested in P2. So, it concerns me about P2 obsolescence. And thanks for the info on the manufacturing process. It’s enlightening. I was only saying that as a given technology matures, the prices usually drop dramatically. We’ve only seen this with P2 very recently, I suspect in reaction to other things appearing in the market, not the manufacturing become more efficient. Hence, I still believe the onus to be on Panasonic. But allow me to be clear: it’s a good product; however, if made cheaper will get more people into “the tent.”

Barry: thanks for your comments. I’m not really arguing for a switch to ExpressCard (although I don’t understand why Panasonic didn’t use it in the first place – it was around 4 years ago). As I said, I’m concerned about P2 having “legs” into the future, especially given that we see laptop makers moving steadily away from PCMCIA.

I like P2 a lot; not having to deal with a tape drive is like heaven! Of course, I haven’t lost a card or drive in field yet, either (but I have both lost and damaged tapes, so to me it’s the same thing). But I feel that P2 is generally more robust than a 1/4″ or 1/2″ piece of mylar. And I swear, I love not having to worry about having enough tape on the shoot anymore. It’s the little things… 🙂

Thanks,

HarryD

[David Battistella]

Take a look at RED. 320 Gig raid capturing 4k images for $900. I’m sure P2 will be around for abiut ten more minutes.

David

Peace and Love 🙂
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