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Some Mathmatics on P2 Cards
PLEASE CHECK MY MATH AS I’M NO MATHEMATICIAN! This looks so good I fear I’m doing something wrong!
The 8GB P2 card sells for $2000.00 and can be written 100,000 times (I’ve seen some claims of 150,000) according to Panasonics web site. At 1080i/60 or 720p/60 you get 8 minutes on the card. Therefore you can load 800,000 minutes of this resolution on this card during it’s lifetime. (8 minutes X 100,000 writes)
8GB P2 = 800,000 minutes
For easy math lets say the card costs 200,000cents (instead of $2000.00)
800,000 minutes
200,000 cents = 1/4 cents per minute.Fuji FJ-DVPHD64 Tape stock gives you 32 minutes recording at this same video resolution at a cost of $49.80 each. This is aproximatly $1.50 per minute in comparison!
Now lets look at DV resolution.
The 8GB P2 card holds 32 minutes of DV or DVCPRO 25 video X100,000 write times = 3,200,000 minutes for the cards life.
3,200,000 minutes
**200,000 cents = 1/16 cents per minute.Average cost of a 60 minute DV tape is $4.00 = 7 cents per minute.
Now consider the drum/head hours of the camera as well as the tape transport hours and the time you will save logging linear tape into your system.
P2 cards can only be plugged in and out of the slots aprox. 32,000 times before the contacts begin to wear out so it would be wise to download your data through firewire when ever possible to insure you will get the full 100,000 writes on the cards before the contacts wear out.
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38 Replies
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uhm – how P2 are you planning to buy? I can buy 1 tape for 60 minutes at $4.
P2 may cost cheaper in the long, long, long run. But the initial investment is by far larger than tape.
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Renne,
your math looks good to me, but I think it gets even better. People have been saying $2000 for an 8 gig card, but I believe it’s actually $1700.
Also, you can get around 20 minutes of DVCPROHD 720/24p on an 8 gig card which is what we’ll be shooting most of the time.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
True, but the camera itself is an investment that costs thousands less than it should. Panasonic could have charged $8000 for this camera, and it would’ve been a fair price. But instead they charged 6000, and let you buy your own P2 cards.
Remeber that the P2 is only $1000 more than the Canon XL2 and the Sony Z1U, and it looks like it is twice the camera that they are. So, you make up for the cost in P2 cards by getting a great camera for thousands less than you really should be.
Also, it silly to compare P2 to mini dv tape. This is the mistake everybody makes. P2 HOLDS DVCPRO HD FOOTAGE. Mini dv holds mini dv. If you want to do a true comparison, compare P2 to DVCPRO HD tape and the cost of an HD deck. Then you’ll fully appreciate what a deal P2 really is.
This was, I think, Panasonic’s only mistake. They should’ve priced the camera at $8000 and included an 8 gig P2 cards, because otherwise everybody will just cry and complain about buying a P2 card, immediatly forgetting what a great deal the camera itself was in the first place.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Its true, the P2 thing is mind blowingly expensive.
I will not go on a shoot without 2 hours of tape. 1 hour interview 1 hour b roll.
Last I looked the Panasonic site has $1800 for a 4 gig card I guess that
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You are not alone, buddy. Your assumptions involving P2 cards costing $50,000 on a shoot has been voiced many times by many peeps on this board, and been replied to by the moderators, Jan from Panasonic, myself, and many others. I humbly suggest you search the past posts to find out how the workflow for the P2 might actually work in practice. It’s actually very do-able. Panasonic owns the prosumer market. Have a little faith that they’re gonna make it work for people like us.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
[jeremiah black] “Panasonic owns the prosumer market. Have a little faith that they’re gonna make it work for people like us.”
Heh, heh. No matter how you look at it, if you’re used to uninterrupted filming of an hour or so at a time, then P2 is unsuitable at present. Buy a Sony Z1.
Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
http://www.controversifilms.co.za
http://www.indv.co.za -
Yes, that’s true.
The Sony Z1 is great camcorder for shooting weddings and rodeos.
Oh, yeah don’t forget the $3500 for the deck!
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Shoot P2, dump to hard drive (or even hard drive while recording) and then archive to optical disc or computer backup tape, which is much cheaper than HD Video tape.
You don’t use P2 like tape, you don’t think of P2 as tape, and you’ve just got to get rid of the tape mentality, just as digital photographers have ditched film. Yes you can’t see the full workflow, and yes, you think it will be too expensive. If you’re out shooting all day, the $20,000+ that a tape deck for the Varicam costs will buy a lot of P2 cards.
Camera is $6k. With two 8GB cards is $10k. I don’t see you ever needing more cards than that, or by the time you do, they’ll be a quater of the price.
Remember that NLE’s would never work – hard drives cost too much, and tape-to-tape linear is what people want and is so much easier and everything like colour correction is real time etc. etc. etc. Tape is as dead as the linear editing system. Just walked around NAB today and didn’t see one linear edit system, but saw lots of non-tape acquisition….
Basically, solid state recording is coming wether you like it or not….
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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I think that by the time the HVX200 is available ther’ll be direct to disc solutions for such situations. No need to go the Z1 HDV route if you can wait a few months. I also suspect that the picture on the 200 will be somewhat better….
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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It’s not a deck – it’s a camera without a lens. It’s not a proper deck mechanism, doesn’t take “big” tapes and really, for the price, you’re better off getting a second HDV camera, and then you’ve either got a spare, or b-roll.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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