Tapeless Workflow For Freelancers

[Steve Wargo]

24 months

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
Sony EX-1 has arrived and it’s fascinating.

[Emre Tufekci s.o.a.]

I think this is also a good place to discuss business investments as it is Business and marketing. I personally have not seen any effects to P2 becoming outdated (in fact I thinks Panasonic is making more and more modifications and improvements as it introduces new systems like the hvx-3000).

But like any venture I buy what I need, when I need it. I dont buy it for the future or I dont wait for the future to arrive. If my clients stop asking for beta sp masters, my uvw-1400 will go out the door next day. If P2 cameras are replaced by holographic discs, adios.

Everything I bought has either paid for itself or got ejected right away. There will always be “the next thing”. My $3000 dual hard drive, 4 gb ram, hd-dvd recording, sentient laptop I bought 6 months ago is 2 generations behind already…lol

Cheers,

Emre
http://www.productionpit.com
Boxx Tech PC, dual-dual AMD 2.0,4BG ram,Avidexpress HD w/Mojo,UVW-1800,DSR-25, Adobe Premium CS3.Steadicam OP/Owner.

“Creative cow is udder madness.”

[Ron Lindeboom]

Steve Wargo believes 24 months and I hate to disagree with him but having watched the P2 forum closely since it went online as but a scrawny calf on trembling legs, I think it’s more 12 to 18 months. (This, based on the rate of growth and the way that it’s accelerated as development and adoption have become more pronounced.)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Steve Wargo]

Panasonic has bet the bank on P2. Technology is moving on.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
Sony EX-1 has arrived and it’s fascinating.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Steve Wargo] “Panasonic has bet the bank on P2. Technology is moving on.”

Yes, they have and their sales and market incursion have been at record levels with P2. Also, if some other form of tapeless media proves to be the hands-down winner and there is a marked advantage for both the end-user and Panasonic, they wouldn’t have a hard time switching.

My point is that Panasonic’s sales started taking off radically with the AG-DVX100 series and the P2 cameras have sold very well and they are not having any problem selling them.

I am sure that the new “Baby CineAlta” EX1 is a direct result of how well the P2 sales have been.

Will EX1 sales affect the sales of P2? Quite likely and I think even Panasonic would admit that. But Panasonic has been proving quite markedly that they can take part of a market that was once mostly Sony-only.

The Varicam series and the P2 series have done for Panasonic what they never achieved before. I wouldn’t write them off so easily, Steve.

I am glad to hear you are healing up following your disastrous accident. Both Kathlyn and I wish you all the best in 2008 and hope that you grow even stronger in the days ahead.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?

[Steve Wargo]

I’m not saying that P-2 isn’t going to stay. What I am saying is that it’s impossible to place any time frame on any current technology. With P2, SxS, BluRay, Compact Flash, and who knows, halographic discs???? The Firestore folks figured that small, video specific hard drives would go for quite a while but now what? You can get 100 Gb for about 2 grand and the P2 & SxS cards are way more expensive than that.

Back in ’98, I took out a $5000 loan to purchase the second 32 Gigs of SCSI for my D-Vision. SCSI was king then but we could only dream about the future and new technology. The way technology increases today, I wouldn’t want to be that industry. Look what’s happened to technology and prices in only the last 10 years. the next 10 will be a real circus. There is a lot of money hanging in the balance.

And thanks for the kind words on my recovery, Ron. I’ve had a lot of continuing support from my friends and co-workers. A number of friends from the COW sent their support.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
Sony EX-1 has arrived and it’s fascinating.

[Craig Seeman]

[Emre Tufekci] “XDCAM EX: Should provide similar workflows as the P2 “

I’m surprised no one mentioned the EX1 SxS field workflow options.

EX1 with SxS is a different beast than P2 (and the codecs on them). Bring a laptop with Express slot to the shoot.

SxS offload can be 10x real time. Copy 50 minutes of video from a 16GB card in 5 minutes give or take.

Burn burn clips on to DVD-DL along with Sony’s free Clip Browser and any client with a reasonable computer can playback the master clips. No deck or special playback device needed. BTW I’ve found that VLC, a free player that works on Mac Windows and many forms of Unix
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Can playback the files too. This is leagues ahead of dealing with tape/deck/variant compatibility issue.

Change the .mp4 extension of the file to .ts and burn right on to a Blu-ray disc and the client can playback those clips on their Blu-ray player or PS3 to their HDTV. $300-$400 Blu-ray player to HDTV rather than an expensive deck or NLE with the correct codec. You’ll need to bring an external Blu-ray burner to the shoot though.

On location 10x ingest than burn to optical disc. With an assistant the client can walk away with the disc after that last disc is burned. Even without an assistant, depending on the logistics, you can ingest and start the burn and get right back to shooting.

Oh and buy the way the client walks with the disc and you have another copy on your hard drive . . . or burn another set of discs as protections.

[Mike Cohen]

I think Steve is right. Like most new technologies, they are expensive for the first few years. Flash media gets cheaper by the day.
You can buy an 8gig USB thumb drive for what you used to pay for a 1 gig.
The first SCSI 9gig drive I bought cost $3000, the last Ultra SCSI 2 32 gig drive I bought on ebay for $50.
In a couple of years there will be flash media in the hundreds of gigs, and then suddenly the next technology will come along and we will start all over again.
Flash forward to 2015 – Sony’s new SuperDuperHD 4K camera takes 2TB flash media – their proprietary media costs $1200. Everyone complains. Five years later it will be cheap because the next technology will be out, yadda..yadda..yadda.

Now if we could just avoid the total collapse of the world Copper supply we will be all set…!

Mike