Barry Green
Forum Replies Created
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The chart is wrong in relation to the spec that the P2 card uses. There are two different specifications for the PCMCIA slot, one is 16-bit (which may be accurately referenced by the chart, I’m not sure) and then there’s 32-bit. The 32-bit slot is 133 megaBYTES per second, and it’s basically a hot-swappable, compact version of a PCI slot. That’s sometimes called Cardbus32, and that’s what the P2 cards use. So look at the speed rating for ATA133, that’s more where the Cardbus32 and P2 card should be listed on that chart.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
I believe it does offer single-frame time-lapse intervalometer functionality. The DVX100 and DVX100A both had a similar type function (but due to tape, you had to record at least 1/2 second of footage per “burst”) but the HVX should be able to do the same thing easier (and single frame) direct to the P2 card.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
[Ron Shook] “Sure, hard drives are cheap, and I could, relatively inexpensively, jury rig something together for myself to back up P2 cards on location, I guess (I’m none too sure about reading these cards and what it takes?)
No need to jury-rig anything. The camera has a USB2 port on it. You can plug an external hard disk right into the camera and have the camera dub the contents of the P2 cards right onto the hard disk, at faster-than-realtime speeds.
But… that doesn’t help me in my quandary about how to service clients that need to walk away with easily transportable media.
Sure it does. Ask your client this — which would they rather receive at the end of the day — a box of tapes that they’ll have to then sort through, log, and digitize (assuming they have the right kind of deck, otherwise they may have to go and rent a deck)… or… hand them an off-the-shelf external hard disk that already has all the clips on it, ready to edit?
That’s the no-brainer of the decade. They’ll take the hard drive in an instant, and slash their postproduction time and costs dramatically. No logging, no digitizing, no deck rental, just immediate editing.
And the hard disk solution is going to be a lot cheaper than tape would have been as well. Hard disks are already cheaper than DVCPRO-HD tape, per gigabyte, and prices will likely fall even further by the time the camera is available.
Where is the value to my problem in the AJ-PCS060G Portable DVCPRO
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[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “Are the results with the $2000 Firestore hard drive guarenteed? Can we get a Firestore “interface” unit to use our own external hard drives with?”
Those are questions for Focus, not Panasonic. I’ve tried to suggest to them to design exactly that type of product (user-interchangeable hard disks, or a controller unit that allows end-user hard disks). From the info that’s been released so far, it sounds like they didn’t take the suggestions. But if they don’t, perhaps someone else will (someone like nNovia with its QuickCapture system, etc).
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
[Harry] “Can anyone help me decypher the lux reading given above? What, in film ASA sensitivity, is F8 at 2000 lux?”
You cannot make a direct comparison, for many reasons, the first of which is that video cameras don’t have linear exposure curves, and the second is that “F8 aat 2000 lux” is not standardized anywhere. Is that at 0dB gain? What’s the IRE output at that level? What’s the noise level? Etc…
But — if you want to presume that Panasonic would judge their cameras by a consistent standard, then consider that the DVX is rated at F11 @ 2000 lux. While we cannot know for sure, it does seem reasonable to expect that we could use Panasonic claims to compare Panasonic cameras. Which would translate into the HVX at somewhere around 320 to 400 ASA.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
[Michael] “Seems to me that what you get with the HVX-200 all the time via P2 (1080pDVCPROHD)… you can only get with the Canon when you’re plugged into a computer or an expensive deck. Is this accurate?
Yes. You cannot record anything on the Canon except HDV. If you want to record footage at higher quality, you’d have to plug the HD-SDI port into some sort of HD-SDI-enabled recording system (such as a $25,000 DVCPRO-HD deck or a $45,000 HDCAM deck).
Can you plug the Canon’s “jack pack” into some sort of Firestore device? Essentially bypassing the HDV/Tape and capturing 4:2:2 1080?
Yes, and no. Yes it’s possible to plug it into something and bypass HDV and get the full 4:2:2 1080 recording. But no, certainly no Firestore type of device. Maybe someday something will be developed, but right now it’d require a RAID of maybe 6 to 8 hard disks to handle recording the HD-SDI data stream.
What’s the difference between Canon’s removable lens and Panasonics/Leicas fixed lens… (As far as the PICTURE QUALITY goes)? Are they in the same ballpark?
We don’t know, and won’t know until the production units are available for testing. The HVX’s lens will have a wider wide angle, and a shorter maximum telephoto. The HVX has true manual control on the zoom, and precision manual focus including feedback in 00-99, feet, and meters. The Canon will have servo-only control, no true manual. It will have focus feedback in 00-99 scale. It’ll also have an automatic focus/zoom preset feature that the HVX won’t. As far as optical quality, that remains to be seen.
Does anyone know what in the hell Canons “24F” is? How would this compare to Panasonics 24P.
Lots of speculation, but no hard facts. A little testing will be necessary to determine how it compares.
And finally- isn
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[Brian SaenzDeViteri] Anyone know if this will be over firewire direct to hard drive, or if it will only be available as an HD-SDI output to converter box to hard drive?
Only through HD-SDI. The only thing you’ll get out of the firewire on the Canon is HDV or DV. If you want uncompressed etc., that’s only available through the HD-SDI port. And it won’t be recorded on “a converter box to a hard drive”, it’d take an array of about 6 to 8 hard disks to handle the 200 megabyte per second data rate.
Of course, the option exists that the converter box could employ a lossless codec (such as LZW or something) that could cut the data rate maybe in half, thus reducing the overall data rate to around 100 megabytes per second, and reducing the attendant RAID requirements to maybe 3 or 4 drives. But either way it isn’t practical or cheap to consider field recording of an HD-SDI data stream anytime soon.
Does it record to tape then playback an output over HD-SDI (like the Sony FX1 and Z1U)?
I don’t know if tape playback also gets output over HD-SDI… I’d assume it does.
Does it record to tape only or is this hard drive and/or solid state based at all, even if it’s over firewire to an external hard drive?
The camera only records on HDV tape. It is probably possible to attach an external hard disk recorder to firewire, such as an HDV-enabled FireStore FS-4. It will only allow recording of HDV in that mode, but at least that would be an alternative to tape.
but if the camera will record DVCPRO HD and/or HDCAM directly to any old external hard drive without a Firestore style device, then it is something at least worth looking at and exploring.”
That’s a complete impossibility. If you want to record DVCPRO-HD or HDCAM, you’d have to hook the camera up through HD-SDI to a $25,000 DVCPRO-HD deck or a $42,000 HDCAM deck. It will not have any capability to record to “any old external hard drive”. Maybe someday someone will develop such a product, but not likely anytime soon.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a) -
[jiri vrozina] “can You tell me how WIDE the lens is??”
What they’ve announced so far is that the lens is 4.5mm (same width as the DVX).At IBC, some of the cameras were actually marked with 4.2mm, so it’s possible that it may even be wider than we thought it would be.
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[Steve Connor] “I think if Panny had the opportunity to put out these cards much cheaper they would. This camera could conceivably “bury” most HDV cameras if the media was cheaper.”
And therein lies the irony in this whole argument. It is a free market economy. If Panasonic is charging $2,000 for something that could conceivably be built by some entrepreneur for $1000 (or $500 or $200 or whatever)… don’t you think they will? I know I’ve entertained trying to contract with someone to build cheaper options. I know of two independent efforts to develop a P2 alternative.
If a recording system can be built and sold less expensively, it will be. If it cannot be done so, then it won’t be.
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[Tech Dir] “However, it seems somewhat strange that Apple can provide a 4GB product for under $250 but that it costs over $2000 for an 8 GB card for what appears to be a similar type of product”
Similar? Understand that the ipod is playing back MP3 data streams. What’s its rated transfer rate? How fast does it need to be? A lot of MP3s are recorded at 256 kbits per second. The P2 card has to support a data transfer rate of 640 megabits per second. That’s two thousand five hundred and sixty TIMES as fast. Not percent faster, but TIMES faster.
I don’t know how fast an ipod nano is. But I know that SD cards come in at least three speed ratings, and the P2 card is using the fastest of the fastest (which are, obviously, the most expensive ones too).
Also keep in mind that there were many reports published that said Samsung would have to cut its price in half to be able to supply the chips to Apple. This is most likely a bare-bones circumstance to get themselves established, seeing as Apple’s initial order was reportedly something like 7.1 million units! The P2 card will sell, what, maybe 100,000 units? Considering it’s likely at least 4 times as fast, and potentially 2,560 times as fast, and only costs about double what the Samsung memory did (before the Apple price slash), it doesn’t really seem that unreasonable…
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a)