[Eleventy]

Try a Quicktime Reference. No transcoding, so no quality loss, and very quick

[Eleventy]

For a cheaper LANshare alternative, have a look at EditShare ( http://www.editshare.com ). It’s the only non-avid storage that is Avid aware. Basic versions can handle 10 DV25 streams

[Eleventy]

I played with it for about fifteen minutes with a japanese tech guy. Good build, very rugged, similar to a DVCpro tape fieldeditor. Great for professional I/O ( HD/SDI,…). The unit even has a build in NLE for editing: you can call up a basic timelineview on the monitor, and move shots around and trim audio tracks.

Cons in my opinion: If you want to use it as a deck for long recordings, you’re gonna need a lot of P2 cards. Although, since it has firewire and USB, it should be possible to connect a Firestore. Also, for editing, if you don’t need the I/O, you probably better of with a laptop which has more functionality for a fraction of the price. If you’re going IT, better do it all the way…

[Eleventy]

I’ve got a Kata pouch that is specialy designed to hold 4 P2 cards, but you might cram in 6 I think. It even has a P2 logo on the front. Problem is, I can’t find it online for sale anywhere. It’s labeled P-31-PANASONIC, but it’s not on there site anywhere. It looks very similar to the P-32 on the site, except for specialy designed holders insite.

[Eleventy]

We’ve only looked at the proxy workflow with XDcam SD( not HD) and DV25, and we weren’t that impressed:
-Video quality: it IS low res, and our editors weren’t keen on the quality. For example, it was impossible to see if a shot was in focus or just out of focus. We did several tests, and asked about 10 different editors to judge which clip was sharp, and which one wasn’t. No one could tell. Sometimes people thought it was sharp, when it wasn’t and vice versa.
-Audio: it’s 8Khz, and has similar issues as video. It’s sometimes difficult and tiering cutting soundbites sharply.
-The systems ( HP xw8200’s) weren’t very responsive, especially when shuttling and playing in reverse.
-Haven’t seen XDCam HD footage, but I have some serious doubts.

Panasonic does have an elegant proxy workflow in Avid: Full resolution is so fluent and easy, it doesn’t need one! XDCam needs a proxy version, not because of limiting diskspace, but for incredible slow import speeds. P2 doesn’t need any importing time, just plug in a card or a Harddisk ( like the P2-Store, or the FireStore FS-100).

Before you buy anything( Panasonic or Sony), make sure you have actually seen the whole workflow: recording, importing, editing with proxies, transcoding,…. And make sure it works with your NLE ( avid). Don’t believe brochures and salespeople, only your own eyes.

[Eleventy]

[Mike Most] “Not to demean what you’re saying, but it sounds to me like a rather silly and self serving rationalization. The XDCam player is a full editing machine, it understands timecode, it can deal with the file structure and directory structure that the XDCam format supplies, and it is directly supported by Sony’s professional video division. Just because the media is physically similar doesn’t mean it isn’t a different, professional, and thus limited audience product.”

I agree. The XDCam player isn’t overpriced for what it is. Point is that you need the player for editing. Yes, you can use your camera, but then the camera is tied down, and this one works at half speed( which is incredibly slow compared to P2). This adds an extra 11K$ to your investment. With P2, the most expensive option is the 5-card reader for 2K$, or you can get by with any laptop with a PCMCIA-slot or a 100$ PCMCIA-PCI card for PC.

[Eleventy]

We had to decide between XDCam and P2 a few months ago.

It all depends on what you want to use it for:

If it’s for news, or anything which has/requires a fast turn-around, don’t doubt, go for P2. The main drawback of XDCam, is that it is painfully slow to edit: all images have to be imported, just like capturing from betaSP. Sony promises import speeds up to 5.5x realtime DV25, but in reality typical import speeds hover around realtime( you can get up to 4xrealtime if it is a 1 hour long clip, but 10 seconds shots drop it down to 1x or 2x realtime). And forget about the proxies: only some NLE’s support them, and quality is borderline: it is impossible to see if a shot is in focus or just out. Also, finding a soundbite with proxy-audio will drive you nuts. So, in fact, there is hardly any speed advantage over capturing BetaSP. P2 on the other hand is lighnting fast: you can edit directly from the cards, so no importing/capturing time. Edit the piece and get it on air. Afterwards, after the rush, you have to achive to some medium. Or, when using a central storage, import speeds are much faster: we have achieved sustained speeds of 13x realtime DV25. A 30min card takes less than 3 minutes to copy.

If its for long form( documentaries,…), you can choose either. The problem with P2 is that it requires everybody to complety rethink their workflow. You can compare it to press photographers who changed to digital camera’s a few years ago. In the beginning nobody believed that a memory-card would be workable( “too expensive to archive those cards”, “too fragile”, ….). The nice thing about XDCam, is that it’s ‘comfortable’: we all know ( and hate) the workflow of logging and capturing footage before starting to edit.

We went with P2, and never looked back.
If you need more info, mail me.

eLeventy

[Eleventy]

[Paul Whishaw] “Am I really as dumb as this thing is making me feel? I can’t even get the bloody thing to turn off. Hold the power button down for 3 seconds? Wait for the beeps? I get no beeps and the unit keeps turning itself back on. I’m getting charging errors and flashing red lights and it’s a little frustrating.”

Yes, you are that dumb 🙂 But don’t worry, so was I. The “Power On” button is not the same as the “Power Off” button. The “Off” button is at the bottom, and marked( yes….) “off”. It took me also some time to figure it out.

[Eleventy]

Well, we’re interested 😎
Keep us posted if you find anything new, in particular with the timecode issue.

[Eleventy]

It does. I’ve used P2 on Avid ( Newscutter & XpressProHD with SPX800). Each P2-card that is put into a slot is seen by Windows as a separate removable disk, and by Avid as a native Media Drive. You open the Avid media tool, and drop all the clips from one or more disk into a bin. After 1 second ( approx.) they ‘arrive’ in the bin, and you can start cutting from the cards, no ingest/transfer/transcode.

Only when you swap cards in the reader, or insert more cards, Avid has to rescan all drives( ‘Mount All’ command), and this takes some time( 20 to 60 seconds). Avid and/or Panasonic still have a bit of work to do: Ikegami HDD’s take only a fraction of the time to mount. If you have to swap a lot of cards, this gets frustrating very quickly. Still, 20 seconds mounting is still a bit better then 20 minutes ingesting or transcoding.