Eleventy
Forum Replies Created
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Compare the SDX-900 ( tape) with the SPX-800 (P2)
Same camera, no tape. $25.000,- vs. $19.000,- -
DVCpro50 = 50Mbps ( bit) = 6.25 MBps( byte)
DVCproHD = 100Mbps = 12.50 MBpsMind, this is the raw datastream, not including any metadata, or headroom
For example Sony XDCAM:
IMX50 = 50Mbps = 6.25 MBps
including metadata( proxy, …): 60 Mbps
Disk write speed: 72 Mbps ( = 12 Mbps headroom)An external HDD connected to a PCMCIA-card adapter is a BAD idea: You have to put a very fragile connector into the P2 slots, so you have to keep the dustcover open.
GOOD idea: connect the external disk thru USB2 or firewire. -
[Ernest] ” If long takes to tape are necessary, i.e. in the DVC pro 50 mode, is there a way to avoid the price of a deck- that is, can the tape be read back to the P2 memory card for a file transfer to the edit station?”
1) DVCpro50 to tape is impossible, the tape only records DV ( 25)
2) You can use the camera itself as a deck through firewire. Import your DV-clips into your NLE from tape directly with only the camera. No deck needed.eLeventy
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[toke lahti] “Doesn’t sound so bad anymore! “
I think their is a difference in workflow for ENG news broadcasters and Indies:
ENG: Use the P2 cards. Reliable! Afterwards, dump all material on the redundant video servers ( ie Avid Unity, ….) If you need more space in the field, use the P2-store HDD. That HDD stays in the newsvan, so it doesn’t get too beat-up, like a Firestor-disk attached to the camera.Indy: use whatever you can to store your media cheaply. Here you have to make the cost/reliability picture yourself. Most likely: something like the FS-4 firestore, connected through firewire( not a PC-card -> firewire adapter), or cheaper P2-card solutions from other manufacturers. Unlikely: a PCMCIA to whatever cable solution ( S-ATA, firewire, …): fragile, dirt in the system, unnecessary( there is already a USB / firewire out)
All this until the P2-cards become dirt-cheap in ’08.
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[toke lahti] “How does pro still photographers cope with cf-memory, if that is somehow less “Zero Defect Tolerance”?”
Memorycard-wise, they probably are just as good. Panasonic probably just wants to make sure that the stuff they sell lives up to certain standards of quality( and make a buck for their ‘seal of approval’). Most/all CF cards should be pretty reliable: My collegues at the radio-station have been using them for over 5 years, and never had a defect once.
Harddisk-wise, it’s a different story. They are much more error-prone, susceptible to shocks etc… So if a HDD fails in the field, and you loose a days work, a lot of people are going to get very angry, and there goes the good name of Panasonic. Solution: let a third party design a S-ATA adapter, Mini-HDD, CF-cards, whatever, and if the thing hickups, it’s their good name, not Pana’s. Broadcasters will probably buy Pana’s ‘A-grade’, and Indies cheaper third party solutions.Looking at the specs for the Sandisk PC-card adapter from the OP, the thing should work up to DVCpro50: 9MB sustained write = 72 mbit. Which leaves a ( very little) bit of headroom in a 50bmps stream for metadata. And they have a 8GB version for around $750,-
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[toke lahti] “All digital memory is usually Zero Defect Tolerance.
Otherwise programs in computers would crash.
For absolute certainty you would need ECC memory (used in servers).”I don’t know about your computer, but mine does crash occasionally. And although I don’t like it, I can live with it as long as I don’t loose too much work( given that I don’t loose ANY mediadata I’m working on).
Media-wise, it’s a different story. Here you have to have Zero Defect Tolerance, so there is no risk of losing any data. And here’s where the P2-cards come in to play: they are VERY robust, compared to harddisks, tape and even optical disks like the XDCam for use in the field. It has to be there, no chance for a reshoot ( certainly in news). Afterwards, in post, you add robustness to your media on HDD’s by adding redundancy, RAID, fail-over systems, …
eLeventy
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[Chris Baldwin] “The one thing I don’t understand about this is why don’t the homemade p2 cards need some kind of firmware like the Firestore hard drive recorders?
What’s the difference? Aren’t they both just mounted hard drives? Why would the Firestore need software and not the P2 or homemade P2?
“The stuff that comes out of the firewire port is just a DV-stream. You need some kind of intelligence on the receiving end to deal with it ( ie write it to disk)
The P2-card on the other end, is seen as a mounted drive by the camera’s filesystem. Therefore, the actual writing to disk is handled by the camera’s OS. So, technically, it wouldn’t make much difference if the PCMCIA-card was a flashcard or a miniature Harddisk, or even a S-ATA adapter, as all these are under control of the camera’s OS.
Incidentally, as I have heard, the camera runs on Linux embedded. So all that is required for new hardware to work is a firmware upgrade.
eLeventy
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The metadata that is recorded by the camera at ‘recording time’ is of course handled by the camera itself.
Some of it you can set yourself in the camera menus.
It can later be viewed/changed/added by either standalone apps like the MXFexplorer, or possibly by your editing software. Mind, mxf is still very young, and support is only starting to appear. It is mainly intented for integration with large databases and newsroom-automation( for stuff like subtitling, archiving, linking of text-sources to clips, etc).
Pana has P2-viewer soft for download that enables you to view the clips and metadata, and add stuff like comments, extra info, …. -
The P2 stores the files as mxf-files. These files have room for *lots* of metadata, so be sure, it is full of it. Potentially the mxf-format has unlimited room for stuff like doc’s, pictures, soundbites, subtitles, whatever.
Timecode is embedded as timecode, just as with normal tape. It can/will also include a lot more metadata such as tapename( i.e., ‘diskname’), F-stop, shutter, thumbnails,… , simular to jpg-pictures on a digital photo-camera.
eLeventy