Erich Roland
Forum Replies Created
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All True.
Things move so fast now and with development time required a company needs to look to where they think we will be in 2 years, and hit the ball ahead of the curve somehow. Sony has done very well the last 3-4 years, Canon now has a C-300 hit (after 5d craze), Arri Alexa a major success, and Red is just a head of everybody hands down (Red is driving the technology much faster then most companies would prefer to move). Panasonic needs to have a hit soon or else I’m afraid their cameras will be mostly just for news gathering (which might be all they are interested in now, or so it seems).
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
I don’t know what happened over at Panasonic. Their products had been center stage for all our work (rentals) since 2004-5, and then in the last year or two have fallen to the way-side. These days are all about 35mm sensor cameras. Panasonic brought a mini 4/3″ sensor to the game and no decent lenses are designed for it (35mm lenses are wasted). The AF-100 was an “entry level” camera that quickly was eclipsed with Pro products from Sony, Red, and now Canon and others. In 2 years Panasonic cameras have gone from about 75% of our rentals to about 5% or less.
Gotta bring products to the market that people want to use… its very easy to see whats going on and what the market is spending new money on, and Panasonic isn’t building them…. go figure!
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
Its obvious everywhere I look that Panasonic is being left out of this new big sensor revolution.
The 4/3″ format is not taking off, we see little demand these days for Af-100 only at the HVX level of production. what we are seeing is most prefer to step up to Sony’s products, or if its “low budg” stay in DSLR land. The lenses designed for the 4/3″ sensor are mostly consumer grade, too slow and not cine friendly.
To use adapters for “cine” PL lenses are a waste of lens ability and the 4/3″ mount is too weak for heavier lenses without support, and the adapters are wanky. Even if they came out with a more “pro” model in 4/3″ it will flop (in my humble opinion).
They need to scrap 4/3″ and join the party in full size cine sensor camera’s. Its a “no brainer” for success but I’ll bet there is internal resistance since someone near the top thought 4/3″ was the way to go.
The sales numbers speak the story here. I’d be first in line for a cine sensor camera but Im not holding my breath. Panasonic shot they’re wad on WAY too many P2 products in the last 3-4 years and are paying the price now, when they should be spending like crazy to catch up with a F3 (and or Alexa) competitor…. P2, intra… maybe even offer a full size 35mm sensor and jump right over Cine size. But I’m afraid the mo-jo is gone from this company (since the original Varicam) once the marketers took over in that P2 craze/(bust).
we will see what happens…. or rest in peace.
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
Well it certainly could very well be the quake, as we all know this has disrupted all kind of products coming out of Japan for months now. But a lot of things that were affected after the quake… have caught up by now.
I am suggesting possibly that there could be inventory issues related to (lite) demand and other current industry pressures. Prior to this year and ever since the first P2 product was released Panasonic was rolling out new P2 products by the hand full, one after another and maybe that “buck shot” strategy has caught up to them, because the timing is about right IF… that were the case. Add to that, the new products have slowed considerably.
Just adding 2+2 and drawing my own “possible” conclusions (IMHO).
I’m sure now I will be flamed for thinking out loud.
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
good question, I’m interested also.
Where I sit from a rental operation perspective the whole Panasonic line up from the hvx-200 to the hpx-3700… the pany rentals have all fallen off a cliff in the last 6-8 months. At the same time the Sony line up of EX cams and the new F3 have been busy. I was just looking at the stats this morning. I dont know whats going on, but Id love to see Panasonic step up and bring to market whatever the public seems to want, that Pany is not delivering. This may have something to do with the inventory issues possibly (or its the quake).
If I had a chance to tell Pany what to deliver it would be this;
Pansasonic version of the F3.
cine size sensor (4/3″ is NG)
PL mount (native, or like Sony has done, which allows more options)
P2 card, w/intra
(all at a competative price)And take it a step further (then Sony) and incorporate better interface with the user. From a rock solid hand-held capability, and viewing options.
The other cool option would be to jump right over Sony/Red/Alexa and offer a 35mm “full frame” sensor’d camera, that would be a coup! I fully understand the lens coverage issues, but there are a lot of very good FF still lenses out there, and if a FF “Pro” camera existed then more “cine” style FF lenses would follow.
The “Pro” 35mm sensor camera in the 13-18k renage is where the battle ground is for the next few years for a lot of camera volume sales. The F3, Red Epic-S will be gunning for each other here, and I understand a Canon motion camera is coming soon. Pany needs to get into this same arena or be left behind. Af100 doesn’t cut it.
Lets go….. step in Pany!
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
There goes all the Matt boxes, and filters!
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
hey Guys, One of the great things about hanging the Nano onto a HDX or Varicam is the producer then has the choice of using the tape as primary and file for back up or Off-line viewing/editing. Or Using the file primarily and having a fairly solid Archival copy to put on the shelf with out having to worry about backing up the back-ups when there is only one file recorded. The archival issue continues to be a major problem for non-tape original recordings that live just on hard drives. with file recording ideally 2 copies are made in the field, and then transfer again to ingest and again to Archive.
It’s a win-win when we have a duel recording going to tape and flash at the same time, all those questions and issues are gone with one recording, no multi copying needed, ingest once and done.
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
I may have a lightly used 2/3″ letus relay if your interested.
ER
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
Chris, You put your finger on a few important points.
Our 2/3” cameras may be headed the way of the dodo bird. Not tomorrow or next week we have a lot of these cameras out there working, but I can picture the sales slowing dramatically in this market segment going forward because of the costs involved.
The growth spurt in 1/3 and 1/2” camera systems is easy to see, and clearly these mini-cams are here to stay. New production avenues have opened up because of the cost and size of these smaller/cheaper systems. Also important is they have robbed a large slice of market from 2/3”, and more will be lost in the future. It’s getting harder to distinguish the image quality between a well lit and shot Ex-3 camera, and a F900 (at least for television). So the question becomes who is going to spend 80-100k for a high-end F900 system (camera and lens) when 10k can get you pretty dang close? I personally don’t want to use these mini-cams but what if the clients don’t want to pay the costs because they cant see the difference?
Big screen and movies aside, at least for television we may be transitioning into a period where the gap between price and performance isn’t justified, where less clients will spend the (2/3” camera) bucks we used to because they don’t have to. Nobody should be surprised to see a lack of big sales where P2 Varicams are asking for 45-65 thousand dollars respectively when these little cameras look better everyday. XD-800 same problem, cost a ton and for what?
The other point I wanted to talk about is your comment that Panasonic wont build a big sensor camera because it’s a slim market. It is indeed slim in the “High End” F-35, Red, Phantom, etc, portion of the market, but the 35mm lens look has been steaming hot for a few years (at the low end of the market) and it’s what everybody and they’re brother wants these days. We’ve been achieving this look with adapters and its here now in 2600 dollar DSLR’s. So my question is since the big boys are loosing market fast in 2/3” when do they recognize the demand (for slim depth) and deliver this look to the masses at a lower price point? Or do the marketers control the roost, and put they’re foot down to the problem of cannibalizing they’re own more expensive products?
When money is tight (as it is these days) then we are figuring how to make it work with a 5d instead of renting the Red, etc. The market forces are moving everything cheaper because the cheap cameras can look great and big bucks are not necessarily required. These Japanese companies need to understand that the day of spending 50-60k (in the general market) may be over for ever, and get on board with cheaper more flexible camera systems, and deliver what the main stream are obviously clamoring towards. Whether they deliver us the cheaper big sensor/35mm lens system or not, we have the “aftermarket” products and competitor cameras to achieve this look already so we are working around the lack of desired products from Sony and Panasonic.
Red is delivering it for the most part. Flexibility… And camera “Obsolescence Insurance”. Red has the right combination of features at exactly the right point in time … amazing really! The Scarlet might just be the hot camera for the next few years…. If it shows up, and if it works smoothly.
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
Mark, It would certainly be interesting to engage in these conversations with Panasonic designers or market strategist, but I suspect that won’t happen.
It seems a large portion of what that game is about is indeed “market strategy”. There is a chess game going on with these guys and they always have to be careful about what they’re next move may be, because if the rest of the world knew the next move the competition could cut them off in some way. So for them to openly engage in the conversation could tip a hand somehow.
The introduction of those “limited life span” P2 cards was a very interesting insight into how “market strategies” have become very important to Panasonic. Can you imagine there were probably many high level meetings to determine how long should they allow these cards to work before they would “pull the plug” on its life span!
Consumers have always suspected manufacturers built into products (like cars and such) this designed “life span failure” concept in order to sell you the next one. But I don’t remember this practice ever being quite so blatant. These cards should last a lot longer in normal usage. Whether or not anybody will care about a 32gb P2 card 5 years from now is another question.
I suspect if the Panasonic folks read these blog’s (and they should) it makes them a bit nervous, because as one guy said to me recently it’s like calling out that the “Emperor has no clothes” and attempting to get a look behind the curtain of what these companies are thinking about (or what they should be thinking about). Panasonic has been all over these boards in helping the consumer work through technical issues (to they’re credit) but I’d guess Panasonic doesn’t much like seeing this particular conversation.
The problem (again) is the market is changing so fast and these big companies cant swing that fast. You need a few years to develop the next big move, then a year or so to design and tool up, get parts in the pipeline for repairs and service technicians up to speed, its very expensive. So then you need a few years of healthy sales to pay back on the design and build investment, and to then profit on top. This is all a total guestimate on my part. You can also look to the past at how long products lasted before the new model arrived as a rough gage to whats needed for a product cycle.
My question is… what if you make a huge bet (like this company has done with P2 products), and because of how fast things are changing it turns out it was a bad move? The cam-corder market is a “Transition Phase” and I don’t think anybody can tell us where the prevailing winds will be blowing 2-3-5 years from now. Given the product cycles needed for these big companies I’d guess that’s a HUGE issue, and challenge for them!
The big profits have always been in the 2/3” camera’s and the customers aren’t buying expensive camera’s right now (in big numbers) because I think we all understand these problems inherent in the current times. The small camera market is growing fast but the margins I’d guess are much tighter. The volumes have to be substantially higher to find the profits these big companies are used to. This (mini-cam) side of the market is getting much more competitive with DSLR’s coming on fast, Red’s Scarlet coming soon, and who knows what else coming to the growing mini camera market. Suffice to say, it will only get tougher for the big boys to grab a big share of that pie. They are not used to competitions coming from all angles. Also with mini-cams it’s a whole different market psychology (we are learning) and you really do have to keep up with the next guy, so faster product cycles decrease the profit margin on mini’s even more then the bigger cams.
Because of all these factors talked about in this thread, anybody who’s thinking about buying into these P2 Varicam’s better know where those jobs are going to come from to pay for it, because if you are thinking “Buy it, and the customer will come” …. may be in for a rude and expensive awakening!
Interesting times for sure.
Panasonic (if your listening), These large investments you’d like us to make (in 2/3″) need protection designed in (not like your new P2 cards with “Death” built in). Deliver us what works best for our investment, otherwise we wont buy. Flexibility is the key factor for some years to come. Keep thinking this word “Transition”, and design with this in mind.
Little cameras are another story, but if you want us to spend 30-50k on a full size camera, you need to figure out how to protect your customer FROM “planned obsolescence”…. not deliver it. This shift to a 21st century strategy will bring you to market dominance, otherwise…..
Many thanks to Red for shinning a powerful light on this issue!
Peace, ER
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman)