[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Dave,

I think we have been here before. As i recall our conversation perhaps a year and a half ago, it amounts to the fact that within your organization and mine that an NDA has to be signed and that NDA would open certain proprietary and competitive information on both sides which neither your management team nor mine would be interested in signing.

From here it looks as though the third party solution that we talked about exists and your/our customers are able to enjoy the Vegas solution easily and well.

Best regards,

Jan

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[DSE/Spot] “I guess the same thing could be said about using solar energy vs coal-fired power, or even using tape vs solid-state storage.”

This is true, but coal vs. solar is irrelevant to whether we are dumping the DVCPRO CODEC as it does work and works very well. Fact is we have both Tape and Solid State cameras that use it, as we have customers that have both and appreciate that they are able to migrate to solid state on the same algorithm.

[DSE/Spot] “We both know that in comparison to developments over the past decade, and specifically over the past few years, DVCPRO is an inefficient codec.”

From our perscpective efficiency is not the key priority when doing acquisition because whatever you give away at that point is gone. This is not the appropriate time to give away the farm. Is it an efficient delivery or say distribution codec? Not really, but for distribution I would use something like a Long GOP format for delivery and save my I-Frame codec for the acquisition and Production part of the programming. In that domain it is efficient. The only other more efficient I Frame CODEC would be the AVC-Intra, not to be confused with AVCHD which is the same long GOP nature of HDV or XDCam HD.

[DSE/Spot] “I clearly recall a conversation with Phil in which we discussed this very point, which is why Panasonic (like everyone else) is always looking for that next great thing.”

Since I was married to Phil, I can only imagine that he would have framed this in the above context or you missed the fact that he framed it in this context. Yes some of what comes out of AVC-Intra is fewer bits but not so outrageously so, it is still 50Mbs for DVCPRO HD quality.

[DSE/Spot] “So from your statement, I assume we’ll be seeing a new version of DVCProHD sometime soon as development on the codec hasn’t ended? I’m apparently misinformed when I’m told development of DVCProHD was mature, based on your comments.”

The DVCPRO HD Codec is mature, I didn’t say we were still in development. Read my words, we are still delivering cameras based on the codec, not making new developments in the codec and will continue to do so over the next however many years. Customers will let us know when to stop delivering cameras.

[DSE/Spot] “P2, IMO, is a wonderful thing although drastically overpriced (again by comparison to what else is available).
DV/HDV tape-$0.25 per GB
XDCAM-$1.10 per GB
Infinity-$2.25 per GB
HDD-$18.00 per GB
P2-$67.00 per GB .”

Here is where you are just comparing a very old and rather staid argument as if the P2 were the storage medium. Please look at it as data and it can indeed have the same storage cost as that HDD above(although probably less as the drives I have purchased recently seem to cost significantly less than this) or as low as the cost of 4 GBs on a DVD. Every time you use the P2 card, the cost of that GB goes down as the useage is divided against the cost. So the same thing could be said for DVCPRO tape at $1.00 a minute, and I thought that was the most expensive. I guess I needed to do a market check. So I repeat, as will any of the folks that use P2, it is not a storage medium, it is a transitional media to something vastly less expensive.

[DSE/Spot] “We both know that Vegas would have liked to support the DVCProHD codec and P2. The ability to support is not from the Vegas side of the issue.”

Of course we do, and I am grateful to Marcus Van Bavel at DV Film for creating the third party handshake as it resolves an unresolveable issue between two giants in the industry.

Best,

Jan

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[DSE/Spot] “Panasonic chooses to whom they’ll give the codec licenses to and whom they’ll charge big bucks.”

In all situations where the implementation is well done, it is a partnership, they choose, we choose. It is not us just choosing, it is a business decision. Yes, there is a rivalry between Sony and Panaosnic, fortunately the Raylight product allows it to use P2, and DVCPRO HD. And that is a good thing as in this one case I believe the rivalry would not let any thing else transpire, from either side.

[DSE/Spot] “If it had anything to do with who is selling what cameras, why do you suppose that Adobe only announced DVCProHD support last week, yet it’s one of the very popular NLE systems? The only reason Adobe now has DVCProHD is because of their acquisition of Serious Magic.”

This helped them of course but they also have been working eith Panasonic as otherwise it would not have been possible, at least this soon. Note it was not just DVCPRO HD support but also P2.

[DSE/Spot] “Aside from that, DVCProHD is effectively dead, just like everything else DV-based. AVC-I is their next big thing, as Grass Valley is now J2K and Sony is XDCAM.”

And this is the statement that brought me to this thread. You are so incredibly wrong about this. AVC-I is a new codec for us, and you know that is a good thing. But in no way shape or form does it quantify that DVCPRO or any of its derivatives are dead as you say. You should really keep your commentary to things you know rather than putting words out there that are so outstandingly incorrect. We have brought three new cameras to the market this year, all of them do DVCPRO HD. Two of them do AVC-Intra. This is a new codec, there is development that has to happen in order for it to be fully supported like DVCPRO/50/HD are.

There are tens of thousands of DVCPRO HD cameras and we will hit well over 100,000 before it is over and maybe even several hundred thousand. When something works, why break it.

Thanks,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

There are cards, it is jsut that we did not ship them all to the large dealers as we have smaller dealers who also must make a living.

The only reason that there would be a 500 shipped without cards is that the dealer sold the cards seperatly from the camera, because I know we shipped them with the camera.

Try the smaller dealer.

Thanks,

Jan

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

720 X 480/30P is a standard definition format. Look for 720P/24PN or 720P/30PN on the menu. Set your camera to 720P/24 not 24PN and be sure that the User Bits are in Frame Rate. If you have the 3.0 version, this should do it for you.

When you are finished, do not fail to P2 Organize on the Firestore or you will have a soup of little clips and it will be a big mess.

Hope this helps,

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “Put the raid controller in the P2 Drive itself – the cards would be read as a set of drives, like any raid. You’d be up to 64gig cards before you know it!”

Two problems with this idea. The LSI that handles the raid does more that just the raid. It hadles traffic flow, it handles error checking, parity and metadata. Without it, you would have a mess on your hands.

Second, to put it into all of the other devices adds a cost to all of the other devices.

I believe it is best right where it is and yes we will be at 64s before you know it. The 32GBs were announced this week at IBC. 64GBs are right around the corner.

Best,

jan

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

So then when we put the card into other devices like the computer, or into a P2 Store or a P2 Drive, where do we put the Raid Controller there? The LSI that does this has more than the one function of making it fast, it also controls the metadata, and recording sectors and such.

In addition the Memeory chips that are used are not off the shelf SD cards. These cards never see commerciality. When gleaning the memory for this application, zero-tolerence for error is the only acceptable level. We did reduce the cost of manufacture starting with the 16 GB cards. The memory is used but they no longer user the SD enclosure. Assembly just got a bit easier.

Oh and large flash memory prices just jumped up a bit. We are trying to bring the prices down but not at the expense of potential failure. Keep in mind that the price of the card goes down every time you use one.

Best,

Jan

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

Do you live in a high humidity area, or even excessively dry, either of these conditions can aggravate the tape path. Having it run perfectly in another camera only tells me that the DVX100 has had a different usage. I would get the DVX professionally cleaned and see if that alters its mind set. It is trying to tell you that it is going to happen again as there is still some dirt in there and it is only by the grace of error correction you don’t see it.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[P2 Shooter] “1st: In the Scene File/Operation Type menu if you select Film Cam rather than Video Cam does this turn your shutter on? I want to shoot 180.0d with the shutter. Do you still have to flip the switch in the front of the camera under the lens that says Shutter to on and cycle through to 180.0d if the in the Scene File/Syncro Scan menu it already ready 180.0d? If you don’t flip the shutter switch under the lens to on, are you still shooting in 1/48th(like the VideoCam mode indicates)? I lose a stop of exposure when I flip the shutter switch in the front on. Am I supposed to?

This changes the display to be 180. degrees or whatever angle you choose, rather than as in video mode it is 1/60 or whatever. You still would need to use the switch in front to activate the shutter. Not knowing what shutter speed was in place at the time you turned it on I could say for sure but I would say that you had a pretty severe angle selected, and yes you would have to toggle through to select something a little less severe.

2nd. what is the speed of this HPX500 ccd block? I shot in a very dark room and wanted very dark crush blacks and got an extremely noisy image while on set. Then in post the noise remained but the image turned out to be very underexposed.We lit the subject appropriately for any other shoot I’ve been on, but the image was indeed underexposed and the blacks were devastatingly noisy.

Again, not knowing how you set up the camera,or what your lighting was, you should have been able to see exactly what you were doing on set by the use of a monitor. What were you using for your reference monitor on set? What were the settings that you had in the camera? Which Gamma setting were you using? And did you have your gain switch on?

>Any suggestions on settings things to check or limitations of the camera to be aware of?”

When attempting to have a very specific look on a scene, it is always recommended that you have a larger monitor to evaluate what the picture is going to look like. Sounds like it would have served you well on this one, and yes it should be an HD monitor/LCD.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “Why is Panasonic using an old technology card that requires a Raid chip on board each P2 card to handle the bit-rate?”

The amount of data that we need to record is up to 100mbs, unlike the Sony at 35mbs. The DVCPRO HD codec is an I frame or Intraframe codec, thus each frame can stand alone. XDCAM HD is an Interframe codec, which means that the frames are interdependent on each other. ultimately this means that there is more compression in the XDCAM HD footage. The RAID allows Panasonic to have the higher bit rate and customer to have the benefit of less compression on the images.

When we first introduced P2, Express card was just coming on the scene and the PCMCIA slot had been tried and true. Still is; it has a very substantial reliability track record on insertions. We feel that the track record and the robustness of the card is a critical component for the production arena.

Hope this helps,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems