Jeremiah Black
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, that’s true.
The Sony Z1 is great camcorder for shooting weddings and rodeos.
Oh, yeah don’t forget the $3500 for the deck!
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
You are not alone, buddy. Your assumptions involving P2 cards costing $50,000 on a shoot has been voiced many times by many peeps on this board, and been replied to by the moderators, Jan from Panasonic, myself, and many others. I humbly suggest you search the past posts to find out how the workflow for the P2 might actually work in practice. It’s actually very do-able. Panasonic owns the prosumer market. Have a little faith that they’re gonna make it work for people like us.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Chris,
Yeah, Kevin just posted a great response, but that’s where I think the confusion is arising from. 100 mega bytes (mb/sec – small b) as opposed to 100 mega bytes (mB/sec – capital B).
As far as 25 mb/sec being the “limit” on mini dv tapes- it’s a function of mini dv tapes. You could run the tape at twice the speed to get a DVCPRO50 signal, or at 4 times the speed to get a DVCPRO HD signal, but dv tape is too flimsy to run at four times speed and be reliable.
And, yes, I had posted earlier that it cost $800 per pair of HD record tape heads (Panasonic’s cost to build- not even the selling price), and there’s 8 pairs ($6400). So, a tape transport that can record HD would be really expensive, and could only take HD tape. There’s a camera that already has this, and it’s called the Varicam. And it’s pretty expensive comapred to the P2 camera. Even with the cost of P2 cards.
One thing, however, that’s interesting to think about is that the mini-DV that the P2 camera does record to tape does originate off an HD chip, so it may look better than most mini-dv out there. If it’s a downconveted HD signal, I mean.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
True, but the camera itself is an investment that costs thousands less than it should. Panasonic could have charged $8000 for this camera, and it would’ve been a fair price. But instead they charged 6000, and let you buy your own P2 cards.
Remeber that the P2 is only $1000 more than the Canon XL2 and the Sony Z1U, and it looks like it is twice the camera that they are. So, you make up for the cost in P2 cards by getting a great camera for thousands less than you really should be.
Also, it silly to compare P2 to mini dv tape. This is the mistake everybody makes. P2 HOLDS DVCPRO HD FOOTAGE. Mini dv holds mini dv. If you want to do a true comparison, compare P2 to DVCPRO HD tape and the cost of an HD deck. Then you’ll fully appreciate what a deal P2 really is.
This was, I think, Panasonic’s only mistake. They should’ve priced the camera at $8000 and included an 8 gig P2 cards, because otherwise everybody will just cry and complain about buying a P2 card, immediatly forgetting what a great deal the camera itself was in the first place.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Renne,
your math looks good to me, but I think it gets even better. People have been saying $2000 for an 8 gig card, but I believe it’s actually $1700.
Also, you can get around 20 minutes of DVCPROHD 720/24p on an 8 gig card which is what we’ll be shooting most of the time.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
All you bloody Austinites are making me homesick. Been working in NYC for almost 10 years, but miss my old hometown often. Would love to go back if I could- take a nostalgic walk down 6th street and put my head together with Luis, Mike Curtis from hdforindies,com, and all the other great Texas gods of geekdom.
I’m hoping Austin takes up its rightful place soon, so I don’t have to keep living in just NYC and LA for film and tv work.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
Chris,
I think you’re confused on some points. Obviously the tape transport can only record DV signals since DV tape is a 25 mb/sec medium. This isn’t so much “an elephant in the room” that panasonic forgot to “nail down” as it is a completely obvious and self-evident fact regarding the limitations of DV tape. This is why the camera has options- record a 25mb/sec DV signal to tape, or, if you’d like to shoot HD, then record it to P2 cards, since mini dv tape can’t handle that kind of data rate. Or shoot to a hard drive, if you like. Obviously shooting to P2 cards is the safest and most flexible and rugged was to shoot (no power supply needed, no moving parts, greatly reduced possibility of damage, etc.), but P2 cards are not cheap, so if you’re on a budget and can do it, maybe drives are the best solution ot get you through a no budget project.
The data rate is indeed 100 mb/sec- a data rate the ALL portable drives can handle (1/4 the capabilities of simple firewire 400). An ipod can handle that.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
(vsv): “This is a Kinetta’s little brother”
Seeing as how the Kinetta isn’t out yet, I’d say that the kinetta is the “vaporware older brother of the Drake”.
Also, I think the Drake also records 10 bit log files to disk. But I could be wrong.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
(serge) I want my Panasonic 24p HD camcorder under $10k hopefully under $5k and I want it to record on TAPE…. If its on 4gig P2 cards its just a toy to me, not a functioning real world device – too bad.
So, let me get this straight- you want a professional HD camcorder that records to tape for 5k? Well, I want a Ferrari for 5K, but it’s not going to happen, because it’s too expensive of an item to sell at that low of a price. The 8 pairs of record heads in the varicam’s tape transport cost $800 a pair- that’s $6400. And that’s what it costs PANASONIC to build, not what they charge us for it. So, your infanitle tantrum about demanding an HD camera for 5k reveals a tremendous disconnect with reality on your part. It’s not so much that the new P2 camera is just recording to P2 for fun, it’s that it HAS to record to P2, otherwise there’s no way we could get an HD signal on a palmcorder. In order to record to tape you need an entire tape transport and record heads and a camera twice the size, and it isn’t possible to MAKE this camera for 5k, much less SELL it for one. Look at it this way: If you want DVCPRO HD/24p for under 10k, it HAS to be a P2 camera. So either buy one or don’t, but quit crying in forums.
Plus, I thought you were a big, big professional with dozens of feature films under your belt, and you’re telling your max budget is 5k for an HD camera? You say you’re concerned about shooting on a “toy”, but yet you want your “professional” camera to come in at 5k? Is this a joke? Just remeber that the P2 was invented by the same company that invented the Varicam you love so much, so let’s just wait and see, and in the meantime let’s all assume they know what they’re doing.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card -
I think Luis is right-
1. One of the primary benefits about moving away from tape is getting to move away from needless frame padding. This is why this technology is the future for all cameras- not just a clever thing Panasonic is doing with one speciality camera.
2. Panasonic is going to have to release new P2 codecs for the upcoming FCP 5 anyway to make the P2 stuff “edit ready”- plus introduce their new DVCPRO HD 1080/24p. So it’s almost certain that the new codecs with new protocols will not need frame tagging.
jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card