[John Baldino]

Brilliant man, just what I needed.

John Baldino
Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
john@gobomedia.net
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Follow up —

I did the upgrade but I am having trouble finding any literature from panasonic that verifies the noise reduction. Barry Green’s DVXuser forum seems to concur that this was not a posted benefit.

Were you able to do any before/after tests? I’d be curious to see if this is something demonstrable. And if so, curious why Panasonic didn’t mention it at all in the pdf…

John Baldino
Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
john@gobomedia.net
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Great help. Thanks for sharing.

John Baldino
Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
john@gobomedia.net
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Obviously, the archiving method is largely dependent upon the shooting format. For people using a RED workflow, blu-ray probably doesn’t make as much sense because of the size limitations.

However, for us smaller scale folks using AVCHD, I think blu-ray is THE best mid to even longer range archiving solution. Hands down. A year or two ago this may not have been the case, but now I think it is a no-brainer when compared to using HDDs (LTO isn’t really practical for me given its cost and the current size of my enterprise). So cost AND reliability being factors, blu-ray is, imho, the clear winner. Especially after doing the math. What I figured was:

1) Hard drives fail. So I’d need at a MINIMUM two drives in a raid 1 to combat this, which immediately doubles my cost per gigabyte. If I want even more redundancy, then I triple or even quadruple this figure. And even at that, this is arguably still not as safe as properly stored optical media.

2) Bottom shelf cost for a low end 1TB hard drive currently is about $70. For archiving I’d need at least two of these (still not safe). But even with just two my cost per terabyte = $140. Per gig = 14 cents. (And this doesn’t factor in the cost of an external enclosure either). But still assuming it is only .14 per gigabyte, that means that to archive 25 GB (a standard 1 layer bd-r’s worth of data) it is going to cost me $3.50.

As of now, the cost of a bd-r (if you buy bulk and find the right merchant) is less than $1.50. I use Memorex bd-rs, have had no problems so far, and get these at this price or cheaper. (https://www.chiefvalue.com/product/productdetails.aspx?submit=&item=CE00158184010060&ATTCD%20DVD%20Media)

That’s less than half the cost of archiving with HDDs, for a solution that is eminently safer and more portable. True, the time it takes to archive via bd-r is longer, but given the fact that I can easily organize my projects by disc, give them to clients without having to loan them my hard drive(s), and have the piece of mind that all of my projects are individually backed up (ie the failure of a single RAID array kills ALL your projects…whereas every bd-r is stand alone), I think there is no better (current) solution for folks working in consumer/prosumer formats like AVCHD.

Just my $.02 🙂

John Baldino

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Paul I wish I would have read a post like yours a few months back when I bought my HMC-150 and AT897…I like the 897 but as the OP suspects it is a bit long, and its closer to $300 vs $189. Now I’m thinking I should go out and get a 875… 🙂

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Ok, thanks Noah. My instincts have been confirmed…

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Wow, just stumbled on this thread today. Really saved me some time knowing how to access Create Disc again after already encoding to blu-ray files from FCP 7. Very handy tip indeed. Thanks!

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Tim –

If you’re comparing SDHC vs P2 acquisition, a better way to talk about the differences would be to talk about the compression used…in this case AVCHD vs DVCProHD or DVCPro 100. AVCHD has a much lower bitrate, which is due largely in part to its 4:2:0 color space, vs. DVCPro’s 4:2:2. however, avchd is a very efficient codec, so even though its bitrate is roughly 1/4 of dvcpro hd, the quality is certainly NOT “1/4th” of dvcprohd. On a small screen, the differences are almost (to my eye) imperceptible. But as you get larger, I can tell the difference.

I would consider heavily the kind of projects you shoot before you make your buying decision…how will they be shown? If your primary destination is the web and cost is a factor, I’d say hands down get the 150. If you are going to be shooting stuff that gets an HD presentation on larger screens, however (ie anything bigger than 30″ imho) I’d consider the hpx 170 or maybe the hvx200. P2 is waaay more expensive media, obviously, so you’d have to weigh the various factors.

I have a 150 but I am mostly focused on web promos and the like right now so large-screen exhibition really isn’t an issue. Even if it was, the hmc is no slouch or anything, it just comes down to your own tolerance level (and that of your clients). I would look around on the web for some screenshots pulled at native res for both cameras in similar lighting conditions and see if that helps.

Best of luck,
John

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

Do 150s shipped in 2010 already have the latest firmware? (ie can they read class 10 sdhc cards out of the box?)

I’ve been using Class 6 with no trouble but it would be nice to know if I could switch to class 10 without needing to upgrade the firmware. The date of the firmware listed on the panasonic site is 2009 so I’m assuming the newer shipped cameras already have it?

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous

[John Baldino]

I agree with what’s been said here… very encouraging stuff!

Director/DP/Editor
GoboMedia, LLC
http://www.gobomedia.net (under construction)

“Philosophy is questioning without answers; religion is answers without questioning.” – Anonymous