Luis Caffesse
Forum Replies Created
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[Guy Barwood] “Perhaps, but it is unlikely to have the integration level that Panasonic could provide if the made their own unit.
I suppose you’re right, and they very well may have made their own, who knows. Although I doubt it, seeing as it has already been mentioned that FireStore is partnering with Panasonic.
Although, what sort of ‘integration’ level are you looking for?
People seem to be using third party hard drive solutions for many cameras, without too much trouble.I also don’t know what the digital data interface for this camera would be anyway. Does it use a firewire interface? How is DVCPRO HD normally ‘captured’ (ie pre P2). “
Well, it used to be component or HD-SDI.
Then Panasonic and Apple partnered up to bring us DVCProHD over firewire.
Avid is now supporting DVCProHD over firewire as well.As far as P2 goes, I believe the SPX800 (the current P2 camera on the market) uses a USB connection to transfer files.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[mishka] “Of course it was very rough estimate and there are many factors that affects the actual cost per roll. Still it doesn’t take an hour to transfer one roll. Several rolls of film will fit on a $100 HDCAM tape.
Fair enough. I was only bringing up the additional costs because if we’re going to hammer P2 cards for being too expensive, I think it’s also important to point out the places where shooting with solid state will cut costs.
And, while every roll of 16mm will add additional costs, the cost of shooting on a P2 card becomes less and less the more you shoot. Yes, it’s an initial investment for both the cards, and whatever media you are backing them up to. But after that, there are no more costs.
How much 16mm would you be shooting in a day, and for how many days?
The more you shoot, the cheaper P2 gets.
The cost of 16mm is constant..and the more you shoot, the more expensive it gets.For dailies one-light will do fine.
So are you talking about finishing on film?
I was under the assumption we were talking about finishing on a video format. If so, you would eventually have to make a decent transfer of the film. That was why I mentioned the cost of a supervised transfer.The cost of deck is totally irrelevant. If you offer editing as a service you need some sort of deck to lay down the master.
I don’t think it’s totatlly irrelevant at all.
You’re right, you need a deck to lay down a master and that is one day’s worth of work. How long do you need that deck to log and capture?
It’s very different.If you are a client I don’t think any facility would give you an additional discount because you brought P2 not tapes. You already cut a lot of hours of digitizing so don’t expect more favors.”
You’re right, they won’t give you an additional discount. But you seem to be discounting the amount of money you have to spend in order to log and capture your tapes at a facility, versus walking in with a hard drive where the editor already has full nonlinear access to all of your footage.
Most jobs I do I spend a minimum of one full day logging and capturing.
And that’s on short runtime pieces. On some projects, I’ve spent as much as 1-2 weeks logging and capturing. I can only imagine how happy my clients would be not to have to pay for my time to do that (not that I’d be that happy about losing the income, but I do hate having to log and capture).You’re right, I may have overstated the benefits.
But if I did, it was only to point out that I felt you were understating them.This has sort of gotten off on a tangent. In the end we’ll just have to wait and see where the pricing lands. But I expect that the P2 workflow will be less expensive than shooting 16mm rolls.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[mishka] “A roll of 16 mm with processing and transfer to tape is how much? $400?”
What kind of tape are you transfering that film to?
SD or HD? I would imagine HD, so that you make as good a copy as possible.Are you sitting in on the telecine, to make sure you have an accurate transfer? I would assume you wouldn’t do a one light.
And, you’ll need a deck to be able to digitize that footage… an HD deck.
So, you’ve got to add the price on that (and just the rental on that would be more than the $400)So, I think that’s probably a bit too low of an estimate, and not really a fair comparison.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[mishka] “The sole advantage of tape is cost.
The sole disadvantage of P2 is cost.”Well said.
And I would add that the disadvantages of tape are not going to go away.
The disadvantage (cost) of P2 will definitely go away.Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[George] “I don’t think panasonic is going to give up on its frame tagging protocol. its embedded into the decks, cameras, frame rate converters and FCP HD to boot.”
Well, that may be the case as of right now.
But, there is no need for a deck, the camera is new, if they do away with the tagging protocol, then there is really no need for the frame rate converters, and FCP is coming out with a new version. So, I think anything is still possible.It is more of a number theory like implementation of a universal or special number to give it all incarnations of the dvcpro hd format. it has less to do with tape per say. “
I’m not sure I agree with that. It was my impression that the only reason the frame tagging was used was to workaround the limitations of using the tape transport.
Anyone else want to chime in on this?
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[Guy Barwood] “Sure it could if you wanted it to, but then no one would want to use P2 so its never going to happen”
Guy,
I’m sure Jan will correct me if I”m wrong, but Panasonic is not stopping anyone from making alternative recording options. If FireStore wants to offer an external drive which can record DVCProHD, then they very well may.It’s just a matter of demand…which as of yet is unclear seeing as the camera has not even been officially announced, much less released.
I really hope everyone can hold on until NAB, as I’m pretty sure Panasonic has thought of all these concerns beforehand, and will have options to show off.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[Peter DeCrescenzo] “The result is potentially (yes: only potentially) a somewhat random scattering of a not insignificant number of irretrievably lost original recorded frames, all over the world.”[/i]
And as you mentioned, the same potential is there for videotape, in the form of dropped frames.
I don’t know about most people, but I copy files very often on my system. I move them from one computer to another over a netowork. I back them up to DVD and erase them from the hard drive, only to copy them back onto the drive months later.
I have NEVER had a file become corrupted or damaged upon copying it.
On the other hand, I have had many many dropped frames over the years from a bad tape. I have also had tape transports die on me. I have had head clogs in the middle of a shoot, only to find that the last few takes were ruined, and had to stop to clean the heads on the camera.So, P2 seems no less reliable than tape to me.
You may be right in your mathematics, the potential is there.
But from my experience, and I think that’s what most people will judge by, I’ve had more problems with tape that I have ever had with digital files.Just curious, how many times have you had a file corrupted by copying it?
And how many dropouts have you had over the years?“Further, after they’re backed up, virtually _all_ of the P2 cards will be completely erased”
If it’s that big of a concern for you, check your files before you erase the card. There isn’t anything you can do to recover dropped frames from tape, but at least with P2 you have the opportunity to recopy the files before erasing.
“BUT MOST PRODUCTION WORKFLOWS DON’T REQUIRE ERASING THE ORIGINAL FOOTAGE. “
We’re talking about digital files here.
You’re moving the orignal footage to a new source, and deleting the copy.
You still have your original footage, just not in the same place.
I view it as removing film from a film magazine, and reloading.
The original ‘film’ is still there, just like the same bit for bit copy of your files will be there, every bit the same as the files that were on the P2 card.Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[Graeme Nattress] “Varicam is $65l, Deck about $22k with options, and then you need a lens. I think you’ll be spending more than $87k before you shoot a single frame! But boy do those pictures look nice 🙂 “
Alright, alright.
🙂
I was just throwing out a rough price, but you’re right, it would be over $85K.The point is, this new camera will cost roughly 1/10th of the price of a current DVCProHD 24P setup, and I’m sure it will look better than 1/10th of the quality.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[NICK B] “At less than $10k you will get your money back so quick on a few paying jobs, i cannot see how you can go wrong. “
I completely agree Nick.
As I mentioned in another thread, I think we need to keep in mind that to shoot the same format right now would cost us roughly $85,000 (Varicam and Deck).DVCProHD at under $10K is fantastic, and while the workflow may not be ideal for some productions, I think it’s obvious that this is a groundbreaking offering from Panasonic.
I look forward to hearing all the details in few days.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas -
[Graeme Nattress] “I’ve never really seen this applied to a camera, but there’s no reason why not, I suppose. “
This is one of the most groundbreaking things I see in the future of solid state recording. We’ve never seen this applied to a camera because it’s complicated by the limitations that come with using a tape transport. But once that’s taken out of the equation, the only real limitation seems to be the datarate the cards can handle.
Exciting times.
Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas