[Luis Caffesse]

[Peter DeCrescenzo] “the big difference between my example and the one you describe is that in a P2-style production workflow, the original recording on a P2 card is usually going to get destroyed (erased) soon after only one or two copies of it are made.”

I guess we’re discussing symantics at this point.
I don’t see it as “copying” the files, or “erasing” the card.
This is digital information, so the files put on the hard drive are identical to the ones on the P2 card, so I see it as simply moving the files from the P2 card to the hard drive.

Is there a danger that if they are moved incorrectly that you could lose all your files? Yes, of course there is. Just like if a camera loader removes the film from the mag incorrectly, there is a chance of losing all your film.

I think you’re running roughly the same risk in either case.

I apologize for repeating it here, but I guess I’ll continue to do so every time I see someone else say something like, essentilly, “Don’t worry, just let the PA deal with it.”

I’m not suggesting that we just look for a PA who doesn’t happen to be busy at that moment, but on the other hand I don’t think this is a job that requires a PhD and 20 years experience.

Like I mentioned before, it seems to be the equivalent job of a camera loader. Which, while a bit ‘higher’ position in general, is still the lowest position in the camera department. If Stanley Kubrick could trust a camera loader with changing out the film mags on the set of 2001…. I think I can find a competant person to move the files off my P2 cards without holding up production or going over budget.

But, I suppose in the end it all depends on how much risk (or perceived risk) each person is comfortable with.
As you said:

everyone gets to choose.

Can you believe this is the last day we won’t know every detail there is to know?
🙂

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Peter DeCrescenzo] “IMHO, only a Qualified Person In Charge (_not_ a lowly production assistant, bright or otherwise) should be handling precious, hard-won, expensive-to-produce, sometimes impossible-to-reproduce video data. “

I think people are making WAY too much of this.
Since when do we get a “Qualified Person In Charge” to hand the precious, hard-won, expensive-to-reproduce, sometimes impossible-to-reproduce film on feature sets?

The camera loader is the lowest paid position on the camera crew.
Not really a highly trained and respected position.

I’m not saying you can grab any bum off the street….
But this isn’t rocket science.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Peter DeCrescenzo] “In the teaser brouchure it says: “VARICAM-level creativity.”

That seems like an interesting choice of words.

One interpretation could be “Varicam-level” _variable_ frame-rate capability.”

Peter,
You and I think alike.
That was my first thought when I read those words,
but I figured people would say I was crazy if I suggested such a thing.

Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who immediately thought of dialing in
anything from 4 to 60fps.
🙂
Damn, wouldn’t that be nice!

Considering the specs we’ve already heard, I figure any other suprises Panasonic may have in store are just gravy at this point.

It’s going to be a long weekend.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[PappasArts] “I believe your booth is going to be one of hottest spots at NAB”

You mean there will be other booths at NAB?
🙂
Given all the attention Panasonic has had with the HVX announcment, I figured everyone else decided not to show.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[RBG] “If the object is to dump the P2s to Blu-ray, why not simply go for Sony’s expected HD Blu-ray-based camera. By the time you invest in enough P2s, it will be nearly the same price. Of course, Blu-ray recording will be ridiculously cheap in comparison. Then forget hard drives, etc.

Personally, I would rather archive to hard drives than to Blu Ray.
I’ve had more problems with corrupted data burned onto DVDs than I ever have with hard drives.

Also, I prefer the idea of recording to a solid state media, as opposed to a spinning disc in the camera.

Lastly, without having any specs or price on a Sony HD Blu Ray camera, it seems hard to make any comparisson.

Watch the characterizations of what is HD & what is not.

While people can decide what they might consider HD and what they won’t, there is an objective standard as to what is considered “HD.” So whether or not somehting is ‘HD’ is really not up for debate.

But obviously all HD is not created equal, we’ve got numerous HD formats out there to choose from, and it’s up to each individual to decide for themselves which format suits their needs.

But you bring up a good point, each format should be measured on its own weight, and just because something may not suit our needs does not mean it is not “HD.”

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

I’m glad you found my ramblings to be helpful Peter.
Now if only I could practice what I preach.
🙂

Of course, 4 days before NAB, it’s hard for even the most focused of us not to get distracted by all the shiny new toys.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[RBG] “Without calculating, seems that would be comparable to an HD tape cost for a client. “

1 Hour of DVCProHD at 100mb/s takes up roughly 47GB

A 1 hour DVCProHD tape costs $80

A 60GB external drive can be purchased for less than $60.

So in the end, it is cheaper than buying tape.
You may want to read the “I’m excited about P2, no I’m not” thread, there are a lot of the same concerns being covered there.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Peter DeCrescenzo] “Although 3.5″ HDDs be transported safely while powered-off, they have much lower resistance to shock/vibration-induced errors while in operation compared to 2.5” and smaller harddrives. So “big” HDDs will be great for “desktop” use, sometimes even in the field, but for handheld-in-operation use, only smaller HDD are appropriate. “

I think 3.5″ HDDs would be fine to back up P2 cards to in the field.
The drive wouldn’t be on the camera, or moving around, it would be hooked up to a laptop on set. Cards could be copied over between lighting setups, and at the end of the day the drive is unhooked and either taken back to the edit suite or handed off to the client.

I agree that I wouldn’t want to use a 3.5″ drive on the camera, or in any situation where the drive would be transported while powered on. But keeping it on set shouldn’t be a problem. I suppose that depends on the specific project and what sort of environment you’re shooting in.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Ed] “Tape or hard drive “backup” seems like a big step backwards to my workflow….
…You can’t just look at the cost of a hard drive, you have to factor in the time you’ll spend backing all of it up for archiving. Then there’s the time in the field dumping (at 4 minutes a time) to the hard drive.”

Well, I think it’s safe to assume that backing your footage up to hard drives for archiving will be faster than realtime. When you consider all the time you would have spent logging and capturing that footage had you shot on tape, the time spent archiving doesn’t seem all that bad.

The way I imagine my workflow going would be to dump the P2 cards to an external drive in the field. Once I get into the edit room, I could ‘COPY’ that footage onto my system’s RAID to perform the edit. Then I’ve still got the original files on the external drive as an archive, so there is no extra time spent ‘archiving’ in post.

Copying the files onto a RAID will take some time, but it will be faster than realtime, which means it will be faster than the time I would have spent logging/capturing that footage.

Essentially, the external drives will be treated the same way I treat tape today. The advantage is that I have nonlinear and immediate access to that footage at any time.

Right now though, the benefits seem to be for ENG type uses, not for long-form video. Having said all that about the downside, having a real HD format may be worth all of those disadvantages 🙂 “

I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘long-form’
If you mean you require a lot of continuous long takes, you may be right.
If you simply mean you require a lot of footage…It depends on what your definition of ‘a lot’ of footage is.

Either way, I think you’re right, “having a real HD format may be worth all of those disadvantages”

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Luis Caffesse]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “But in the end, are our clients willing to pay this additional price for “low-cost” HD/HDV acquisition?”

Keep in mind this isn’t really “an additional price”
Like I was saying, backing up to hard drives is cheaper than shooting to tape. So shooting DVCProHD on P2 cards is as cheap as it is going to get.

If you weren’t shooting DVCProHD onto P2 cards, you’d be shooting it to tape, and your client would have to pay for the tape stock. In this case, they pay for the hard drive media required to do the job.

In the end, if clients can’t cover that cost, then HD production can’t really be that much of a priority for them.

Of course with the HVX the good thing is you can still offer DVCPro50 and DVCPro as options.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas