The choice of PCMCIA cards for the P2 format seemed a bit "short sighted", given the virtual demise of the card in favor of the smaller flash cards. The fact that PCMCIA manufacturing plants are virtually nonexistant now is troubling to me. I'm basically trying to decide whether to keep investing more $$$ into P2 cards and hope Panasonic sticks with the format for future upgrades of the HVX200, assuming there will be an HVX200a or something along those lines. Thoughts?

I understand the SxS card won't work as fast as P2 though.
The speed of P2 allow as to use the 100Mbps DVCPRO HD.

I understand the SxS card won't work as fast as P2 though.
The speed of P2 allow as to use the 100Mbps DVCPRO HD.

Sorry Kaku, I don't believe that's correct. The SxS uses the much faster Expresscard 34 interface which has a higher bandwidth and transfer rate than PCMCIA based memory cards. I'm referring to the higher quality SxS that the new Sony camera uses.

-gb-

All Panasonic P2 camcorders use a 4:2:2 color space and employ intraframe encoding, meaning each frame is independently recorded. Sony’s new XCAM EX utilizes a 4:2:0 color space, and encodes via long GOP interframe compression, in which the camera’s processor must fill in the motion gaps between key frames.
I don't understand why Sony is still going with 4:2:0 and GOP. It doesn't make any fiscal sense to shoot HDV to a card... you might as well stick with tape. The whole point/advantage of shooting to P2 instead of tape is that you can shoot DVCProHD, which you can't shoot on cheap miniDV tapes. If there was no price/quality advantage to shooting to card, I'd stick with tape because it's way cheaper and the footage is already archived.

Have no fear, the P2-PCMCIA form factor isn't going away anytime soon. The biggest mistake people make when evaluating P2's viability is comparing what's going on in the general consumer electronic market vs. professional applications.

Panasonic chose the multi-module SDRAM-PCMCIA form factor for several reasons, the main 2 being: data rates both for current and future infrastructure and, robustness/reliability. Regardless what's happening globally to support consumer PCMCIA form factor Panny has made long-standing contracts with manufacturers to support the development and deployment of the P2 media for many years to come.

- P2 cards are designed and certified to over 30k of insert/remove cycles for the same P2-card into the same slot (assuming normal usage, not being slammed-hard by an over-enthusiastic user, as I've seen done many times). The new SxS card from Sony will not come close to that amount of usability or robustness. Just like CF, SD, XD and other solid-state media those connectors will not last more than 7k cycles. I can speak from experience on that, as I have worn out a handful of Lexar and SanDisk CF cards in my D SLR's over the years.

- P2 cards are designed to work in any P2 camera or device, both current and future. SxS will only work in the new camera; it will not talk to the "older" XDCAM cameras or even the upcoming 2/3" inch XDCAM model, which is still going to be Blu-Ray based (if my info is correct).

- SxS is "theoretically" rated at a higher maximum bitrate than P2's theoretical bitrate. That's marketing hype at it's best; XDCAM doesn't shoot a bitrate higher than 50Mbs so all the extra headroom available in the new format will be unused by the camera. The same is true however for P2 (currently); P2's theoretical maximum is 640Mbs however DVCPRO has 50% more data than XDCAM at 100Mbs.

- In real world experience, data transfers from either SxS or P2 are going to be about the same. It doesn't really matter what the media itself is capable of, the bus speed of the computers/connectivity we use it always the limiting factor. On a Mac for example you'd move off about a gig of info in just under a minute regardless which media it's coming from. Forget about theoretical speeds, real-world numbers NEVER come close to the maximum's listed in glossy ad campaigns.

Panny's commitment to P2 media is long-term and well thought out, and is designed to be used throughout it's P2 lineup, not just in a limited number of cameras or applications. Will P2 be around 15 years from now? Doubtful, but then again this is the first time that a new media of ANY type was designed to be used as a de-facto standard across an entire line of cameras and equipment from any manufacturer.

For me, the consideration of how long the P2 form factor will remain becomes a non-issue. With the advent of items such as the Colorspace Icon worrying about media becomes irrelevant and it's now a question of "which camera?". Just as Panny did with P2 and HD aquisition, Jim is doing with RED, now Colorspace is about to change how we think about "media".

I'm not a huge fan of P2, but from what I gather (and not only from Robert's comments above) it is that from a professional point of view, it is the best investment in terms of image quality at the moment, and probably for at least a few more years.

I have spent so much money on 35mm, 16mm and videaotape stock over my nearly 40 years of working as a professional director/cameraman that I laugh whenever the criticism of P2 revolves around cost.. first of all, the costs will, and are coming down.. secondly, for a professional filmmaker, the costs are amortised over so many budgets that it works out to be way cheaper than even DVCAM (don't even think about film) after very few projects. When I go back over my past documentary budgets I am amazed at how much more I'm making now because I'm not having to buy tape or film - AND I'm adding rental for the cards.

My complaint about P2 would aplly to all "tapeless" formats. There has yet to be developed an affordable, reliable, professional well-thought-out system for archiving and backing up the mountain of imagery that I'm accumulating daily.

I don't understand why Sony is still going with 4:2:0 and GOP. It doesn't make any fiscal sense to shoot HDV to a card... you might as well stick with tape. The whole point/advantage of shooting to P2 instead of tape is that you can shoot DVCProHD, which you can't shoot on cheap miniDV tapes. If there was no price/quality advantage to shooting to card, I'd stick with tape because it's way cheaper and the footage is already archived.

Jon, you aren't shooting HDV to a card, you're shooting XDCAM HD to a card. Both are 4:2:0 MPEG GOP, but the similarities end there.

Price and image quality are not the only two advantages of tapeless vs. tape acquisition. In fact, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Both P2 and XDCAM HD disc or card, offer many benefits and time savings over tape in the acquisition process.

-gb-

I'm basically trying to decide whether to keep investing more $$$ into P2 cards and hope Panasonic sticks with the format for future upgrades of the HVX200, assuming there will be an HVX200a or something along those lines. Thoughts?

Panasonic has converted their entire HD lineup to P2, excepting only the VariCam, which will eventually be updated to a VariCam II and go P2 at that point. Their "best" new camcorder, the HPX3000, is exclusively P2.

Look at the customers they have. It's not you and me and Kaku and a few other DVInfo users; they've gotten massive broadcast organizations like the Fox network and the Australian Broadcasting Company to commit to exclusively P2. The BBC is the latest one; the BBC is almost certainly going to announce their decision to migrate to P2 soon. They've already standardized all production from their Factual Studios to be done on DVCPRO-HD (with HDX900s) and they've rumoredly commissioned Adobe to include P2 support across the CS3 lineup (which is why, in a very short amount of time, CS3 will be getting a free update).

The 32GB card comes out in November. The 64GB card is said to be "right around the corner," which I interpret to mean NAB in April (but we'll see about that). Panasonic has basically bet the entire broadcast business on P2, and they've been doing extremely well with that. They're probably now in a position of that they couldn't change away from P2 even if they wanted to. They have long-term contracts with massive broadcast organizations who have committed to abandon other formats and exclusively use the P2 system, so there's no way panasonic will decide "oh, I think I'll change my format today."

The SxS uses the much faster Expresscard 34 interface which has a higher bandwidth and transfer rate than PCMCIA based memory cards.
The ExpressCard bus is faster, but the underlying memory isn't much different. P2's maximun transfer rate doesn't begin to approach the theoretical limit of the PCMCIA bus. Sony could easily have put their SxS technology in the PCMCIA form factor and it'd be every bit as fast as what it is now.

SxS claims 800mbps, P2 claims 640mbps. There's a difference there, but it's basically a wash, especially when you consider that the PCMCIA bus is capable of 133 megabytes per second. Panasonic could make P2 cards faster than Sony's SxS cards if they wanted to; it seems like all they'd have to do is RAID six chips together instead of four. That'd increase the throughput and put them close to a gigabit per second, and still within the PCMCIA bus speed.

Of course, I keep nagging them to come up with a P3 system, where they'd use an ExpressCard core memory system in a PCMCIA adapter shell -- that way they'd maintain 100% compatibility with all existing cameras and hardware, and also have direct importing into today's ExpressCard-only systems too. Kind of like a miniSD card works -- it's a removable core module but comes with a full-sized SD adapter.

The fact that PCMCIA manufacturing plants are virtually nonexistant now is troubling to me.
$69. Problem solved.
http://www.addonics.com/news/product_announcements/2007/adexc34cb.pdf

Steve,

I'm looking forward to iDVR for archiving the data.
http://www.ivdr.org/iVDR/ivdr_e.html

I was debating between buying P2 cards and FS100 (or something similar).
I went through various firewire and USB drives to experiment what would be the best for me.
Simply, a couple of 4GB P2 cards and making backup at the site on those portable drives didn't excite me much. Epson P5000 was the most reliable one, but the backup takes too long.
I also experimented recording on MacBook Pro with LaCie Rugged drive. it is nice to be able to monitor with larger screen on mac but it is too much hustle to take them around.

Then after seeing the P2 drive updated with firewire 800 port and also has five P2 slots, I decided to go with 6 16GB P2 cards (2 for HVX200 and 4 for HPX555). Now I feel so complete. I don't think I'm going to keep buying P2, maybe change them to 32GB when I make lots of money and sell the 16s.
If I need more cards for some longer shooting job then I would rent some cards. My point is, if you once buy them, you wouldn't worry so much how are they are going to be. So far, none of SD cards or compact flash cards that I had bought failed. None. I don't expect the P2 cards to be bad for a long time.

Sony seems to go after resolutions and more calm visuals with their video market and since Panasonic always support things like olympic they are more aware of motions. I chose P2HD because I need more for motion than setting the cam static and shoot nice scenery. Actually for the nice scenery, I carry around HV20 for that.

forgot to mention,

the duel adapter has been working great for me, too. If I need to copy the contents on P2 cards out on the road, then I use MacBook Pro with Duel adapter, also LaCie's LittleBig Disk (2.5 inch RAID drive that works with bus power!).

Only problem with Duel Adapter is that with the current driver software, the MacBook Pro won't shut down when the apapter is inserted to the ExpressCard34 slot. The computer would restarts by itself even though I select the "shut down" command. But unlike how Panasonic describes in their site, you won't have to restart the computer every time you insert and take out the P2 card as long as you unmount it from the desktop first.

The ExpressCard bus is faster, but the underlying memory isn't much different. P2's maximun transfer rate doesn't begin to approach the theoretical limit of the PCMCIA bus. Sony could easily have put their SxS technology in the PCMCIA form factor and it'd be every bit as fast as what it is now.

SxS claims 800mbps, P2 claims 640mbps. There's a difference there, but it's basically a wash, especially when you consider that the PCMCIA bus is capable of 133 megabytes per second. Panasonic could make P2 cards faster than Sony's SxS cards if they wanted to; it seems like all they'd have to do is RAID six chips together instead of four. That'd increase the throughput and put them close to a gigabit per second, and still within the PCMCIA bus speed.

I wasn't claiming anything about actual transfer rates. I only wanted to state to Kaku that the Expresscard 34 bus architecture allows for a faster transfer rate than PCMCIA, because he thought the opposite was true.

-gb-

I wasn't claiming anything about actual transfer rates. I only wanted to state to Kaku that the Expresscard 34 bus architecture allows for a faster transfer rate than PCMCIA, because he thought the opposite was true.

-gb-

Greg,

Thanks for the clarification.

Panasonic decided on the PCMCIA because at the time, thats what they had. They made the choice to get out as early as they could with solid state recording and used what was available. Sony decided to wait till the new standard was up, running, and coming into wide spread use. I understand why Panasonic jumped out when they did. Once you've invested in a P2 system your unlikely to switch.

The PCMCIA standard was on the way out the door as Panasonic introduced the cards. It is a now a closed format with no further development. It would retire to the closet with every other dead computer standard if not for the fact the Panasonic built the P2 cards upon it.

That is not a bad thing, it is just the way it is. The bus structure won't change. You won't see "PCMCIA 2". In that way the express card options have a lot more headroom. It is the new format and open for development.

At some point Panasonic will have to change, you can't ride a dead horse forever. I would not expect that to be anytime soon. Gazing into my crystal ball (lol), I would predict nothing of the sort should happen until after the expresscard slot gives up the ghost to the next format.

The one thing you do have is that you are stuck with Panasonic for everything. You won't see Scandisk or someone like that jumping into to build you a P2 reader. There is nothing in it for them dollar wise since no one else uses that buss structure anymore.

K

The one thing you do have is that you are stuck with Panasonic for everything. You won't see Scandisk or someone like that jumping into to build you a P2 reader. There is nothing in it for them dollar wise since no one else uses that buss structure anymore.

Thats the only negative side with P2, pana only. But otherwise..
As long as huge broadcasters as Fox, Skynews and after what i've read BBC will be all tapeless on P2 by 2010 feel safe to commit millions of USD into P2, the p2 system will probaly stay around for a few years.

And here in Norway I know NRK(the state run broadcaster) already are using p2 for some dramawork simply because it's way more economic than tape and faster. Altough for some insane reason they've ended up with Xdcam for ENG. Why is a dam good question, its not like their production system built around Omneon with room for 5000hours cant take it and I'm shure their Storagetek archive solution with at least 60000hours of storage space can take it.

You won't see Scandisk or someone like that jumping into to build you a P2 reader. There is nothing in it for them dollar wise since no one else uses that buss structure anymore.

And yet, both Duel Systems and Addonics have done exactly that...

They've already standardized all production from their Factual Studios to be done on DVCPRO-HD (with HDX900s) and they've rumoredly commissioned Adobe to include P2 support across the CS3 lineup (which is why, in a very short amount of time, CS3 will be getting a free update).

Don't be under many illusions about the BBC and its use of formats (and certainly don't read anything from press reports regarding such things from either Panasonic or Sony!) The BBC uses many different formats. Many programmes shot for the BBC are shot by independent companies under commission, and they shoot in whatever format they need to. Final delivery is either Digibeta or HDCAM/SR. I cannot see the latter changing any time soon due to its universal use.

The BBC have been using a combination of DVCpro and HDCAM for a while. Top Gear recently did a shoot on HDX900's at the North Pole. But by the same token Torchwood is shot with HDCAM (after first starting off as DVCpro).

As far as tapeless acquisition goes, the BBC I believe are still keeping an eye on Infinity. They'll be able to get 10-bit full 1920x1080 HD out of that for an inexpensive price.

What the BBC really wants is to be ready for 1080 at 50p, and to be honest I wouldn't expect the BBC's formats of choice to be fully HD and finalised until at least 2010. Until then they'll enjoy the free equipment they are being given by the various companies in return for press releases.

And yet, both Duel Systems and Addonics have done exactly that...
Neither Addonics or Duel Systems are building a P2 card reader. They're building a PCMCIA to ExpressCard adaptor. That's about as relevant to the future of P2 cards and the PCMCIA interface as being able to buy a SATA to IDE adaptor is to the future of IDE HDDs. Both those manufacturers are building those adaptors because they see a market for those adaptors, one in which P2 cards are such a small segment as to be irrelevant to their long term plans to continue manufacturing such adaptors.

Someone also mentioned the insertion cycle rating of P2 cards. Such figures only hold true for connector pairs where all factors of both the plug and socket design are maintained within certain tolerances. Has Panasonic certified either of these adaptors as being within those tolerances? If not then the cycle rating is anyone's guess, probably the same as it'll be for any PCMCIA card. Worse still we've now added another device and connector system into the data path, that can only mean a decrease in system reliability.

And yet, both Duel Systems and Addonics have done exactly that...


bit players who are happy to make a buck anyway they can scrounge it. Those are also just adapters. I would not call them P2 products.

Where are those scandisk, etc..., P2 cards and readers? They are not coming because the format is dead and there is no financial reward for them to jump in.

Everyone else who now follows with solid state memory at this moment will be using the express card bus. That is the one advantage it has as the prices are going to drop much faster because there will be more product floating around.

Panasonic jumped early to carve out their market. It wasn't a bad move but it did leave them out on an island.

K

Neither Addonics or Duel Systems are building a P2 card reader.
Er, yes, they are.

They're building a PCMCIA to ExpressCard adaptor.
Exactly. And that's all you need to guarantee the future relevancy of P2 as long as ExpressCard exists.

That's about as relevant to the future of P2 cards and the PCMCIA interface as being able to buy a SATA to IDE adaptor is to the future of IDE HDDs.
Either I don't understand your perspective on this, or you don't understand how P2 works. I mean, what do you expect a "reader" to do? P2 is a computer-based file-based recording system. These products let you read the cards on any ExpressCard-based system. PCMCIA laptops can read them directly. And PCMCIA->PCI adapters already exist for desktops.

Besides, this is all largely unnecessary anyway, because the camera itself already acts as a P2 reader, through USB or firewire. As long as a USB port exists, or a firewire port exists, you've already got a P2 reader that will work as long as your camera lasts.

Both those manufacturers are building those adaptors because they see a market for those adaptors, one in which P2 cards are such a small segment as to be irrelevant to their long term plans to continue manufacturing such adaptors.
And yet, both of them specifically engineered their product to work with P2, and both advertise P2 compatibility. I think you're assuming some things and putting words in their mouth, when you could just look at the products and see that they're designed to do exactly the job that needs doing.

Someone also mentioned the insertion cycle rating of P2 cards. Such figures only hold true for connector pairs where all factors of both the plug and socket design are maintained within certain tolerances. Has Panasonic certified either of these adaptors as being within those tolerances? If not then the cycle rating is anyone's guess, probably the same as it'll be for any PCMCIA card. Worse still we've now added another device and connector system into the data path, that can only mean a decrease in system reliability.
Wow, you sure seem to want to see gloom and doom here. I guess all I can say is that massive broadcast organizations who have thoroughly researched this have been adoptiong the system, there are somewhere around 400 broadcast organizations using it today, many of whom are using it exclusively (such as the Fox network in the USA, and the ABC network in Australia, and Spain's CNN and Canal+, and the BBC is expected to adopt it shortly). This is no little fringe fly-by-night situation, this is the future of broadcast -- at least as far as Panasonic is concerned. And Panasonic is in control of the destiny of PCMCIA gear, and they are not exactly a small manufacturer -- they can make all the readers and adapters anyone will need for decades if that's what it takes.

bit players who are happy to make a buck anyway they can scrounge it. Those are also just adapters. I would not call them P2 products.
Why not? What do they lack?

They are not coming because the format is dead and there is no financial reward for them to jump in.
You sure have a different definition of "dead" from everyone else then. When I see numbers like the number of TV stations in the USA that have adopted tapeless systems (176, at last count) and then see the breakdown (six went XDCAM-HD, the other 170 all went P2) I tend to think that it's far from "dead". Thriving and dominating, perhaps, but not exactly "dead."

Everyone else who now follows with solid state memory at this moment will be using the express card bus. That is the one advantage it has as the prices are going to drop much faster because there will be more product floating around.
Either you need to explain yourself a bit more, or you need a reality check, one of the two. There's only one camcorder manufacturer that's going to be using the Express Card bus that we know of, and that's Sony. And they don't use commodity memory, they use proprietary SxS cards. What happens in the larger ExpressCard market will have no effect on Sony's SxS cards. SxS cards cost exactly the same as P2 cards, and there's nothing that's going to cause those prices to "drop much faster". Already you can buy a 16GB ExpressCard memory module for, what, $200? Less? Doesn't affect the pricing on SxS by a nickel, SxS 16GB is $900.

Everyone else is going to use either SD or CompactFlash. Red uses CompactFlash, and Thomson's eternally-delayed Infinity uses CompactFlash. But neither of those are going to be high-quantity systems. AVC-HD camcorders use SD memory, and there's tens of thousands of those cameras sold every week, so that's where you'll see prices plunge. And none of these CF or SD systems will affect SxS pricing (or P2 pricing) by even a penny.

Panasonic jumped early to carve out their market. It wasn't a bad move but it did leave them out on an island.
That's one way to look at it. But it looks like a pretty big island. I guess another way to look at it is that they've had the market to themselves, and have sewn up a huge percentage of the market.

I don't think P2 is going any where.

Barry is right Panasonic has put a huge amount of money into developing and marketing P2. It's technical short coming aren't effecting it's sales in the least.

The bigger issue I see is that we may end up with two proprietary tapeless formats from Sony and Panasonic. Ideally all broadcast outlets would accept either format delivered on HDD but I'm not sure we're even close to seeing that. We're really entering into, and for some of us have been, a world made up of codec formats and the storage media they're recorded to is not as important as the codec and workflow that formats provides.

What makes me crazy is this marketing trench warfare that really only makes things more difficult for working professionals. If Sony had just adopted P2, with a nod to Panasonic for licensing, then the price of cards would have come way down - and this discussion would be irrelevant - and both companies would amortise R&D - and the development of cameras and post production tools would skyrocket without striking fear in the hearts of consumers...

But no, Sony, still pissed off about the 1880s Beta wars, insists on "newer technology"...

Technology does not make movies. For many years people shot on the same old film cameras, transferred audio to the same Magnasync machines and edited on the same Moviolas (I still have one in my office for nostolgic reasons) and no one has made better films since those things have been abandoned on the trash heap.

If Sony had just adopted P2, with a nod to Panasonic for licensing...If Panasonic had just adopted XDCAM, with a nod to Sony for licensing...

If Sony had just adopted DVCPRO HD, with a nod to Panasonic for licensing...

If Panasonic had just adopted HDCAM, with a nod to Sony for licensing...

If Sony had just adopted M2, with a nod to Panasonic for licensing...

I think you get the idea...

This is quickly becoming a Ford / Chevy argument and I'm not sure how much longer it's going to last. I sure don't get the "insists on newer technology" complaint... Ford / Chevy, Canon / Nikon, Sony / Panasonic all insist on newer technology, that's always been the fundamental concept all along.

At the end of the day both P2 and SxS are two different implementations of solid state memory, and the underlying message seems to be that acquisition is increasingly likely to be solid state - (So they may benefit each other.) though I'd expect tape to stay around for quite a while yet.

Does either offer a significant advantage over the other? Being established is an advantage for P2, being natively supported on modern PCs is one for SxS. Otherwise we need to see how the pricing settles down. One advantage that SxS may have is that a range of card sizes is promised at costs roughly proportional to size, whilst P2 seem to discontinue smaller sizes as larger ones come out.

Currently, I for one find 6 30 minute tapes far more useful than a single 3 hour tape, and I'd expect a similar choice as we go to solid state. SxS may offer this choice, P2 is predicted not to.

Codec arguments are a separate subject again. Eventually I'd expect both Panasonic and Sony to follow the Red and Infinity examples and move to wavelet based systems, as the coding technology evolves.

I can't think of a better end for this thread than David's post above... thanks all,

Hi,

P2 is here to stay. We chose the CardBus form factor for several reasons. The first is that so we could have a raid ) array inside the card that would net us the speed that we wanted for read and write, 640 mbs. And there was enough room left over for data management. The express card has a faster transfer speed, but note that no where do they identify the actual write speed. The second reason we chose it, and you must realize that the Express card slot was on the palying field when we chose the Cardbus, is that it has a very robust and proven insertion and release mechanism.

The other manufacturers that support the reading of the P2 cards are there, there is not another manufacturer that makes a P2 card, and I would say at this point in time, that is probably appropriate. Doesn't mean that it will always be that way.

There are over 60,000 P2 devices in the world right now and that is just a very healthy number.

Thanks Chris for opening this thread.

Thanks,

Jan

Let me point out in reference to Chris' "Ford v Chevy" comment above that I am basically a Sony user, having shot nothing but Sony cameras for video until a year and a half ago when I bought an XL H1 (because it's a better HDV camera), and now the HPX500...

Besides which, I happen to drive a (1930) Ford with a Chevy engine, which I can do because of "standardization" - 12v electrics, gasoline for fuel, 16" rubber tires...

The point I was making is that standardization makes life easier for working professionals, making after-market products viable because they work with a variety of brands... "new technology" isn't always "better technology", and if P2 had been embraced early on as a standard, the workflow issues that are so rampant in this and other forums wouldn't be issues at all - AND we would probably have less expensive, larger capacity cards with more features.

I'll admit that in the late 80's we might have had something better if BetaSP hadn't been adopted as a standard - but because it was, we were able to pick and chose camera and post production features from a huge catalog based on something besides format...

I like P2, not because I happen to own two P2 cameras, but because the cards themselves seem robust and have been proven in 2 years of use by the people that submit to these forums...

As for the other new sollutions - new MAY be better, but maybe not...

FWIW, Hoodman is currently finishing up their design for P2 cards which are supposed to come out at some point. I think the reason some companies haven't been making P2 cards (like Sandisk) is that Panasonic has a no-competition copyright for X amount of time after it's been made. Those P2 cards are EXPENSIVE, far pricier than their cost of production (I just bought a 2 gig USB stick for 20 bucks. Last year I bought the 4GB P2 for $500), and when the market opens up for competition, companies like SanDisk will be in there, undercutting Panasonic by a decent amount and still raking in huge profits.

It isn't the size of the market that matters, it's the profitability.

The point I was making is that standardization makes life easier for working professionals, making after-market products viable because they work with a variety of brands... "new technology" isn't always "better technology", and if P2 had been embraced early on as a standard, the workflow issues that are so rampant in this and other forums wouldn't be issues at all - AND we would probably have less expensive, larger capacity cards with more features.


Steve, to expect that Sony would even begin to endorse P2 CardBus, would be the wishful thinking of a lifetime. It would never happen. So while I have had probably the busiest summer in 5 years, I am not so aware of the workflow issues. Frankly if you think that the standardization would resolve that then somehow the standardization would really have to occur within the human genome. Most of the workflow issues I have found, are more human/data workflow issues and it is really a matter of wrapping your head around how to become more organized. And that is totally unrelated to the recording process, yet impacts the workflow.

I'll admit that in the late 80's we might have had something better if BetaSP hadn't been adopted as a standard - but because it was, we were able to pick and chose camera and post production features from a huge catalog based on something besides format...


Oh please these were not the good old days, these were days when we watched a major player undercut its own format. I mean really, look at the spec on a BVW75 and compare it to a UVW machine or even a PVW,this not a standard! The only thing familar between them all was the tape.

I like P2, not because I happen to own two P2 cameras, but because the cards themselves seem robust and have been proven in 2 years of use by the people that submit to these forums...


And frankly it is the robust nature of the cards I like. One of my favorite demos is to pull the card out of the camera, throw it on the floor, stomp on it, pick it back up and put it in the camera only to play flawlessly. I can put it in my back pocket and sit on it, it doesn't break. It can be dropped in a river or snow, dried out and still works, you said it, it is robust!

As for the other new sollutions - new MAY be better, but maybe not...[/QUOTE]

The new solutions are still long GOP recording at 4:2:0. Can't say that the price has improved as the cards are similar in prce to P2. And so far all we have seen from the spec writers is the transfer speed. Where is the write speed? Hey, if we came up with a 200mbs version of the AVC-Intra codec, the P2 card would record, without even breaking a sweat. Does the express card have the capability of even recording the 50mbs 4:2:2 XDCam codec? All I have heard and been able to find is the transfer speed.

Best,

Jan

Those P2 cards are EXPENSIVE, far pricier than their cost of production (I just bought a 2 gig USB stick for 20 bucks. Last year I bought the 4GB P2 for $500), and when the market opens up for competition, companies like SanDisk will be in there, undercutting Panasonic by a decent amount and still raking in huge profits.

It isn't the size of the market that matters, it's the profitability.

Jason,

There is not a single SD card that is available on the consumer market place that used in a P2 card that is available for sale individually as an SD Card. They are not comercially available. What you pay for in that P2 card price is far more than a dumb memory flash. You pay for the DATA MANAGER, the file overflow manager to the next card, the parity checker and a number of other functions that I cannot think of right now. It isn't a flash card it is a P2 card.

Best,

Jan

In other words it's not "just" four SD cards inside a PC card... there's a *lot* more to it than that.

It appears that Panasonic is committed to supporting the P2 format for the foreseeable future, but it seems unlikely that will ever become a mainstream memory format (e.g. you could buy the cards at Wal-mart).

As for SxS, we know that SanDisk can make flash memory cards with sustainable write speeds of 20-40 MB/sec, so there's no reason to think SxS couldn't offer at least that much. Speculation: what if Sony is using the EX1 as a test-bed for future flash-based cameras all the way up to HDCAM, and maybe down the other way to consumer models? That may not be enough to make SxS a mainstream format either, but perhaps the next replacement for MemorySticks?

Jason,

...What you pay for in that P2 card price is far more than a dumb memory flash. You pay for the DATA MANAGER, the file overflow manager to the next card, the parity checker and a number of other functions that I cannot think of right now. It isn't a flash card it is a P2 card.

Best,

Jan

Jan,
I will give you that there is more to the card than just "flash memory". But I am still having a difficult time getting my head around the price.

If the high cost is due primarily to the expense of developing things like the data manager, overflow manager, etc, then why would the price almost double when simply going from say a 16 gig card to a 32 gig card?

-Brad

As for SxS, we know that SanDisk can make flash memory cards with sustainable write speeds of 20-40 MB/sec, so there's no reason to think SxS couldn't offer at least that much. Speculation: what if Sony is using the EX1 as a test-bed for future flash-based cameras all the way up to HDCAM, and maybe down the other way to consumer models?
I think your speculation is highly justified - otherwise why not simply use Compact Flash or Memory Stick in a sub $10,000 camera like the EX? P2 and SxS may make economic sense for high end users, but surely much less so for people on a tight budget? Promoting SxS in advance of future higher end cameras is highly likely.

As for write speed, then Convergent Design can record 100Mbs to a medium spec CF card, and 160Mbs to a high spec card, with similar results from Red, and I can't believe SxS will have a worse write performance than those.
That may not be enough to make SxS a mainstream format either, but perhaps the next replacement for MemorySticks?
Ideally, ExpressCards will start to become available in a range of speeds and sizes, of which SxS may be the top end, and with new laptops having the slot to natively support these, I'd welcome that. What remains to be seen is whether cameras such as the EX will work with these. If their price was much lower, and the downside was slower transfer speed, a lot of users would find that a very good compromise.

Will SxS replace MemorySticks? The Sony laptop I'm writing this on has native slots for MemoryStick, ExpressCard and now SD, and I foresee SD as more likely to displace MemoryStick than ExpressCard.

The high end market is one thing, but at the sub $10,000 level the big question to be asked is what P2 OR SxS offer that user that CF or SD don't? Transfer speed? Granted, but we need to think of price/performance ratios. Reliability? Over cheap brands maybe, but top photographers live on the reliability of CF cards, standard in top end DSLRs for a long time.

Jan,
I will give you that there is more to the card than just "flash memory". But I am still having a difficult time getting my head around the price.

If the high cost is due primarily to the expense of developing things like the data manager, overflow manager, etc, then why would the price almost double when simply going from say a 16 gig card to a 32 gig card?

-Brad

You gotta get your facts straight man - 8 gig cards used to be 1200 when they came out - 16 gigs are 900 and they just came out. 32 gigs will be 1500 when they come out - the price per gig is going down.

Let me make it clear, I like P2 cards a lot and believe they will be here for quite a while...

But, Jan (and no disrespect intended) when I say there are workflow issues, I'm not talking about guys sitting around in post suites with their feet up sipping Starbucks and pushing buttons - I'm talking about frantically off-loading cards in the back of a speeding taxi, counting seconds, hoping the battery on the laptop doesn't give out, hoping the file transfer doesn't freeze or stall, hoping there's time to check the files to be sure they're intact before reformatting the cards so I can continue shooting...

I have five 16g cards (and am about to buy another) and shoot 720/24pn (for card space) and have accumulated over 70 hours of footage in the last 2 months - so I know of what I speak... I think a more convenient, bullet-proof reliable - and hopefully affordable - system of securing my (to me at least) priceless footage on location should have been available from the get go -

And that's what I mean by the advantages of standardization and the development of after-market products...

You gotta get your facts straight man ... ...the price per gig is going down.

Good! Maybe by the time they introduce the 64GB cards they will be reasonable.

Reasonable for what? They are super reasonable now. You need to look at it as a piece of hardware - a part of the camera.

Do a cost analysis between working with tape, including logging, capture, backup, stock etc - vs using P2 and hard drives. Once you cost it out over several projects and the whole workflow the benefit of P2 becomes crystal clear.

DO you complain about paying 10,000 for the VTR in a tape based prof camera? No because it is part of the camera. With P2 you save that cost and spend less on the cards.

P2 is not a commodity

Very well stated, Seth... I couldn't have said it better... plus, P2 cards pay for themselves.

P2 card price was never a valid issue. However, P2 card availability has always been a valid issue.

Good! Maybe by the time they introduce the 64GB cards they will be reasonable.

Exactly what is "reasonable?"

And if there was a cheap way to produce a third party compatible p2 cards with huge margins, why aren't other companies jumping on that reasonable (and profitable) price point.

Have you priced what DVCProHD tape costs these days?

Very well stated, Seth... I couldn't have said it better... plus, P2 cards pay for themselves.

P2 card price was never a valid issue.

I don't know Chris, because I think they are tied together. We paid $1450 for a 8GB card in March06 and felt lucky.

I think that Panasonic HAS to ramp production so we can see some competitive pricing. My guess is that the 16 GB wholesale cost is about $750.00.

I would guess the Panasonic keystones the wholesale price. Get more cards out there and prices will drop.

Reasonable for what? They are super reasonable now. You need to look at it as a piece of hardware - a part of the camera.

Do a cost analysis between working with tape, including logging, capture, backup, stock etc - vs using P2 and hard drives. Once you cost it out over several projects and the whole workflow the benefit of P2 becomes crystal clear.

DO you complain about paying 10,000 for the VTR in a tape based prof camera? No because it is part of the camera. With P2 you save that cost and spend less on the cards.

P2 is not a commodity

Wow! I feel like I just insulted someone's mother.

No offense intended - I love my new P2 cameras - really, I do!

-Brad

Regarding pricing -- is it to anyone's surpise that an SxS card costs exactly the same as a P2 card does?

We may not understand what goes into the pricing of these things, but there is an open market for competition. If the pricing was really just inflated profit, don't you think other manufacturers would want a piece of that pie? If Sony had put out their SxS cards at, say, $200 apiece, then we could all rightly say that panasonic was overpricing their P2 cards. But because the only other memory device on the market that has comparable performance has *exactly* the same price, how can anyone say that one of them is overpriced?

We can say we don't like that price, but we can't say that it's overpriced because we don't know all that goes into it.

The day an alternative manufacturer substantially undercuts the price, that's the day that we can say that the original manufacturer has overpriced. That day hasn't happened yet, although Hoodman has promised something on the order of a 20% price advantage vs. Panasonic pricing.

As a businessman, I'd think that if there was such a grossly inflated price (as so many people want to believe), combined with a global shortage, combined with massive acceptance by major customers, well, that's a "perfect storm" for a successful business model for another manufacturer to adopt. So why haven't other manufacturers stormed in to grab some of that massive profit margin? The patent expired years ago, so that's not the reason. The only reason that seems to hold up is that the idea of such an inflated profit margin is simply not accurate. If it was there, you can bet other companies would be filling the gap.

If I could hire a company to develop and sell a CheaP2 card today, spending maybe $100 in parts and pricing it at $799, undercutting Panasonic's price while still reaping a huge profit margin, and facing the heavenly prospect of a huge marketplace starving for product, I'd do it today. In a new york minute. You have to expect that the companies who are in the business have looked at this, and the only justifiable reason for not leaping into it must be: the profit margin isn't that inflated.

... "CheaP2"... have you copyrighted that already Barry? I was looking for a good name for the $199.99 32GB P2 cards my cousin is making....

I for once agree with Barry, P2 cards might be expensive but they're not overpriced. Top shelf cine glass is damn expensive but when you're using it day in, day out to capture images on a shoot costing $1M / day it sure doesn't seem overpriced to me. In the end P2 cards are a capital cost that you just factor into the price of the camera, same with the SxS cards. You don't like it, don't buy the camera. You think 35mm cine glass is too expensive, don't shoot 35mm, simple.

What I really don't get is the whole thrust of this thread. So what if by some miracle Panny decided to switch from P2 to SxS?

Is the sky really going to fall down, will P2 cameras suddenly stop working, will Panny stop production of P2 cards? Think of all the tape formats that are 'legacy' and yet you can still buy stock, you can still play them, even 2" quad is still playable. And after all I don't see anyone archiving to P2 cards, it like SxS is a transient storage media, so all that matters is that you've still got enough P2 (or SxS cards when that too goes the way of the dodo) to keep your camera running. If Panny did jump tomorrow I'd wager there'd still be a supply of working P2 cards around long after the last HVX200 has gasped it's last breath. Any part of any camera can fail and if there's no spares that's the end of the camera. And yet there's still guys out there shooting on VHS.

If you want something to panic about, how about batteries. They don't last even if you don't use them and every dang camera manufacturer seems to come up with yet another battery for every second camera model. That's more of a worry than the future of P2 cards.

P2 card price was never a valid issue.

Most people I know would say it's one of the two main reasons why they've passed on buying P2 cameras - that and the challenges of doing long-form recording. There's a market opportunity here for HD cameras using more affordable flash memory, and I hope we'll see Panasonic develop a series of such cameras (e.g. the HSC1U). P2 can live on as a high-end format for producers with deep pockets, but hopefully we'll see more affordable solutions become common now that that's technologically feasible.

I for once agree with Barry, P2 cards might be expensive but they're not overpriced.
I also agree with Barry, and the above sentiment. They're not overpriced for what they are, and same for SxS.

But I also agree very strongly with Kevin:
P2 can live on as a high-end format for producers with deep pockets, but hopefully we'll see more affordable solutions become common now that that's technologically feasible
Along the same lines, I earlier asked the question ".........at the sub $10,000 level the big question to be asked is what P2 OR SxS offer that user that CF or SD don't?", and I've yet to hear an answer to that.

When the HVX200 was developed, P2 made obvious sense because it was there and available, and CF speeds were only just getting to what was needed. SxS may make sense for deep pocket users, but surely Panasonic could regain the initiative in this market by making their next gen HVX200 use a simpler and cheaper memory? (Higher end cameras continuing with P2.)

There will be drawbacks, max download speed being obvious, but as said before, in the sub $10,000 market is this not a more sensible price/performance ratio for most users?