I'm trying to decide which format I should buy into but I don't really know the benefits of one over the other. I know quite a lot of people who have worked with the Panasonic AG-HVX200A, and could probably get a lot of work if i bought one. But i've been eyeing the Sony EX3 thats coming out soon and am falling in love with its seamless workflow from Camera to my express slot on my Macbook Pro.

A fellow shooter I know says that it would be a mistake to buy the XDCAM EX3 because the SXS formate is unproven and that I could easily find anyone else with a P2 to do multi camera shoots. And that producers that hire know the P2 look and prefer it over the XDCAM look.

Is any of this true? What benefits do either have?

Given the choice between the EX3 and the 200A, I don't know too many who'd go for the Panasonic. Though it can record at 100mbps with it's DVCProHD, it cannot actually record 1920x1080p. Combine that with the P2 cards that no new laptops are coming with any more, the EX3s SDI output, the timecode sync on the EX3, the interchangable lenses on the EX3, the better glass on the EX3, and it's nearly no contest. There's a reason why it costs nearly 3 times what an HVX costs.

The Sony EX1 is much closer in price and features to the HVX, but in my view is a better camera for a number of reasons, many of which have been discussed time and again on this forum and others.

If you have to shoot certain, specific things, the rolling shutter on the EX1/EX3 could cause you a problem. So learn the limitations and see if they affect you.

The idea that you could find someone else with P2 cards to shoot with is laughable. Are you going to hand over your $800 cards to a stranger? And if you aren't going to share media, what difference does it make what you each shoot on?

And in addition to the above, the EX cameras have a true manual lens, the HVX 200 is servo. The EX cameras (esp the EX3) also have a vastly better viewfinder/LCD screen than the HVX200. These are specific camera differences though, nothing to do with recording format.

I see your points, and agree with you on all of them. I just cant quite shake the whole feeling that Sony might screw me in the near future and abandon the SXS format. It's had a nasty rep for abandoning a lot of formats in the past.

I wasnt planning on giving my cards to anyone. Rest assured. I just get a lot of calls for the 200A P2 work and feel that I might be missing out on work if I go with the EX3 because producers don't KNOW that its superior.

I mean, i'm stoked about the EX3. I'd heard that its the only small camera that Discover HD gives a 100% broadcast stamp of approval.

Then again, maybe I should wait for the Red Scarlet?

I just cant quite shake the whole feeling that Sony might screw me in the near future and abandon the SXS format. It's had a nasty rep for abandoning a lot of formats in the past.
I draw a big line between Sony consumer and Sony broadcast. The former has certainly had a list of formats with short lives, but on the broadcast front it's a different story. The fundamental Beta cassette has evolved since the first professional Betacams (Beta SP, Digibeta, SX, IMX, HDCAM etc), but AFAIK the later machines are very good for backwards compatibility.

As for SxS, it has a form factor that is a current technology and supported by modern laptops, being based on ExpressCard, which I'd say bodes well for it's future. My gut feeling is that it's use in the EX cameras is overkill - Compact Flash would probably have been more than good enough for them, especially if they'd specified only the faster grades. I suspect the EX cameras may well be a proving ground for SxS before they migrate the technology into higher end and 2/3" cameras. I really don't see SxS being abandoned, especially as it's a collaboration with Sandisk.

I've tested both formats and would say that SxS is more practical due to longer recording times per GB, faster transfer speed and modern laptop compatibility. But if you're getting calls for DVCProHD shoots that's a good reason to be prepared to suport that. One solution would be to lease the gear that makes you money now, and reevaluate that as circumstances and technology change.

As far as SxS being over-engineered is concerned, the same could be said for P2 but both formats are aimed at high-end uses and apparently require extra bandwidth for over/undercranking recording. The "Red" camera proves that fast CF cards could be used in this context, but neither Sony or Panasonic seems willing to go this route for high-bandwidth recording.

The only reason to go with the Panasonic 200A is that it is cheaper than the Sony EX offering and it will provide "good enough" images for HD. I do wish the EX cameras went with a global shutter, but the EX cameras do have electronics to correct the adverse affects of the rolling shutter. It's really not that noticeable and handles motion fairly well.

Anyway, because of the improvements to the chipset, I would consider the Panasonic 200A, only because it fits into my budget and it produces a good enough image to get work. As far as P2 goes, whoever told you that it is better is pulling your chain. SxS, I believe, will be around for a long time. I think Panasonic is stuck with P2 because of all the money they invested in it. I think when they get their money's worth from P2, it will be gone, and Panasonic will have a newer and faster flash system for their mid and high end professional cameras. The suggestion of renting from an earlier reply sounds sensible because there are clients that prefer Panasonic P2 cameras over Sony's EX cameras, but I've found that more and more of the diehard Panasonic people are changing their minds about Sony's EX as they hear more and more good things about the cameras.

Also, Panasonic is high on AVC Intra. I believe after AVC Intra becomes popular, DVCPro will be either totally out or used in their lower end professional cameras. Of course, that won't happen for a while.

Now as far as the EX3 is concerned, you might want to consider the Panasonic HPX - 500 since it is closer in price. It has bigger (2/3 inch) chips; uncompressed audio, and it's a shoulder mount design if you like that style. In the case of the EX3 vs HPX - 500, I would give the edge to the Panasonic camera.

And that producers that hire know the P2 look and prefer it over the XDCAM look.

Is any of this true? What benefits do either have?

P2 is not a look; it is a recording format. Now if producers say they prefer the DVCProHD look over XDCam then that's possible.

Benefits of DVCProHD - Uncompressed Audio, Hardly any artifacts shooting fast motion, Easier and faster to edit with natively; intra-frame instead of inter-frame codec; records higher 4:2:2 color space than most XDCam codecs.

Benefits of XDCamEX - nearly three times more recording minutes than DVCProHD; full 1920 x 1080 HD recording; faster, more modern SxS flash card to record on.

Benefits of DVCProHD - Uncompressed Audio,

XDCAM is uncompressed audio as well, so no difference there.

-gb-

Why worry. Just make money with the camera now. If you have work offered to you then what does it matter? If you feel you wont then you wont. Simple.

I second the comment on how the SxS record times dwarf P2 record times. This is essential when working on longer form projects (documentary, event videography).

Hey guys,
I am shooting mostly documentary work and the tapeless workflow (at least with cards) simply isn't economically practical b/c i need to be able to shoot 5+ hours at a time. Tape is cheap obviously and I just wanted to know if you think that SxS or P2 will ever be able to compete in the realm of long-form videography?

Hey guys,
I am shooting mostly documentary work and the tapeless workflow (at least with cards) simply isn't economically practical b/c i need to be able to shoot 5+ hours at a time. Tape is cheap obviously and I just wanted to know if you think that SxS or P2 will ever be able to compete in the realm of long-form videography?

I don't get it.

You have a tape deck that lets you record 5+ hours?

If the P2/SxS workflow is too expensive, why not get a Firestore? That's pretty economical.

Hey guys,
I am shooting mostly documentary work and the tapeless workflow (at least with cards) simply isn't economically practical b/c i need to be able to shoot 5+ hours at a time. Tape is cheap obviously and I just wanted to know if you think that SxS or P2 will ever be able to compete in the realm of long-form videography?

Recording capacities will definitely go up, and card prices will come down eventually, but the P2 and SxS formats will not change. Perhaps using a firestore drive or the new Sony Hard drive may work well for what you are doing.

I don't get it.

You have a tape deck that lets you record 5+ hours?.
I suspect he means 5+ hours before getting the chance to offload, not as a continuous take.
f the P2/SxS workflow is too expensive, why not get a Firestore? That's pretty economical.
They come with issues of their own (though the latest model is improved) such as long boot up time and high level of fan noise when they heat up. I also found mine to be less than 100% reliable, though when used *AS WELL* as tape it didn't matter too much, and still greatly speeded up the workflow. But I wouldn't recommend one as the sole recording medium.

Eventually all cameras will be solid state, end of story, but that's probably a fair while off yet for many people. Whether they will be P2, SxS or something completely different is another matter.

New 32GB SxS will be available later this year. One of these plus the PHU-60K will give you >6.5 hours of continuous 'taping' in SP mode and ~5 hours in HQ mode.

George/

I'm looking forward to seeing how the HMC150 performs, once it's released. SDHC cards are a whale of a lot less costly than either P2 or SxS.

Eventually all cameras will be solid state, end of story, but that's probably a fair while off yet for many people. Whether they will be P2, SxS or something completely different is another matter.

P2 and SxS will never be mainstream solutions due to their high cost and limited production volume, plus they're unnecessary for standard video recording purposes. Solid state will take over when you can fit an hour of decent footage on a $5 memory card, which is ~3-4 years away at current rates of technology advancement. Until then, tape is still the most practical medium for long-form recording, with hard drives a close second.

Solid state will take over when you can fit an hour of decent footage on a $5 memory card, which is ~3-4 years away at current rates of technology advancement. Until then, tape is still the most practical medium for long-form recording, with hard drives a close second.

I could not agree less. SxS is absolutely a viable medium for long-form recording and has many (workflow) advantages over tape. Even PD workflow is much better than tape, if you'd ask me. And although P2 is based on ancient technology and more expensive per minute than SxS, I'd prefer that to tape any day.

Going tapeless doesn't just mean replace SxS/PD/P2 for tape; it requires a significantly different workflow and will "never" be a long time storage/archiving solution.

George/

Interesting. I have an original FS-4 Pro, and it's been absolutely bulletproof. I ran it parallel with tape for a month or so, then abandoned tape. Been shooting without tape for years now.

What was unreliable about your firestore? I do have to say that I never let me get very hot as nearly all my shooting was indoors. My occasional outdoor shoots didn't last long enough for the unit to get very hot. But on a recent 3-day shoot, we had 2 firestores in operation in the Florida summer sun and they apparently did just fine.

I've also not noticed the fan noise others speak of, but I do use a long shotgun on camera, or off-camera mics, so maybe it just didn't capture the sounds. Were you using the built in mics on your camera?

-P


I suspect he means 5+ hours before getting the chance to offload, not as a continuous take.

They come with issues of their own (though the latest model is improved) such as long boot up time and high level of fan noise when they heat up. I also found mine to be less than 100% reliable, though when used *AS WELL* as tape it didn't matter too much, and still greatly speeded up the workflow. But I wouldn't recommend one as the sole recording medium.

Eventually all cameras will be solid state, end of story, but that's probably a fair while off yet for many people. Whether they will be P2, SxS or something completely different is another matter.

Going tapeless doesn't just mean replace SxS/PD/P2 for tape; it requires a significantly different workflow and will "never" be a long time storage/archiving solution.

Ah, but it could be and will when standard solid state memory is as cheap as tape - which as I said before should happen in about 3-4 years. Until then solid state recording isn't as convenient as tape for long-form work, because you have to worry about off-loading your master footage to make room for more. Granted that SxS makes this more practical than P2 given the faster transfer speeds, but it's still a hassle if you need to record several hours of footage without stopping. With tape you can record 10 hours or 100 or 1000 without worrying about how to store the footage, other than protecting the tapes from damage. And you can do all this out in the field with nothing more than a camera and a box full of tapes, as opposed to having to carry a laptop and a power supply and so on.

When standard memory cards become as cheap as tape then it's a whole different ball game, because you'll be able to save your master footage indefinitely on the original media like we do now with tape. That isn't going to happen with either P2 or SxS but it will happen with CF and SD, so those will become the prevailing solution for basic video recording. Higher-end users may still enjoy the benefits of more expensive memory, but then they'll be stuck with the workflow requirements of backing up their master footage.

Ah, but it could be and will when standard solid state memory is as cheap as tape


What kind of "Tape" are you talking about? Because from where I sit, solid state media is more expensive, but it's not that big a gulf. If you want to compare, compare apples to apples. Go price tapes that can record what solid state records. Don't compare miniDV tapes to P2 or SxS because they can't do the job.

What is the price of tape (and a deck if you want to be fair) to record 1080p, 1080i, or 720p long form at 4:2:2. Say, an hour a tape.



With tape you can record 10 hours or 100 or 1000 without worrying about how to store the footage, other than protecting the tapes from damage. And you can do all this out in the field with nothing more than a camera and a box full of tapes, as opposed to having to carry a laptop and a power supply and so on.


Yea, but you can't record it continuously. In fact, trying to record 90 minutes without gaps is why I moved away from tape in the first place. Yes, I could have dragged my full-size DV deck with me, but that was less convenient than a firestore. I got 5+ hours of seamless recording, and could dump footage to my NLE drive(s) at lunch and/or the end of the day.



Higher-end users may still enjoy the benefits of more expensive memory, but then they'll be stuck with the workflow requirements of backing up their master footage.

We back up master footage anyway. What's the big deal? And I backed up master footage when I originated with tape. Take the raw footage off tape, edit, color correct, grade, add audio, titling, etc. Then print to a master. The difference now is that I get my footage into the NLE 10x faster or more.

What is the price of tape (and a deck if you want to be fair) to record 1080p, 1080i, or 720p long form at 4:2:2. Say, an hour a tape.The price of a Fuji or Maxell one-hour HDCAM cassette is $67.50 while a one-hour HDCAM SR cassette is $140. Cost of a VTR in HDCAM or DVCPRO HD format begins at about $20,000. No doubt about it, solid state is *already* the more affordable way to go. The cards pay for themselves quickly, within about a dozen to 15 cycles or so.

The price of a Fuji or Maxell one-hour HDCAM cassette is $67.50 while a one-hour HDCAM SR cassette is $140. Cost of a VTR in HDCAM or DVCPRO HD format begins at about $20,000. No doubt about it, solid state is *already* the more affordable way to go. The cards pay for themselves quickly, within about a dozen to 15 cycles or so.

Yea Chris, I know. But you and I both know that to record 1080p 4:2:2 you're going to need HDCam SR, and those decks are approaching $100k. And the $140 per hour tapes are no joke either. Can you imagine having to show up in the field with enough to record a 8-12 hour day versus SxS?

And if people think the Firestores are expensive, they need to go check what the Wafian's are going for. I was THRILLED with the price of the Convergent and compact flash cards by comparison.

No, I'd say being able to write an hour's worth of XDCam footage to a 50GB BluRay for what it costs is an incredible bargain compared to HDCam/HDCamSR.

I'd agree that tape is limiting in terms of continuous recording, so that's a fair point in favor of other solutions...including drive-based recorders for tape-based cameras. Where tape excels is being able to record unlimited amounts of footage out in the field without any backup work required until you get back to the studio.

As far as cost is concerned, the "Red" camera proves that standard flash memory can capture high bandwidth video at much lower cost than either P2 or SxS, so the latter clearly aren't cost-effective solutions. They're moderately useful until manufacturers admit they don't have to charge us $15-50 per minute of recording capacity, and after that they're only useful to those who have already invested in them.

Maybe we all go tapeless in two years instead of four because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks before then, but the full benefit of solid state recording isn't realized until memory cards are dirt cheap.

Getting back to the original question, SxS is more practical than P2 unless someone wants you to shoot DVCProHD, in which case you don't have much choice.

What was unreliable about your firestore? I do have to say that I never let me get very hot .............
Sometimes (about 1 in 10?) I would import the material into Avid and whilst there would be a clip for every shot, a few of them would not contain media - an error message came up during the import. I'd guess it might affect typically 3-4 clips out of 2-300 on about 1 in 10 occasions.

I couldn't tie it down to any particular circumstance, and on some occasions it definately wasn't heat. In practice, I just used to go to the tape for any missing but indispensible shots (once it was an entire interview!) and still found it saved a lot of time. (It was an FS-4 Pro.)

Colleagues experiences have varied from far greater problems than mine, to no problems at all. There is also the possibility of cables coming loose, and the long boot up time was a big irritation sometimes - I've powered up the camera and Firestore together, and on more than one occasion started and stopped recording to tape before the Firestore was ready at all!

Overall I think they're a good device - but I'd never have it as my sole recording media.
I've also not noticed the fan noise others speak of, but I do use a long shotgun on camera, or off-camera mics, so maybe it just didn't capture the sounds. Were you using the built in mics on your camera?
Various mics on various occasions, but on one memorable occasion it was an interview in a normal living room (quite large) at an average temperature, 20degC, say. Personal mics on the contributors, long continuous takes of 30min +.

The Firestore was on a fairly long cable, off the camera and by the side of a chair, but even so the fan noise was so obtrusive after a while that not only did the mics pick it up (Sony ECM77s), but the interviewer/interviewee found it distracting, especially as the pitch changes as the unit heats up/cools down. Next time we resorted to a very long Firewire cable, and putting it in the next room.

Yea, I'm with you on the CompactFlash/SDHC stuff. BUT, to be honest, if I am working in the field, I'd rather have something a bit more robust than an SDHC card. Regardless, how many people that have reds are shooting compactflash? A modern compact flash on a RED gives about what, 4-5 minutes of recording for $150? Want to do the financial math there?

So even at that level, the answer is not solid state, but hard drive. It still offers the best bang for the buck. I don't know ANYONE on RED trying to write to tape. Everyone wants to move away from tape for originating footage. It's slow, cumbersome, and inflexible. What happens if you dump a load of cash on an HDCam deck, and next year, a new standard is embraced? You're stuck. With solid state and hard drive, it's a firmware change.

I think where we tend to disagree is that pros already see solid state as "dirt cheap". It's those coming from $2 miniDV that see solid state as expensive. The other thing that you seem to be conveniently overlooking is that solid state is renewable. Tape is not. If I shoot onto tape, it's a consumable. So if I buy a $70 HDCam tape or a $160 HDCamSR tape, that is money lost. Solid State means I can shoot again on that same media 1000 times. HD is not SD. If you want to step up and play with the big boys, then you're going to have to open the wallet. And you are going to have to shift your opinions of what "reasonable cost" is. Reminds me of the day I found out what Kinos and HMIs costed! :)

It's a brave new world.

I'd agree that tape is limiting in terms of continuous recording, so that's a fair point in favor of other solutions...including drive-based recorders for tape-based cameras. Where tape excels is being able to record unlimited amounts of footage out in the field without any backup work required until you get back to the studio.

As far as cost is concerned, the "Red" camera proves that standard flash memory can capture high bandwidth video at much lower cost than either P2 or SxS, so the latter clearly aren't cost-effective solutions. They're moderately useful until manufacturers admit they don't have to charge us $15-50 per minute of recording capacity, and after that they're only useful to those who have already invested in them.

Maybe we all go tapeless in two years instead of four because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks before then, but the full benefit of solid state recording isn't realized until memory cards are dirt cheap.

Wow!

I've never had any of these issues. Did you ever speak to Focus about any of them?

I just pulled out my Firestore to test. Took 9 seconds to go from pressing the power button to ready to record. The DVX takes about 5 seconds I think, and my EX1 takes a bit longer.

I have the unit sitting on the corner of my desk right now. About 2ft from me. And I can't hear it. At all.

I definitely think you had either a faulty unit, or one in need of some attention.

Sometimes (about 1 in 10?) I would import the material into Avid and whilst there would be a clip for every shot, a few of them would not contain media - an error message came up during the import. I'd guess it might affect typically 3-4 clips out of 2-300 on about 1 in 10 occasions.

I couldn't tie it down to any particular circumstance, and on some occasions it definately wasn't heat. In practice, I just used to go to the tape for any missing but indispensible shots (once it was an entire interview!) and still found it saved a lot of time. (It was an FS-4 Pro.)

Colleagues experiences have varied from far greater problems than mine, to no problems at all. There is also the possibility of cables coming loose, and the long boot up time was a big irritation sometimes - I've powered up the camera and Firestore together, and on more than one occasion started and stopped recording to tape before the Firestore was ready at all!

Overall I think they're a good device - but I'd never have it as my sole recording media.

Various mics on various occasions, but on one memorable occasion it was an interview in a normal living room (quite large) at an average temperature, 20degC, say. Personal mics on the contributors, long continuous takes of 30min +.

The Firestore was on a fairly long cable, off the camera and by the side of a chair, but even so the fan noise was so obtrusive after a while that not only did the mics pick it up (Sony ECM77s), but the interviewer/interviewee found it distracting, especially as the pitch changes as the unit heats up/cools down. Next time we resorted to a very long Firewire cable, and putting it in the next room.

Buy what suits you. Forums are no substitute for trying the different workflows for yourself.

I think where we tend to disagree is that pros already see solid state as "dirt cheap". It's those coming from $2 miniDV that see solid state as expensive.

And someone who's apparently used to miniDV prices asked whether P2 or SxS will ever be competitive with that, which isn't likely to be the case. But today's good SD cards can sustain enough bandwidth to record XDCAM EX footage for ~$90 per hour or DVCProHD for ~$360/hour, compared to $900/hour using SxS or $3600/hour using P2 cards. Now extrapolate forward another 3-4 years with memory prices dropping 50% per year, and it would be easy enough to build an EX1-class camera using memory cards so cheap you could save them in a drawer indefinitely. That's when solid state recording fully replaces tape no matter what your criteria are, including workflow considerations and low cost recording.

The other thing that you seem to be conveniently overlooking is that solid state is renewable. Tape is not. If I shoot onto tape, it's a consumable. So if I buy a $70 HDCam tape or a $160 HDCamSR tape, that is money lost.

Yes, but unless you plan to erase your master footage at the end of a project you have to save your footage somewhere on something which costs money, so the cost comparison to tape bogs down there. That's why having memory cards be dirt cheap is the ultimate solution to this discussion, because once that happens there's no reason left to use tape even for the most budget-conscious users. This will happen soon enough, but not with proprietary memory cards.

Yes, but unless you plan to erase your master footage at the end of a project you have to save your footage somewhere on something which costs money, so the cost comparison to tape bogs down there.

No, really it doesn't. Look at the true HD alternatives:

1. Record 1080p 4:2:2 to tape, archive to Optical

Costs:

Deck ~$100k
Recording Media ~$150/hr non-renewable
Archive ~$40/hr


2. Record 1080p 4:2:0 to SxS, archive to optical

Costs:

Deck ~$0
Recording Media ~$1600/hr (one time cost)
Archive ~$13/hr

3. Record 1080p 4:2:0 to tape, archive to tape

N/A


The comparison to low-cost tape doesn't bog down because there IS no low-cost tape way to do this. It doesn't exist.


But in looking at the numbers, archiving master footage from SxS costs ~$14 per hour (based on current bluray pricing). But your originating media gets reused. In an all tape workflow, you're originating tape does not get reused, and if you master to a different tape, you've now burned 2 tapes per hour. If we were actually working with HDV or DVCPro level tapes at ~$10 each, that's $20/hr. The tape workflow is actually more expensive. It will take longer to amortize the initial price of the cards though, and that's the problem.

P2 is still fighting this battle to a degree. At the outset, the media to do a 2hr shoot cost more than the camera. I think Sony walked around that problem very nicely only a couple of years down the road. Not only that, but they gave away about an hour's worth of recordable media for free.

Your point about solid state media being so cheap, people can treat it like tape sounds great, but I don't think we'll get there any time in the foreseeable future. As the media gets cheap enough, camera manufacturers will raise standards and perhaps 5 years from now when 16GB CompactFlash cards are $15, we'll need to be saving 4k 4:4:4 files on them, and 64GB cards will be the only thing that makes any kind of sense. Nothing will sit still. Look to digital SLR cameras for an easy example. When people were clamoring for 512Mb cards, cameras were shooting 2 megapixels. Now, cameras shoot 12 megapixels, and they are clamoring for the same 32GB cards we want.

The comparison to low-cost tape doesn't bog down because there IS no low-cost tape way to do this. It doesn't exist.

One could say that the Canon XH-A1 records 1080p 4:2:0 on miniDV tapes with no special deck required, but we're digressing. In Steve's situation for shooting five hours of footage out in the field using solid state recording, he'd either need a lot of expensive memory cards or a few of them plus a laptop and some hard drives. No matter how you massage the cost calculations, thousands of dollars is a lot to pay for media for a $5-6K camera.

The Panasonic HMC150 looks promising as a good compromise between HDV and expensive solid state recording, subject to some caveats for transcoding and editing the footage. And it points the way to affordable solid state cameras of the future, recording a variety of HD formats on memory cards costing a few bucks per hour of capacity. Would anyone here not appreciate being able to save their master footage on the original media at negligible cost, with no archiving time required? C'mon, admit it... ;-)

One could say that the Canon XH-A1 records 1080p 4:2:0 on miniDV tapes with no special deck required, but we're digressing.

Except that it write 1440x1080 just like every other HDV camera...


In Steve's situation for shooting five hours of footage out in the field using solid state recording, he'd either need a lot of expensive memory cards or a few of them plus a laptop and some hard drives. No matter how you massage the cost calculations, thousands of dollars is a lot to pay for media for a $5-6K camera.


Right, Steve's situation is the impossible scenario. Compact flash isn't big enough even though it's fairly cheap. Hard Drive to record 5 hours doesn't come cheaply enough in anything but HDV flavor. And going to tape to record 1920x1080 is going to cost a fortune. So in his shoes, I'd hot-swap SxS or P2 cards and dump them onto a laptop/raid. Best, fastest way. With the EX1 and SxS, he could get this for no additional costs because the media to do it comes free. Hard to beat that.



The Panasonic HMC150 looks promising as a good compromise between HDV and expensive solid state recording, subject to some caveats for transcoding and editing the footage. And it points the way to affordable solid state cameras of the future, recording a variety of HD formats on memory cards costing a few bucks per hour of capacity. Would anyone here not appreciate being able to save their master footage on the original media at negligible cost, with no archiving time required? C'mon, admit it... ;-)

I think a LOT of hopes ride on the HMC150. I was excited as anything to see it coming. I would LOVE to get compact flash recording on these new crops of cameras we are seeing, but Panasonic has a lot riding on the P2, and Sony eschewed it for SxS. If the HMC150 can get it done with AVCHD in ~25mbps, I think a lot of people are going to be happy.

But I am going to be really honest with you. I really would not care to store my stuff long term on CF or SDHC. The form factor is too small. I can't write notes on it, and I am really scared I could drop one or two and not notice! I've had to hunt down miniDV tapes on long outdoor shoots. The klutz in me can just imagine dropping one down a crack in the elevator shaft, or a drainhole, or some other such thing! My keys are on a massive carabiner because I once did some far too stupid with a small set of keys.

I think being able to treat CF or SDHC like tape will be great for many shooters though, and I certainly won't deny that. I like the DVD form factor best of all. Big enough to seem substantial, small enough to fit HUNDREDS on a bookshelf.

I have the unit sitting on the corner of my desk right now. About 2ft from me. And I can't hear it. At all.

I definitely think you had either a faulty unit, or one in need of some attention.
Have you tried leaving it on for 1/2hour though, especially in a warm room? The fan seems to come on via a heat sensor, at different levels, and believe me you'd hear mine 2 ft away.........

As for a faulty unit, we had several within the department, and all the ones I came into contact with behaved similarly with regard to fan noise. I don't want to worry you, but could yours be a faulty unit, a faulty fan or heat sensor? Nice and quiet, but......

As far as all the solid state versus tape and cost etc, then well, lots of good points all round, but Kevin has particularly good thoughts with remarks like "....camera using memory cards so cheap you could save them in a drawer indefinitely. That's when solid state recording fully replaces tape no matter what your criteria are"

In view of the title of this thread it may be worth mentioning XDCAM HD disc, which seems to be around $25 for a 23GB disc, and which most people would consider "consumable". Lets round down, call it $1/GB, and say this "defines" consumable.

One US retailer is listing 16GB SxS cards as $899, and 133x CF 16GB cards at $185.95. Rounding down again for ease of numbers, lets call the SxS figures $50/GB, the CF $10/GB. If we now assume a year on year halving of cost, and look forward only 3 years, that will make the SxS cost per GB $6.25, and only $1.25/GB for CF!

Suddenly Kevins thoughts about treating solid state like tape, putting in a drawer indefinately, start to make a lot of sense, and in the not too distant future. Downloading and backing up equates to time, which can equate to money, which can skew the argument even further in favour of the desire to simply put the original media in a drawer.

Those figures above predict parity between XDCAM disc and CF in about 3 years, but longer for SxS. Wouldn't it be nice if Sony brought out two tiers of SxS - the current one, and "SxS lite"? The latter with the characteristics and costs of 133x CF, say. And if anybody doesn't think that would be fast enough, I think it would actually be faster than XDCAM disc.

Have you tried leaving it on for 1/2hour though, especially in a warm room? The fan seems to come on via a heat sensor, at different levels, and believe me you'd hear mine 2 ft away.........


I regularly shoot conference meetings. From 90 minutes to 6 hours. And I mount my Firestore on top of the DVX in the hotshoe mount. I've never had an issue since the day I've owned it.


As for a faulty unit, we had several within the department, and all the ones I came into contact with behaved similarly with regard to fan noise. I don't want to worry you, but could yours be a faulty unit, a faulty fan or heat sensor? Nice and quiet, but......


LOL! Very well could be. But I record nearly all my stuff in air conditioned rooms. Can you see the temperature reading on these early units? I know the new ones can tell you when they are running hot.


In view of the title of this thread it may be worth mentioning XDCAM HD disc, which seems to be around $25 for a 23GB disc, and which most people would consider "consumable". Lets round down, call it $1/GB, and say this "defines" consumable.


I agree with you there, and it's essentially where I was getting my cheap costs for archival purposes. Writing to BluRay 25GB disks as masters to material from SxS is about as cheap as it gets right now. Hoping to see BluRay disks reach $1 each anytime soon is folly.


One US retailer is listing 16GB SxS cards as $899, and 133x CF 16GB cards at $185.95. Rounding down again for ease of numbers, lets call the SxS figures $50/GB, the CF $10/GB. If we now assume a year on year halving of cost, and look forward only 3 years, that will make the SxS cost per GB $6.25, and only $1.25/GB for CF!


Are you SURE that's a 16GB SxS? $899 is the going rate for 8GB cards. SxS and P2 are the most expensive ways to record ANYTHING right now, IF you don't quality them as temporary storage media. Look at the Firestores. About $25-$30 per GB. I see the cards as much the same. Except the firestores won't get you XDCam. They can get you DVCProHD though. Over 2 hours of it.



Suddenly Kevins thoughts about treating solid state like tape, putting in a drawer indefinately, start to make a lot of sense, and in the not too distant future. Downloading and backing up equates to time, which can equate to money, which can skew the argument even further in favour of the desire to simply put the original media in a drawer.


Well, if I am working for myself, I'm not losing money on backup time. And if I am working on spec, I am charging for that time. So I consider it a wash.


Those figures above predict parity between XDCAM disc and CF in about 3 years, but longer for SxS. Wouldn't it be nice if Sony brought out two tiers of SxS - the current one, and "SxS lite"? The latter with the characteristics and costs of 133x CF, say. And if anybody doesn't think that would be fast enough, I think it would actually be faster than XDCAM disc.

Tests have shown that the EX1 is recording at over 70mbps when required. Writing 1920x1080 4:2:0 at 70mbps is going to put some serious demands on the media. I don't know that the 133x is fast enough. Convergent is asking for much more than that with their unit, though they are writing 4:2:2 and 100mbps.

Except that it write 1440x1080 just like every other HDV camera...

Unlike the HVX200, which writes 1280x1080 footage? ;-)

And what's the difference really when few consumers own 1080p displays, plus can't see the difference between 720p and 1080p at normal viewing differences?

Steve's situation is the impossible scenario. Compact flash isn't big enough even though it's fairly cheap. Hard Drive to record 5 hours doesn't come cheaply enough in anything but HDV flavor...With the EX1 and SxS, he could get this for no additional costs because the media to do it comes free. Hard to beat that.

Okay, two free SxS cards is a good start if you're comfortable with that solution for continuous recording, but then you need a laptop with a portable hard drive and extra batteries to store the footage. Granted, you can get a 250 GB portable drive for ~$100-150 now, but the laptop setup will likely run you at least $1500-2000 or so. So that's still ~$9K for an EX1 with a reliable long-form recording setup, compared to $3500 for a Canon XH-A1 with a box full of miniDV tapes. Price favors the HDV solution for long-form work.

As far as CF cards are concerned, good 16 GB ones are readily available and 32 GB ones are starting to come to market, both at prices just a fraction of P2 or SxS. This is what will define the future of solid state recording for most folks, once camera manufacturers make more cameras which work with standard memory.

But I am going to be really honest with you. I really would not care to store my stuff long term on CF or SDHC. The form factor is too small. I can't write notes on it, and I am really scared I could drop one or two and not notice!

Can't argue with that - but in some situations it's nice to be able to shoot several hours of footage and drop it in a drawer without having to worry about it for a few days or weeks. If SxS cards cost $50 each wouldn't you buy more of them?

Are you SURE that's a 16GB SxS? $899 is the going rate for 8GB cards. SxS and P2 are the most expensive ways to record ANYTHING right now,....
Yes, 16GB, Sandisk, AND from one of the site sponsors listed. The CF (Sandisk Extreme III) and XDCAM disc prices I used are also from them. I'm happy to post the link if it's allowed?
Tests have shown that the EX1 is recording at over 70mbps when required. Writing 1920x1080 4:2:0 at 70mbps is going to put some serious demands on the media. I don't know that the 133x is fast enough. Convergent is asking for much more than that with their unit, though they are writing 4:2:2 and 100mbps.
Extreme III is rated at 160Mbs, and I believe Convergent reckon it's OK for their 100Mbs mode (tested cards anyway). But OK, "SxS lite" could rate at 200, 250Mbs say and be a bit more expensive. Still be nice to get the choice of price/performance with SxS, as you do with CF, SD etc.

Unlike the HVX200, which writes 1280x1080 footage? ;-)


Only for DVCProHD. Otherwise it's doing someting else.


And what's the difference really when few consumers own 1080p displays, plus can't see the difference between 720p and 1080p at normal viewing differences?


Differencce today? Not much. Difference in 5 years, could mean something. Difference to a client could be the difference between getting the job, and not.



Okay, two free SxS cards is a good start if you're comfortable with that solution for continuous recording, but then you need a laptop with a portable hard drive and extra batteries to store the footage. Granted, you can get a 250 GB portable drive for ~$100-150 now, but the laptop setup will likely run you at least $1500-2000 or so. So that's still ~$9K for an EX1 with a reliable long-form recording setup, compared to $3500 for a Canon XH-A1 with a box full of miniDV tapes. Price favors the HDV solution for long-form work.


Well, I was in Office Depot last month. Laptops from HP and others were about $600 with 15.4" screens. Add a $200 300GB hard drive to that and for the price of an 8GB SxS card, you've got an portable logging and editing machine. If HDV is all we're after, you can get nearly 6 seamless hours onto a Firestore.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/176155/Toshiba-Widescreen-Notebook-Computer-With-Processor/



If SxS cards cost $50 each wouldn't you buy more of them?

I know many people would, but they don't really help me. Generally, I need 1 of 2 things:

1. LONG form recording times that are going on the internet or SD-DVD. In this case I need something like the firestore.

2. Short recording times at the best resolution possible, which is why I am working on the Flash XDR.

The SxS cards are really just of little use to me. I know that won't be the case with the majority of buyers, but they just don't fall within my needed parameters. One of the major reasons I didn't buy the HVX200A was because I couldn't use our current firestore to record with it. I would have never used any P2 cards.

Your point about solid state media being so cheap, people can treat it like tape sounds great...Well, that was indeed the idea, and sooner rather than later, re:
May 2007: Finally, a replacement of tape as an archival medium? (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=87998)

but I don't think we'll get there any time in the foreseeable future.

And maybe they won't turn out to be as cheap as we had
thought, either. Re: July 2008: SanDisk introduces WORM Cards (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=126550)

That's interesting about the WORM cards, but unless the cost is reasonable few people would use them for video recording. We'll see how that progresses over time.

After thinking about recording and archiving costs more I can see how solid state is becoming competitive with miniDV tape prices, depending on how you run the numbers. But we still need something cheaper than $800 memory cards to make solid state fully practical for a wide range of users. For the fellow who wants to record for five hours out in the field without buying five hours' worth of SxS or P2 cards, the Sony Z7U offers another option using CF cards and the HMC150 will use SD. Figure five hours worth of those cards costs ~$750, and your payback compared to using DV tape is a modest 150-250 hours of shooting. Even for those of us used to DV tape costs this makes solid state start to look pretty good, so I guess we don't need another 3-4 years of price cuts - we just need more cameras which run on standard flash memory. (And for those who want higher performance, P2 and SxS are both functional solutions.)

That's exactly the thing Kevin. And why the HMC150 and similar cameras are so compelling right now. With Sony's XDCAM Optical and SxS and Panny's P2, it's going to be a slow adoption of CF cards I think. On the consumer end, I think the uptake will be much faster. The manufacturers can get the products in the hands of shooters and not worry about media. On the pro end, there is legacy inertia built into the older standards. It's those of us in the middle who are in limbo. Does Sony and Panny push us into the legacy world, or push us down toward consumers. With The EX1 coming from CineAlta and not Sony Electronics, I think that choice has been made clear. Not so much with the Panasonic HPX170 and other cameras.

I've believe the Sony SxS XDCAM format compresses a group of frames together in order to get the lower bitrate and increase the amount of footage you can get on a card. I've heard this can slow things down significantly when you do a lot of editing with this format. When you scrub the timeline to get the right edit point, the computer has to decode the entire group of frames in order to display a single frame on the time line.

By contrast, P2 DVCPRO-HD compresses each frame individually. That's why you only get 1/4 as much footage on a single card. For example, a 16GB P2 card only stores about 17 minutes of 1080p video, where the 16GB SxS card will store around an hour. If you're shooting a feature, news segment, or something like that, most clips only last around 30 seconds or so, and you need a lot of time to set up the next shot, so 17 minutes of actual footage might be a couple of hours on location. In this type of environment, swapping and downloading P2 cards isn't that hard to do.

So for features, short films, news, etc., the P2 format is probably better because it's faster to do lot's of editing. Keep in mind that with these types of projects, edit points usually occur every few seconds.

But for videography and other types of projects that have less edit points, having 4 times as much footage with the SxS format has obvious advantages.

In a perfect world, both Sony and Panasonic would have a menu selection to compress frames either individually (for faster editing), or as a group (for more footage), depending on the type of project you're working on. But as it is, you have to choose the format that's most appropriate up front.

As a point of reference, there's a table on the Wikipedia site that shows all the various digital video formats and their attributes. The table is about 1/3 of the way down here:
Digital cinematography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinematography)

Any video can be converted to an I-frame intermediary for editing purposes, so that's a negligible issue other than the time required to do the conversion. But if you need to shoot several hours of footage out in the field without pausing to clear off your memory cards, SxS is more viable than P2 and neither is very practical compared to CF or SD.

Any video can be converted to an I-frame intermediary for editing purposes, so that's a negligible issue other than the time required to do the conversion.
In addition to conversion time, I believe there is also an issue with image quality. If you de-compress a group of pictures (GOP) and then re-compress to new format that compresses each frame individually, then you've gone through another compression cycle. This will add to mosquito noise and blocking artifacts. Two compression cycles (one for capture, and another for authoring edited output) is already too much, and it usually shows. The only case where it doesn't show is if the capture format is wavelet (i.e. Red 1, SI-2K), or the DCT capture compression is really light (i.e. higher bit rate formats).

You could de-compress a GOP based format like SxS and then create uncompressed files for editing, but the data size on the hard drive would be huge and this would slow down the editing as well.

From what I understand, it's generally best to edit in the format you use to capture, otherwise you will lose quality or speed.

In addition to conversion time, I believe there is also an issue with image quality. If you de-compress a group of pictures (GOP) and then re-compress to new format that compresses each frame individually, then you've gone through another compression cycle. This will add to mosquito noise and blocking artifacts. Two compression cycles (one for capture, and another for authoring edited output) is already too much, and it usually shows. The only case where it doesn't show is if the capture format is wavelet (i.e. Red 1, SI-2K), or the DCT capture compression is really light (i.e. higher bit rate formats).

You could de-compress a GOP based format like SxS and then create uncompressed files for editing, but the data size on the hard drive would be huge and this would slow down the editing as well.

From what I understand, it's generally best to edit in the format you use to capture, otherwise you will lose quality or speed.

Cineform works well.

Cineform works well.
Yes. Cineform uses wavelet compression, so it can be used as an intermediate without any noticeable loss in quality.

But from what I've heard, Cineform software costs more than most editors. Around $2000 if I remember correctly.

You could de-compress a GOP based format like SxS and then create uncompressed files for editing, but the data size on the hard drive would be huge and this would slow down the editing as well.

Typical editing intermediates use about the same bandwidth and storage as DVCProHD in some cases (e.g. Cineform, Canopus HQ) or somewhat more in others (Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes), but not nearly as much as uncompressed footage. With hard drives so cheap these days decompressing for editing isn't a problem, and performance is improved significantly (not decreased) in the process.

In theory an extra transcoding step will reduce image quality slightly, but it's doubtful the results would be noticeable to most viewers. If you're really concerned about image purity you're arguably better off with a GOP-based recording format, because that can be delivered directly to viewers via Blu-ray or the internet where DVCProHD has to be transcoded for viewing purposes. In practice all the popular HD recording formats are good enough for most purposes, even DVCProHD. ;-)

If you're really concerned about image purity you're arguably better off with a GOP-based recording format, because that can be delivered directly to viewers via Blu-ray or the internet where DVCProHD has to be transcoded for viewing purposes.
This is true if you are not doing any editing. When you edit, your edit points will generally be within the GOP, so the video will have to be decompressed and then recompressed. As far as I know, all editors do this internally when authoring output.

With hard drives so cheap these days decompressing for editing isn't a problem, and performance is improved significantly (not decreased) in the process.
Uncompressed 1080p video is huge. Moving that much data through the editor will slow things down. With uncompressed footage, it's not the processing intensity, but rather the I/O intensity that slows things down.

To add some dimesions to this, let's say you're doing a 2-hour feature and your shooting ratio is about 10:1. That's 20 hours of raw video. Uncompressed 1080p video is just over 300GB per hour, so that would be over 6 Terabyes for just the raw video.