It seems this camera will record to ANY firewire or USB2.0 drive that will support the datarate.

That means, no need for an expensive 3rd party solution.

Apparently the Panasonic engineers had it working with an Ipod.
:)

Pretty cool.

Wow. is this true? If this were true, it COULD mean there'd be no use for the P2 cards... I mean, why would I spend $1700 on a P2 card if I could spend $300 on an exernal HD that holds much more? Can anyone point out what it is that I'm missing?

Daniel, physical size is one thing. The p2 cards will be a lot smaller, and lighter than a hard drive. They slot into the camera, where you'd have to attach an HD.

Robustness is another. The P2 cards are way more robust and hardy. Good against bangs, drops, extreme temperatures etc.

For long form though. If you're filming an event, or wedding, you will obviously go HD until the size of the cards increase and you can store enough on them.

Aaron

Thanks Aaron.

I'm still a bit confused, though. It just doesn't make economical sense to me. This cam still can use standard MiniDV tapes? (Of course, you only get 8 minutes on a tape or something in 1080p.) But still...

I can totally see the convenience in P2, but it still seems like you're paying much more than top dollar for a bit of added convenience. P2 is cool against dropping and such, but since you'd probably be offloading them almost instantly, it doesn't even seem like you'd be running risk of that anyway (unless you dropped it on the 5 foot journey to your laptop.)

So... yeah, if you or anyone could clarify... I know the stats are all over the forum, but they aren't in one spot, and I'm not sure what was just speculation. This cam can record onto P2, MiniDV and DVCPro tapes, as well as any FireWire drive?

Sounds like one hell of a bargain to me.

Daniel,

The camera will only record DV to tape.

Any by the way, I put together a quick site to try to have all the info in one place. I'm just posting as I get it, but at least it's all on one page:

www.videoindie.com

Hope that helps

Wow, that's really awesome. Can't be good for Firestore though....

when you say that you can only record DV to tape, I know that means that you can't record hi def to tape, but does that mean that you also CAN NOT record DV to p2/harddrive but instead only to tape?

You can record EVERYTHING the camera can do to P2 or Harddrives (including DV).

The tape will only record DV.

:)
Sorry for the confusion

Thanks for clearing that up :) It's late and my reading comprehension is at its absolute nadir.

Excited, but confused how you would use an external hard drive with this. Do you mean all you'd need for say HD field use is a portable hard drive that can keep up with the datarate? If so, I wonder how the media is managed in this way. Then again, the camera must have something if it is accustomed to doing this kind of thing with p2 cards.
If this is true, how cool would it be to have a self powered hard drive and a few camera batteries?

I think we need to wait for confirmation. It *seems* that it will just take a hard drive, but I haven't seen proof yet. Anyone have any?

Aaron

OH

MY

GOODNESS!

If what you say turns out to be true....and I can simply get a teeny weeny 2.5" laptop 80gig hard drive in a slim FW/USB2.0 combo case and go from there.....

All Problems SOLVED!!

If it will bus power the drive, that's even better!! If not, it only requires 5 funky volts, I can strap the Camera Operator up to one of those! ANY modern day hard-drive will support 100MegaBITS per second, that ain't nuthin! and firewire is 4x's that speed and USB2.0 is almost 5x's that speed, so that's PERFECTO!!!

I guess we find out tomorrow morning.

- Shannon W. Rawls

I think so Shannon, it will be a bloody good solution and alternative to the P2 for those who can't afford it or have other more longer form requirements.

Aaron

Does anyone have actual official confirmation in the form of a press release or page on Panasonic's site to attest to the HDD recording?

Well... anyone know of any large capacity hard drives that are bus/battery powered? All the ones I've seen require AC adapters >.< .

Yes, such harddisks exists:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10560

A firewire drive enclosure that includes a rechargeable lithium-ion battery with 10+ hours of usage per charge. This would be perfect if the hvx streams the data over firewire:

http://www.macpower.com/productdetails1.cfm?sku=AMS25K&cats=&catid=311,316

We still have no official confirmation on the HDD recording though. It may just mean that the camera will automatically transfer files form the P2 cards in the slots to a HDD connected to the USB or FW outputs.

I got the info from Noah Kadner, who posted on DVXUser.
He got it directly from Panasonic Engineers.

So, I haven't heard it directly from Panasonic officials...but I think it's as good as confirmed in my mind.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THAT THREAD (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=25049&page=17&pp=10)

www.videoindie.com
Keep up with all the HVX NAB news!

Does anyone know if there's a max. length of the connecting cable (USB of FireWire) between the camera and an external hard drive? Will a cable that's too long screw up the data transfer? If this possible at all..

Kasper Rye Petersen

Yes there are maximum lenghts to both. I'm not sure from my mind what it
was, but don't expect to have a long cable to your camera.

laptop 2.5" drives are up to 160gigs I think. But even still, 80 gigs are plenty for 1 day of shooting.

an 80 gig laptop drive will hold roughly 80 minutes of 1080p @ 100mbps DVCPROHD. If the Panasonica camera dumps the wasted frames, then its over 3 hours on a single 80gig drive of FULL RESOLUTION HD video with the Pany camera!

Unlike using a $1120 firestore solution....it's all about BYOD.

*smile* That's exactly what I would tell the executive producers... BRING YOUR OWN DRIVE!!! And best of all...no fumbling with the camera every 4 minutes pulling cards out the back of it between takes (that is a foreseeable nightmare!)

I just woke up and heading to first call. I will have my laptop with me to hear the reports. I pray this possible good news comes back as YES IT CAN.

- ShannonRawls.com

Whoa oh ho my lord!!!

I'm bloody glad I haven't spent on a Z1 yet!....

This sounds like a potential killer... Anyone know confirmed street price and date yet???

an 80 gig laptop drive will hold roughly 80 minutes of 1080p @ 100mbps DVCPROHD. If the Panasonica camera dumps the wasted frames, then its over 3 hours on a single 80gig drive of FULL RESOLUTION HD video with the Pany camera!

The cam will only drop redundant frames in 720p mode. in 1080 mode it will always record 30p, 60i or 60i with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown for 24p like the DVX, and always at 100Mbs.

The cam will only drop redundant frames in 720p mode. in 1080 mode it will always record 30p, 60i or 60i with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown for 24p like the DVX, and always at 100Mbs.


Oh.

shiat!!!

*rubbing chin*

WELL SO WHAT.... *smile* This is still GREAT NEWS if it does this. I can deal with 80minutes on a cheap 80 gig drive. I would buy them by the box and sell them to the execs. LOLOL

- Shannon W. Rawls

It certainly seems like the best approach so far. Still, I'm waiting for confirmation, as at the moment the only place I've read about the hard drive thing is on the forums.

WOW! All I can say is WoW! Very cool Luis!

Michael Pappas


It seems this camera will record to ANY firewire or USB2.0 drive that will support the datarate.

That means, no need for an expensive 3rd party solution.

Apparently the Panasonic engineers had it working with an Ipod.
:)

Pretty cool.

" Anyone know confirmed street price and date yet???"

we won't know the street price until it hits the streets i guess.

panasonic is saying fourth quarter, which probably means october.
they usually don't dilly dally too much with their releases, so i doubt we'll have to wait until december.



www.videoindie.com
HVX News and links as i find them

"Does anyone know if there's a max. length of the connecting cable (USB of FireWire) between the camera and an external hard drive? Will a cable that's too long screw up the data transfer? If this possible at all.."

looks like 14.5 ft for firewire
16 feet for usb.

apparently you can get 'active' extention cables for each of those that will allow for longer lengths.

i just posted some stuff about it at the link above.

This is exciting, but don't forget that with a HD, there will be no way to check back what you are recording unless you also have a laptop. That is one advantage of the P2 cards and the FireStore system...you can check tape..d'oh...you can check...drive.

Anyways, I don't know about you guys, but I really like to check back takes once in a while and I KNOW I will want to when I'm recording to something that I cannot see moving. So I still think a FireStore unit might be the best way to go.

KW

Hey what about using a USB2 flash memory stick at 1GB? It would only give you a minute of 1080 HD but might be great for very short shots. You just get a couple of those and have them pocking out the side of the camera. After each minute (or 2 minutes if you use 720) you just swap the stick with another and quickly transfer to something else. It would be like using P2 but smaller and a lot cheaper. These are pretty cheap and do not need a power source unless the camera cannot supply power to the devices. Actually there are some 2 and 4 GB flash sticks out now but they are kind of slow. They might work for 720p but I doubt they would work for 1080.

an article on dvxuser.com says that the camera can dub from a P2 card directly to a harrdive. Do you think this means you have to record to a P2 card and then there might be a menu option that dumps the files onto the harddrive? If so, that kind of defeats the purpose.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=25100

looks like 14.5 ft for firewire
16 feet for usb.

apparently you can get 'active' extention cables for each of those that will allow for longer lengths.


Well, 14.5ft = what? 4m... Should be good for anything other than massive crane shots or a HUGE dolly (and even then you could always put the disk/laptop on the dolly platform).

I'm very excited about this, just waiting for some conformation that this is *really* possible! :)

From folks at NAB:
Apparently you CAN dub from the P2 card directly to an USB/Firewire hard drive. - And you can't do this while recording to another card.

However Panasonic wouldn't answer whether you can record DIRECTLY to a hard drive. Sounds like somethign they are really working on, but they haven't quite figured out so don't want to comit to.

- Mikko.

Yeah, it looks like the initial reports were a bit premature, and possibly due to a misunderstanding.

My apologies for spreading the news too quickly.
I was only repeating what I had read was a confirmed feature.

Hopefully panasonic will make this a feature on the final model.




www.videoindie.com
HVX Updates, news and links

I really didn't think they would allow it. Who honestly would buy a bunch of P2 cards if you could just use a hard drive? Even when cards geta litle bit bigger you still have to swap them which could be a pain. What if you forget to swap them? I think at the end of the day after people buy a $6000.00 camera and they have to decide between great trnasfer speeds but low recoding times and huge prices or large hard dive, somewhat slower transfer but dirt cheap I think a huge chunk of the market would go with the hard drive option. Even when 128 P2 cards come out at that point everybody will have been using hard drives for a few years and wouldn't really see the need to switch. Hard drives have worked great for them these last couple of years why spend the money and switch now. Now if the price of P2 came way down perhaps people would buy them based on their ease of use and small size but if nobody buys P2 now how could the price ever go down? Either the price will stay high or P2 itself would die out since nobody would buy the cards.

If direct recording to other media actually works I for one can say I will either be getting a mobile hard drive or use a 4 GB USB2 flash stick that has a data rate of 14 MB/S which would be fine for 720p.

I for one would rather use P2 cards than an external drive.
But I would still like the option to use the external....

It's not nearly as exciting though if that external has to be a 3rd party type device that will be much more expensive than an off the shelf drive.

Per Jan Crittenden this morning. Firestore, soon to be called DTE is working on an HD version for the camera. Interestingly, the folks over at the JVC booth said the same about their camera. So, Panasonic probably won't spill too much info since they have a company working on a dedicated solution.

-gb-

It's p2 cards till a HD option is available.

I think people will find p2 cards lighter and easy too offload, not too mention the storage capacities will double every 6 months and prices will cut almost in half.

Not sure I want to attach a large drive on the back of the camera, but who knows. Also speed is more important than size. 1080 24/p would be quite demanding to record.

I think some of you may be getting a little ahead of yourselves. Panna have suggested, but not confirmed direct to HDD recording. There's no reason it shouldn't work - all that's required is a disk reading at the right data rates and firmware/software to lay it down. Be patient. I am sure a solution is coming. The reality is that we need the HDD solution until P2's become affordable, not the other way around. Barry Green's report from NAB also said that once you've recorded to P2, you'll never go back. P2 = NO DROPOUTS!

That would be a shame if they were working with the Firestore folks. That will no doubt up the price considerably from just pluggin in an HD. Now, if Firestore released a simple bay (That we could chuck our own drives in), that mounted nicely to the camera, that would be handy and not too expensive I'd think.

Aaron

That would be a shame if they were working with the Firestore folks.
Well, I wouldn't cry yet. :-) Let's wait and see what Firestore comes up with.

Actually my ideal design for a camcorder HDD would be:

Firewire and USB I/F
Shock-absorbing case that mounts to bottom of camcorder, and can then be mounted on a tripod
Also mounts to cameraman's belt
Hot-swap Removable drive (while case is still mounted to camcorder)
Form-factor about like the Beachtek DXA-4P
Powered by either AC or DC
Well-sealed against rain, sand, etc.


While I could put together a portable HDD system myself, perhaps for less money, a well-designed, rugged unit would definitely be worth the extra bucks.

This approach would address the needs of professional production crews where time is often more valuable than equipment costs, and of low-budget productions who try to save every penny they can.

Of course, my real preference would be for P2s to handle 80GB and cost only about $100-$200. It'll happen, it's just a matter of time.

Barry Green's report from NAB also said that once you've recorded to P2, you'll never go back. P2 = NO DROPOUTS!
Well...

HDD = no dropouts too.
AND no switching cards
AND low (relative) cost
AND edit on the disk, if you wish, without transfering to another HDD
ALSO you don't need to have something else on set to copy the data across from so you can re-use the P2 cards (unless you've got hours of P2 cards, in which case you shoulda probably bought an F-900 with all your spare cash!).

The only real downside is extra size and weight on the camera or an extra cable to wrangle. I, for one, would go for the HDD option every time at current pricing - assuming it was possible.

I have a great solution for portable storage:
http://images.apple.com/ipod/u2/images/indexfrontbackse10262004.jpg

http://millimeter.com/mag/video_ipod_hd/

I am thinking seriously about this. It is extremely compact and durable. I am guessing we could even get some utilities written for one of these babies.

gl/ Art and Motion

The iPod form factor is perfect and I'd be willing to bet that someone has already written software for loading video. The downside is you would be paying a high price for features that you presumably wouldn't use and you'd only be getting 60 Mb max storage, when in fact, you might want 5 to 10 times that amount. I still have hopes that the folks at MCE will get their act together and make a reliable QuickStream. It has everything I could want - light, tough, attachable - and God knows the price is right.

http://www.mcetech.com/quickstreamdv.html

One thing I did confirm is that you can directly transfer files from the P2 card to an off-the-shelf USB2 hard disk, with no need for a laptop or a P2 Store or anything like that. You plug the drive right into the camera and tell it to dub the cards over to the drive.

So while a FireStore would be one way to get streaming direct-to-disk capture, it may not be the only way -- there are many companies in the "P2 Partners" program. And who knows what Focus may come up with -- a traditional FireStore might not be the only thing. They may come up with some sort of intermediary hard drive controller thing that would accept off-the-shelf hard disks, and provide whatever circuitry/buffering/controls may be necessary.

And, there are several months to go before the camera comes out, so it may very well offer direct-to-disk recording as well. But even if it doesn't, you can still use off-the-shelf hard disks to offload the cards to. It can control an external hard disk, the question seems to be whether it can implement a 100-megabit streaming solution to one of those drives. The FireStore, for example, can only handle 40 megabits per second.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted a HDD that slipped into the tape compartment and somehow connected when closing the door. That way you save the space. Guess that won't happen, but I can keep dreaming.


Aza

Aaron: in theory that should be possible with 2.5" harddisks and a custom
"case" to fit them in. I can't imagine that would be too hard to engineer.

I have to say I'm now extremely sceptical about this now. All this talk of "Panasonic techs streaming to an iPod" seems to have come from an experiment that BlackMagic design did (http://millimeter.com/mag/video_ipod_hd/) playing BACK from (not recording to) an iPod, nothing to do with Panasonic other than by coincidence they happened to utilise the DVCproHD codec.

I think the answer for those wanting >1 hour runtimes (or even >8 minutes) will be firestore type devices rather than off the shelf HDs. Right now one of those costs what a P2 8GB card. Should they get such a time running with the HVX, I'd rather have one of those bundled with a HVX than 2 P2 cards.

The best workfow would probably to record to a single 8gb P2 card. Then dump the footage down to a drive each time you are happy with the shots, wipe the P2, and fill up again, rinse and repeat.

I wonder if, just like with all memory cartridges, it will be long before other companies start offering 'P2 Compatible' cartridges, at half the price.

No, that's not what everyone is talking about. Noah Kadner spoke with Panasonic engineers that recorded directly to several HDDs, including an iPod, with a prototype HVX200. However, there are some issues that Panny has to resolve before implementing this feature. There are questions about the diversity of HDDs out there and other technical issues. I think that unless they feel they've got a very solid implementation, they'll leave off this feature. Panny isn't promising anything, but it's not off the table either--so they're working on it.


I have to say I'm now extremely sceptical about this now. All this talk of "Panasonic techs streaming to an iPod" seems to have come from an experiment that BlackMagic design did (http://millimeter.com/mag/video_ipod_hd/) playing BACK from (not recording to) an iPod, nothing to do with Panasonic other than by coincidence they happened to utilise the DVCproHD codec.

I think the answer for those wanting >1 hour runtimes (or even >8 minutes) will be firestore type devices rather than off the shelf HDs. Right now one of those costs what a P2 8GB card. Should they get such a time running with the HVX, I'd rather have one of those bundled with a HVX than 2 P2 cards.