HPX2700 or PMW350?

[Jeff Regan]

Originally Posted by David Heath

Jeff, in this thread, I've previously disagreed with you far more than I've agreed. :-) But in respect of your remark above, I'm in full agreement.

No worries David, I like you anyway! The 350 I saw briefly at a trade show looked way to detailed and I didn't like the colorimetry, and this was before having to deal with the lower quality codec. I am pretty sure that bringing detail down and going into matrix and multi-matrix would make me happy with the 350, although the 4:2:0, 8-bit codec could let it down compared to the 4:2:2, 10-bit codec I'm used to working with.

I believe Sony will have to rethink their protecting higher end models in light of what their competitors are doing.

"Tongue in cheek Jeff. Do my SXS cards have write protect? I have no idea. Never needed the feature."

Yes, Tom, SxS cards have write-protect, as I would expect professional media to offer. Just last month, a production company client who is also a post house, lost all the data on a 32Gb P2 card due to not write-protecting and writing a folder back onto the P2 card after recording their footage. This was their editor who made the error. These things happen, no matter how much instruction offered on the prep day.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Jeff Regan

I believe Sony will have to rethink their protecting higher end models in light of what their competitors are doing.

And yes again to that. Don't get me wrong - as far as this thread is concerned I still think that a PMW350 is *OVERALL* the best current choice at this sort of price level, gives the best balance of features from anything on the market at the moment. And using such as a nanoFlash is a way of overcoming the codec issues. But that's not to say the 350 couldn't be improved, and giving it the 50Mbs codec natively is the obvious thing for Sony to do. (I'm sure Convergent Design hope they don't...... :-) )

As far as the Compact Flash/write protect issue goes, then yes, you're quite right when you say "You'd be amazed at what kind of trouble they can and do get themselves into". And yes, write protect ability can only help. (Assuming it gets used.)

But the accidental erasure incident you mention is far from the only incident of it's type I've heard about, and that applies to SxS as well as P2. The reliability of the media themselves isn't in doubt, it normally comes down to human error - often when deliberately formatting a card, but unfortunately the wrong card! In which case the write protect will have been deliberately set "off" anyway.

In those cases, the advantage of CF over P2 is that much more memory can be kept and used for the same cost. Hence much less need to download-format-reuse - you may not need to format any cards until well after the edit is underway. I feel that losing the write protect ability is well worthwhile from an overall reliability point of view, and it also makes it far more feasible to hand media over at the end of a shoot, in a way you can't do with P2.

[Jeff Regan]

David,

I think we agree more than disagree--except I value the P2 Varicam look and codec more, at it's trade-in price and assuming the same lens is used on a 2700 and 350. But, until Panasonic does another trade-in special, as they have done through March 31 on the 3700, it's a moot point and therefore would recommend a used HPX2000 w/Intra board or 3000 over the 350/nanoFlash.

Our 2700 goes out with 5)32Gb P2 cards, good for over 6.5 hours in 720/24PN or over 3 hours in 1080/24PN. Most shoots don't require on-set transfer with this kind of capacity. Having said that, I would rather have one of my DIT's or myself do the data transfer to two drives for my client than trust them to do so. Sure, one can hand the client a pile of CF cards, but that just gives them more time to mess up with their un-write-protected media.

The practice of going on a shoot with just two P2 or SxS cards is not a good idea and just creates too much pressure for quick transfers and reformatting. I like having five cards in the camera and shooting without interruption when on a fast moving shoot.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video

[Paul Cronin]

Steve Phillipps could you send me a email your email is blocked?