Will Panasonic stick with P2?

[Kyle Self]

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

[Christian Magnussen]

Originally Posted by Kyle Self

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.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Kyle Self

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...

[Simon Wyndham]

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.

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

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.

[Kyle Self]

Originally Posted by Barry Green

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

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

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.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Kyle Self

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.

[Steve Mydelski]

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.

[Steve Rosen]

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.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

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.

[David Heath]

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.

[Chris Hurd]

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

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]

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

[Steve Rosen]

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...