Will Panasonic stick with P2?

[Jason Boyce]

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

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

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

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

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

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

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

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

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

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

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

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

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

Best,

Jan

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]

Originally Posted by Jason Boyce

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

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

Jason,

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

Best,

Jan

[Chris Hurd]

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

[Kevin Shaw]

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

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

[Brad Neal]

Originally Posted by Jan Crittenden Livingston

Jason,

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

Best,

Jan

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

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

-Brad

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

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

I think your speculation is highly justified - otherwise why not simply use Compact Flash or Memory Stick in a sub $10,000 camera like the EX? P2 and SxS may make economic sense for high end users, but surely much less so for people on a tight budget? Promoting SxS in advance of future higher end cameras is highly likely.

As for write speed, then Convergent Design can record 100Mbs to a medium spec CF card, and 160Mbs to a high spec card, with similar results from Red, and I can't believe SxS will have a worse write performance than those.

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

That may not be enough to make SxS a mainstream format either, but perhaps the next replacement for MemorySticks?

Ideally, ExpressCards will start to become available in a range of speeds and sizes, of which SxS may be the top end, and with new laptops having the slot to natively support these, I'd welcome that. What remains to be seen is whether cameras such as the EX will work with these. If their price was much lower, and the downside was slower transfer speed, a lot of users would find that a very good compromise.

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

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

[Seth Melnick]

Originally Posted by Brad Neal

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

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

-Brad

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

[Steve Rosen]

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

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

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

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

[Brad Neal]

Originally Posted by Seth Melnick

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

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

[Seth Melnick]

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

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

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

P2 is not a commodity

[Chris Hurd]

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

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

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Brad Neal

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

Exactly what is "reasonable?"

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

Have you priced what DVCProHD tape costs these days?

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

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

P2 card price was never a valid issue.

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

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

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

[Brad Neal]

Originally Posted by Seth Melnick

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

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

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

P2 is not a commodity

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

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

-Brad