The Notorious P2 F.U.D. Thread

Andreas Fernbrant · March 8th, 2005, 09:50 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : << P2 is perfect for a filmmaking environment, -->>>

I also have to disagree, I don't own a laptop, I don't want to own a laptop.. period.. So what am I going to do on those long trips when I shoot documentaries for television? Use the extra tool they sell me, 60gig hdd? Well, let's see, I used about 7 tapes last time I went, what about 420min. That's 91 gig DV material (25mbps) So at 100mbps I'd need 315 gigabyte of space. I would need to buy 6 of them hardrives panasonic is about to offer. Not to mention I have to carry them around with me all the time.

Take this for an example,
You are alone and collecting footage for your documentary, You see something spectacular, like with most animal encounters or things of that nature. You have to be fast.. No time for that additional tripod, You start shooting, after 4 minutes your P2 cards is out, it starts recording on the other card, you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible..

They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to be a good alternative to tape!

Ignacio Rodriguez · March 8th, 2005, 10:48 AM

> Solid state memory would seem ideal for aquisition,
> as hard drives are for editing, and optical discs would
> seem great for long term storage, as is tape.

I see your point Graeme. But don't you think it could be a good idea to skip solid state and go direct to the hard disk, which is almost as reliable and less expensive?

Also, have you read Sony's technical papers on XDCAM? They make a good point about going optical for both aquisition AND archiving.

> They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to
> be a good alternative to tape!

Andreas, look around the 'net. Hitachi makes 80GB hard disks that can fit inside a PC-card, and 5GB PC-cards are already widely available. This is why I am hoping that Panasonic will open up the architecture of the P2 slot so we can pop hard disks in there.

Read back in this same thread or check this other thread for more details on the P2 issue: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...5&goto=newpost

Chris Hurd · March 8th, 2005, 11:11 AM

Andreas,

<< You are alone and collecting footage... you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible. >>

Panasonic is also coming out with a P2 WLAN card, so you could download video wirelessly without ever touching the camera. Anything is possible these days!

Alexey Morvin · March 8th, 2005, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Panasonic is also coming out with a P2 WLAN card, so you could download video wirelessly without ever touching the camera. Anything is possible these days!

This is great if you shoot at studio or something.
And what about beach (for example)? People must take notebook with camcorder? Notebook with just 80-100 Gb HDD is not better than tape or small 80-100 Gb HDD...

This is really bad idea too...

Oh, I don't believe all manufacturers make really bad first HDV camcorders. JVC made awful one-CCD camcorder which shoot to MPEG2. Sony made camcorder shooting to MPEG2 with interlace...

If Panasonic will make perfect camcorder (with good storage - tape or HDDs), I think it will be very popular. It has all I (and almost all other people) need:
progressive shooting, 3 CCDs, shooting NOT to MPEG2...

Ignacio Rodriguez · March 8th, 2005, 11:32 AM

> Panasonic is also coming out with a P2 WLAN card, so you
> could download video wirelessly without ever touching the
> camera. Anything is possible these days!

Ahhhhh that is soooo sweet. I had actually mentioned some time ago that this might be possible but didn't expect Panasonic to offer it. Is there any link available, press release, anything with more info on that card?

This would mean we can carry around a laptop with a wireless card and a huge hard disk and thus have virtually infinite recording time! It's not as one-man-shoot as a hard disk for the P2 card, but it's the next best thing. Very promising!

I wonder what wireless technology is used. The 54Mbps version of 802.11 would not be enough for a full 100 Mbps DVCPROHD stream, and due to the inherent problems of wireless shared spectrum technology, it might not even be good enough for DVCPRO50. However, it might be just enough for DVCPROHD in 24p mode, if redundant information is not transmitted.

Chris Hurd · March 8th, 2005, 11:42 AM

Alexey

<< And what about beach (for example)? People must take notebook with camcorder? >>

We're not talking about a consumer camcorder here. We're talking about professional shoots and serious independent filmmaking. Among all of the other various gear that requires, adding a laptop and an external storage drive to the equipment list is not going to be an issue for the majority of these types of applications.

<< Oh, I don't believe all manufacturers make really bad first HDV camcorders. >>

This isn't an HDV discussion. This is a DVCPro HD / P2 discussion. There's a significant difference.

<< Sony made camcorder shooting to MPEG2 with interlace... >>

And your point is? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The forthcoming Panasonic camcorder that is being discussed in this forum is NOT the first camera in the P2 format, if that's what you're trying to get at.

Chris Hurd · March 8th, 2005, 11:47 AM

Ignacio

<< I wonder what wireless technology is used. >>

I'm not sure. Saw it referenced at http://www.yenra.com/p2/.

Alexey Morvin · March 8th, 2005, 12:06 PM

Quote:

This would mean we can carry around a laptop with a wireless card and a huge hard disk and thus have virtually infinite recording time! It's not as one-man-shoot as a hard disk for the P2 card, but it's the next best thing. Very promising!

Few questions:
1. Do you know how much time laptop can power from battery? 3-8 hours WITH POWER SAFE, not any more. Power safe will not allow you to use full speed of computer...

2. 100 Gb is maximum. Big 3.5'' external HDDs will not working from batteries. If it will, laptop will take much more power.

3. Do you think it's comfortable? I don't think so. I went to friends to shoot birthday and I must take camcorder, laptop and few HDDs...

PS: Wireless (and shooting directly to computer with cable) is only good if you shoot in video-studio.

Alexey Morvin · March 8th, 2005, 12:10 PM

Quote:

We're not talking about a consumer camcorder here. We're talking about professional shoots and serious independent filmmaking. Among all of the other various gear that requires, adding a laptop and an external storage drive to the equipment list is not going to be an issue for the majority of these types of applications.

If you make so serious films - you should buy Pro camcorders. $50000-$100000. :)

Quote:

And your point is? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The forthcoming Panasonic camcorder that is being discussed in this forum is NOT the first camera in the P2 format, if that's what you're trying to get at.

I'm trying to say that Panasonic can make ideal HD camcorder if they just use 100 Mbps tape or big HDDs. Not 4 mins flash cards and not "video-to-laptop" thing.

Ignacio Rodriguez · March 8th, 2005, 12:16 PM

Alexey, I have been on so many film shoots --and even SD video shoots-- where there are lights, generators and all kinds of stuff being carried around... that I think an AC-powered laptop or even a minitower desktop, --which coul easily fit under the video-assist monitor-- is not much of a pain at all.

You can't have it all... I mean sure, Andreas would like to get a camera with 400GB of storage built-in., but that's just not going to happen yet. He is going to have to carry around a laptop or find a way to use FireStore-like or PC-card hard disks.

Chris Hurd · March 8th, 2005, 12:20 PM

Alexey

<< 1. Do you know how much time laptop can power from battery? >>

In a professional and properly managed production environment, battery power on location is never an issue for experienced shooters.

<< 2. 100 Gb is maximum. Big 3.5'' external HDDs will not working from batteries. If it will, laptop will take much more power. >>

Okay, once again! In a professional and properly managed production environment, battery power on location is never an issue for experienced shooters.

<< 3. Do you think it's comfortable? I don't think so. I went to friends to shoot birthday and I must take camcorder, laptop and few HDDs... >>

This is not a consumer camcorder and I don't think anyone is going to use it to shoot a consumer application friend's birthday. Even so, how much recording time would you really need for that -- not much. I think the tolerance threshold for watching birthday parties on video is an international standard of about 15 minutes maximum.

<< PS: Wireless (and shooting directly to computer with cable) is only good if you shoot in video-studio. >>

Sorry, incorrect. Both instances (wireless and direct cable) can be employed in the field, easily.

<< If you make so serious films - you should buy Pro camcorders. $50000-$100000. :) >>

This is a professional camcorder, and the target price is below $10,000. Please get into the spirit of the discussion here, or move on to some other category. We cover a wide variety of formats here at DV Info Net. Thanks,

Alexey Morvin · March 8th, 2005, 12:48 PM

Quote:

This is not a consumer camcorder and I don't think anyone is going to use it to shoot a consumer application friend's birthday. Even so, how much recording time would you really need for that -- not much. I think the tolerance threshold for watching birthday parties on video is an international standard of about 15 minutes maximum.

I know many people who bought $5000 camcorders to shoot birthdays, kids, vacations etc. Because camcorders under $2000 shoots really bad.

Guys, are you working for Panasonic or something? I can't understand this love to extra problems (laptops, 4 mins flash cards...).

Jesse Bekas · March 8th, 2005, 01:01 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Andreas Fernbrant : <<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : << P2 is perfect for a filmmaking environment, -->>>

Take this for an example,
You are alone and collecting footage for your documentary, You see something spectacular, like with most animal encounters or things of that nature. You have to be fast.. No time for that additional tripod, You start shooting, after 4 minutes your P2 cards is out, it starts recording on the other card, you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible..

They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to be a good alternative to tape! -->>>

Documentary wildlife shooting, is nothing like a typical "film" shoot. Documentary shooting of any type is different from almost any kind shoot due to the massive amount of footage typically shot. Obviously, neither P2 or even large HDD would be good for this style of shooting. We could all make up scenarios, though, where any format would be less than ideal if our only goal of the discussion was to disprove its viability.

On a typical film shoot or in studio, where power is not an issue, equipment is plentiful, good preproduction work has been done, and the DP has one or more assisstants, P2 would work fine.

Just last week "Sesame Street" had a shoot in my local mall. They were shooting onto some non-tape format. In between setups, the director walked over to a man on a laptop sitting next to the sound table. It was the project's editor, and he and the director were cutting together the program as they shot it. The workflow looked very natural and simple.

Wouldn't it be fantastic fun if this format helped to move the editors on set?

Michael Struthers · March 8th, 2005, 01:07 PM

Simple solution if you are shooting a doc:

You can always use a different camera.

BUT, someone will shoot a doc with this cam, because they'll have multiple cards and a laptop handy. Which will become more and more commonplace on a shoot as time goes on.

Claude Isbell · March 8th, 2005, 01:22 PM

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. First off, let me also thank Jan for her constant support and input. I've been in a similar situation on a much smaller scale, and didn't do half the job she's doing. Also, she's not only doing it here, but a couple of other professional sites I regular. Again, my hat's off to you. This is one of the things that's starting seperate Panny from Sony for me. Everything I own, is Sony right now. But, that is going to change in the very near future. On the other hand, it seems that certain points are being presented when it suits that point of view. Sometimes people are refering to this system as the next thing for Indie and Documentary filmmaking at a low budget, which I hope it is. Then when people make points regarding power needs and other field needs, some make points regarding generators and such, so that won't be a problem. I've worked my share of low budget field jobs, and even with portable generators, power was always in demand. It just seems that people are bouncing around and adding info to support their position. I hope I'm making sense. I don't think the situation is as B&W as it sometimes is being presented. On the other side: The reality of the situation is that I'm excited about the camera. If I wasn't, I wouldn't even talk about it. I worked with the Sony HDV a couple of times and was not impressed. So, I don't talk about it. The one thing that's won me over with Panasonic, aside from the DVX100, is that they seem to be listening to costumers. Sony seems to be like we're Sony, so you'll take what we give you. That's not an option anymore. Thanks Panasonic.

March 8th, 2005, 10:48 AM	#32
Ignacio Rodriguez Contributor Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Santiago, Chile Posts: 932	> Solid state memory would seem ideal for aquisition, > as hard drives are for editing, and optical discs would > seem great for long term storage, as is tape. I see your point Graeme. But don't you think it could be a good idea to skip solid state and go direct to the hard disk, which is almost as reliable and less expensive? Also, have you read Sony's technical papers on XDCAM? They make a good point about going optical for both aquisition AND archiving. > They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to > be a good alternative to tape! Andreas, look around the 'net. Hitachi makes 80GB hard disks that can fit inside a PC-card, and 5GB PC-cards are already widely available. This is why I am hoping that Panasonic will open up the architecture of the P2 slot so we can pop hard disks in there. Read back in this same thread or check this other thread for more details on the P2 issue: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...5&goto=newpost __________________ Ignacio Rodríguez in the third world. @micronauta on Twitter. Main hardware: brain, eyes, hands.

March 8th, 2005, 11:11 AM	#33
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Andreas, << You are alone and collecting footage... you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible. >> Panasonic is also coming out with a P2 WLAN card, so you could download video wirelessly without ever touching the camera. Anything is possible these days! __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

March 8th, 2005, 11:32 AM	#35
Ignacio Rodriguez Contributor Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Santiago, Chile Posts: 932	> Panasonic is also coming out with a P2 WLAN card, so you > could download video wirelessly without ever touching the > camera. Anything is possible these days! Ahhhhh that is soooo sweet. I had actually mentioned some time ago that this might be possible but didn't expect Panasonic to offer it. Is there any link available, press release, anything with more info on that card? This would mean we can carry around a laptop with a wireless card and a huge hard disk and thus have virtually infinite recording time! It's not as one-man-shoot as a hard disk for the P2 card, but it's the next best thing. Very promising! I wonder what wireless technology is used. The 54Mbps version of 802.11 would not be enough for a full 100 Mbps DVCPROHD stream, and due to the inherent problems of wireless shared spectrum technology, it might not even be good enough for DVCPRO50. However, it might be just enough for DVCPROHD in 24p mode, if redundant information is not transmitted. __________________ Ignacio Rodríguez in the third world. @micronauta on Twitter. Main hardware: brain, eyes, hands.

March 8th, 2005, 11:42 AM	#36
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Alexey << And what about beach (for example)? People must take notebook with camcorder? >> We're not talking about a consumer camcorder here. We're talking about professional shoots and serious independent filmmaking. Among all of the other various gear that requires, adding a laptop and an external storage drive to the equipment list is not going to be an issue for the majority of these types of applications. << Oh, I don't believe all manufacturers make really bad first HDV camcorders. >> This isn't an HDV discussion. This is a DVCPro HD / P2 discussion. There's a significant difference. << Sony made camcorder shooting to MPEG2 with interlace... >> And your point is? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The forthcoming Panasonic camcorder that is being discussed in this forum is NOT the first camera in the P2 format, if that's what you're trying to get at. __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

March 8th, 2005, 11:47 AM	#37
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Ignacio << I wonder what wireless technology is used. >> I'm not sure. Saw it referenced at http://www.yenra.com/p2/. __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

March 8th, 2005, 09:50 AM	#31
Andreas Fernbrant Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sweden - Helsingborg Posts: 283	<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : << P2 is perfect for a filmmaking environment, -->>> I also have to disagree, I don't own a laptop, I don't want to own a laptop.. period.. So what am I going to do on those long trips when I shoot documentaries for television? Use the extra tool they sell me, 60gig hdd? Well, let's see, I used about 7 tapes last time I went, what about 420min. That's 91 gig DV material (25mbps) So at 100mbps I'd need 315 gigabyte of space. I would need to buy 6 of them hardrives panasonic is about to offer. Not to mention I have to carry them around with me all the time. Take this for an example, You are alone and collecting footage for your documentary, You see something spectacular, like with most animal encounters or things of that nature. You have to be fast.. No time for that additional tripod, You start shooting, after 4 minutes your P2 cards is out, it starts recording on the other card, you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible.. They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to be a good alternative to tape!

March 8th, 2005, 12:16 PM	#40
Ignacio Rodriguez Contributor Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Santiago, Chile Posts: 932	Alexey, I have been on so many film shoots --and even SD video shoots-- where there are lights, generators and all kinds of stuff being carried around... that I think an AC-powered laptop or even a minitower desktop, --which coul easily fit under the video-assist monitor-- is not much of a pain at all. You can't have it all... I mean sure, Andreas would like to get a camera with 400GB of storage built-in., but that's just not going to happen yet. He is going to have to carry around a laptop or find a way to use FireStore-like or PC-card hard disks. __________________ Ignacio Rodríguez in the third world. @micronauta on Twitter. Main hardware: brain, eyes, hands.

March 8th, 2005, 12:20 PM	#41
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Alexey << 1. Do you know how much time laptop can power from battery? >> In a professional and properly managed production environment, battery power on location is never an issue for experienced shooters. << 2. 100 Gb is maximum. Big 3.5'' external HDDs will not working from batteries. If it will, laptop will take much more power. >> Okay, once again! In a professional and properly managed production environment, battery power on location is never an issue for experienced shooters. << 3. Do you think it's comfortable? I don't think so. I went to friends to shoot birthday and I must take camcorder, laptop and few HDDs... >> This is not a consumer camcorder and I don't think anyone is going to use it to shoot a consumer application friend's birthday. Even so, how much recording time would you really need for that -- not much. I think the tolerance threshold for watching birthday parties on video is an international standard of about 15 minutes maximum. << PS: Wireless (and shooting directly to computer with cable) is only good if you shoot in video-studio. >> Sorry, incorrect. Both instances (wireless and direct cable) can be employed in the field, easily. << If you make so serious films - you should buy Pro camcorders. $50000-$100000. :) >> This is a professional camcorder, and the target price is below $10,000. Please get into the spirit of the discussion here, or move on to some other category. We cover a wide variety of formats here at DV Info Net. Thanks, __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

March 8th, 2005, 01:01 PM	#43
Jesse Bekas Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, USA Posts: 572	<<<-- Originally posted by Andreas Fernbrant : <<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : << P2 is perfect for a filmmaking environment, -->>> Take this for an example, You are alone and collecting footage for your documentary, You see something spectacular, like with most animal encounters or things of that nature. You have to be fast.. No time for that additional tripod, You start shooting, after 4 minutes your P2 cards is out, it starts recording on the other card, you need to pop the card out, pull out the hardrive from the backpack, put the card into the hardrive and dump the material, all of this without taking your focus of what's in your viewfinder or adding additional camera shake. I would say that's impossible.. They need to offer atleast 60-100gig P2 cards for this to be a good alternative to tape! -->>> Documentary wildlife shooting, is nothing like a typical "film" shoot. Documentary shooting of any type is different from almost any kind shoot due to the massive amount of footage typically shot. Obviously, neither P2 or even large HDD would be good for this style of shooting. We could all make up scenarios, though, where any format would be less than ideal if our only goal of the discussion was to disprove its viability. On a typical film shoot or in studio, where power is not an issue, equipment is plentiful, good preproduction work has been done, and the DP has one or more assisstants, P2 would work fine. Just last week "Sesame Street" had a shoot in my local mall. They were shooting onto some non-tape format. In between setups, the director walked over to a man on a laptop sitting next to the sound table. It was the project's editor, and he and the director were cutting together the program as they shot it. The workflow looked very natural and simple. Wouldn't it be fantastic fun if this format helped to move the editors on set?

March 8th, 2005, 01:07 PM	#44
Michael Struthers Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: SF, Ca Posts: 421	Simple solution if you are shooting a doc: You can always use a different camera. BUT, someone will shoot a doc with this cam, because they'll have multiple cards and a laptop handy. Which will become more and more commonplace on a shoot as time goes on. __________________ Michael Struthers www.buzzdigital.com

March 8th, 2005, 01:22 PM	#45
Claude Isbell Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: ny,ny Posts: 52	I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. First off, let me also thank Jan for her constant support and input. I've been in a similar situation on a much smaller scale, and didn't do half the job she's doing. Also, she's not only doing it here, but a couple of other professional sites I regular. Again, my hat's off to you. This is one of the things that's starting seperate Panny from Sony for me. Everything I own, is Sony right now. But, that is going to change in the very near future. On the other hand, it seems that certain points are being presented when it suits that point of view. Sometimes people are refering to this system as the next thing for Indie and Documentary filmmaking at a low budget, which I hope it is. Then when people make points regarding power needs and other field needs, some make points regarding generators and such, so that won't be a problem. I've worked my share of low budget field jobs, and even with portable generators, power was always in demand. It just seems that people are bouncing around and adding info to support their position. I hope I'm making sense. I don't think the situation is as B&W as it sometimes is being presented. On the other side: The reality of the situation is that I'm excited about the camera. If I wasn't, I wouldn't even talk about it. I worked with the Sony HDV a couple of times and was not impressed. So, I don't talk about it. The one thing that's won me over with Panasonic, aside from the DVX100, is that they seem to be listening to costumers. Sony seems to be like we're Sony, so you'll take what we give you. That's not an option anymore. Thanks Panasonic.