HARD DRIVE Support: This is huge

[Dominic Jones]

Originally Posted by Luis Caffesse

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! :)

[Mikko Wilson]

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.

[Luis Caffesse]

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.




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[Thomas Smet]

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.

[Luis Caffesse]

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.

[Greg Boston]

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-

[Michael Struthers]

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.

[Jack Barker]

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!

[Aaron Koolen]

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

[Pete Wilie]

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.

[Dominic Jones]

Originally Posted by Jack Barker

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.

[George Loch]

I have a great solution for portable storage:
http://images.apple.com/ipod/u2/imag...se10262004.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

[Jack Barker]

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

[Barry Green]

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.

[Aaron Koolen]

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