Panasonic HDV?

Robert M Wright · March 4th, 2006, 02:04 PM

Would be nice to see a firestore like device that records to SD or CF cards.

Robin Davies-Rollinson · March 4th, 2006, 04:06 PM

...which is exactly what I've been prophesying on this forum as well as on another UK forum.
If Firestore don't produce one themselves, I'm sure there'll be another manufacturer who will...
I shot some material for the BBC with the Panasonic AJ-SPX900 last week alongside a Digibeta - we're looking at going over to tapeless acquisition for some of our drama series. I just loved the way that I could flip out the LCD at the end of a take, go to the thumbnail of the scene and play it back instantly on set, whereas the Digibeta guy had to unload the tape, take it out to a van to check the tape, as well as to make sure that it was reloaded so as not the record over part of the last take.

Robin

Robert M Wright · March 4th, 2006, 04:18 PM

It just wouldn't be that tough to design one. The cost of production, on even a modest scale (at least 1000s) would be pretty low, if done properly. It could be a very small unit.

Robert M Wright · March 4th, 2006, 05:19 PM

I just gave it some thought, and if anyone wanted to put up something in the neighborhood of $500k (USD) for a small business venture, I'm pretty sure I could put together a small team of very bright gents who could design an excellent device (there are a couple key people I would need to see if they would be interested), and I know I could do the product development (marketing) work to bring it to the marketplace, in probably less than a year. I've got to think that reaching a sales volume of at least a thousand units per year, at reasonable prices (sub 1k USD) with reasonable gross margins (into the hundreds USD), would be fairly easy to achieve rather quickly (almost certainly until there is competition). Contracting with a flash memory manufacturer, to be able to sell branded cards for the device, would boost the bottom line. I'm thinking a pretty small, light weight device that could mount easily on a hot shoe (perhaps no batteries, to keep the unit small), with perhaps 3 or 4 card slots, a few buttons to control the basic functionality, and a small LCD panel to display pertinent information, total unit sized something like 4"width x 3"height x 1"depth. Heck, could maybe even throw in extra mic inputs (to have the ability to record discrete 4 channel live onboard, either at 32khz within the DV or HDV compliant streams, remuxed essentially, or lay down a synched, additional 2 channel soundtrack at 48khz). Might even be worthwhile to fully incorporate Beachtek like device functionality, although that would increase the size of the unit and increase the number of input and output connectors substantially (perhaps two models, one with, and one without).

Steve Mullen · March 4th, 2006, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Kilgroe

The limiting factor is the P2 card itself as the 4GB cards can only sustain about 520 to 570 Mbps (between 65 MB/sec and 70 MB/sec usually). Panasonic claims 640Mbps. AFAIK, the 8GB cards all use 133X SD chips, which running the numbers, would yield the 640Mbps (80MB/sec) claim that Panasonic makes about P2 speed.

Here's what I've been able to find about BR burners:

According to Blu-ray.com, the Blu-ray Disc Association has plans to bring Blu-ray up to 8x, or more. A Blu-ray speed of 1X works out at 36Mbps, which is 4.5MB/sec. Which means to get to 640Mbps one would need an 18X drive.

Release Date - May 2006 -- Pioneer BDR-101A or BDR-102A
Price -- $995.00 US
Blank Media Price -- $50.00 US
Quality? -- tbd
Speed -- 2x

So the 8X drive for an optical disc solution that can archieve multiple P2 cards during a shoot may be several years away. Even when 8X is reached, it will take 2.25X real-time to dump the contacts to BR. A 10 hour shoot will require almost 21 hours to achieve. Since you can be dumping while shooting you probably could get 10 hours dumped per day -- assuming you have an intern stay awake for 24 hours. :)

But you would still need enough P2 cards for 8 to 10 hours.

Since P2 is a data storage device -- someone could build a BR RAID 0 device with a pair of 8X drives that would get us to about 12MB/sec. Still far short of the 18MB/sec to 20MB/sec required for real-time.

Recordable HD-DVD-R and rewritable HD-DVD-RW discs will have 15 GB with one and 30 GB with two layers. Maybe HD-DVD technology will be faster. But I'm not sure it offer the 18MB/sec to 20MB/sec required for real-time.

Leonard Levy · March 4th, 2006, 11:12 PM

Steve, what do you think of Iomega Rev & Rev Pro disks.
A player burner is about $500.
They hold about 35G's each.
Are supposed to archive for 30 years
Burn rate is "up to 25MB/s"
(still too slow but better than 4.5)
They cost about $70 @ I think.

http://www.iomega.com/direct/product...=1141535159229

That's what the Thompson/Grass Valley camera will record on.

Jeff Kilgroe · March 5th, 2006, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Recordable HD-DVD-R and rewritable HD-DVD-RW discs will have 15 GB with one and 30 GB with two layers. Maybe HD-DVD technology will be faster. But I'm not sure it offer the 18MB/sec to 20MB/sec required for real-time.

HD-DVD is slower than BluRay, but the exact numbers escape me right now... It's advantages are that media should be a bit cheaper and there are manufacturing benefits as current DVD manufacture processes can be easily adapted to press HD-DVD discs in most situations. However, BluRay is the superior disc format in terms of technical capabilities. On the software side of things as far as encryption, AACS, player features, etc... The two formats will be identical. BluRay should be the format of choice for delivering high-quality content due to its larger capacity and higher bitrate. However, I think any of us who want to deliver HD content in the coming months will probably have to invest in a recorder for both formats.

As for a backup and archival solution, I don't think BluRay and HD-DVD make a lot of sense right now. The cost per GB is far higher than current DLT, AIT and LTO tape solutions and the archival shelf-life and reliability are yet to be proven. Anyone creating HD-DVD and/or BluRay projects will have to invest in a tape drive of some sort as most replicators will request submissions on tape rather than disc - just as many still do with regular DVD.

And concerning the 35GB REV drives, they have their advantages/disadvantages too. Reliability should be better than HDD, but probably not as good as DLT or most quality optical media. In the end, they're still a magnetic HDD platter in a plastic shell. The only reliability factor they have over a conventional HDD is that the significant moving parts (heads, motor) are located in the drive itself and not on the disc mechanism. And I would seriously question their 30-year lifespan claim. Especially in a magnetic medium with such high density. Rev aren't a bad deal though... Shop around, I've seen drives for quite a bit less than what Iomega charges on their site. Some places sell packages with the drive and a pack or two of discs.

Robert M Wright · March 5th, 2006, 12:59 AM

If I recall correctly (I could easily be quite mistaken), I think I read somewhere here that the HD-DVD-R blank media is expected to be available at around $15/ea. If that's indeed the case, a buck a gig isn't all that bad really, and no doubt the price will fall quickly, once burners are commonplace and widespread demand for the media makes it feasible to produce, transport and sell in bulk (inviting serious competition).

I have an inherent distrust for magnetic media as reliable for long-term archiving purposes. I'm old enough that I've seen it degrade and fail many times, and know of no example where any magnetic media has super reliably stood the test of time. Not to mention, magnetic media is, by nature, vulnerable to magnets, which requires one to be absolutely sure no powerful magnetic field gets near the media in storage, handling or transportation, which in turn, can sometimes be at least a little bit difficult, particularly over a long period of time. In theory at least, optical disks should be able to be made, to withstand the test of time (although laser disks didn't make it, and I'm not sure about audio CDs), without being particularly vulnerable to anything but relatively extreme handling/storage/transportation conditions if kept in a relatively inexpensive container. Also, write once optical media has a significant inherent advantage, in that there is no danger of unintentional erasure or overwriting of data. Simply put, magnetic media is volitale, whereas write once optical media does not have to be, if produced withing tight enough tolerances (no air pockets or leaks, leading to "laser rot").

March 4th, 2006, 02:04 PM	#61
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	Would be nice to see a firestore like device that records to SD or CF cards.

March 4th, 2006, 04:06 PM	#62
Robin Davies-Rollinson Trustee Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Gwaelod-y-garth, Cardiff, CYMRU/WALES Posts: 1,215	...which is exactly what I've been prophesying on this forum as well as on another UK forum. If Firestore don't produce one themselves, I'm sure there'll be another manufacturer who will... I shot some material for the BBC with the Panasonic AJ-SPX900 last week alongside a Digibeta - we're looking at going over to tapeless acquisition for some of our drama series. I just loved the way that I could flip out the LCD at the end of a take, go to the thumbnail of the scene and play it back instantly on set, whereas the Digibeta guy had to unload the tape, take it out to a van to check the tape, as well as to make sure that it was reloaded so as not the record over part of the last take. Robin

March 4th, 2006, 04:18 PM	#63
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	It just wouldn't be that tough to design one. The cost of production, on even a modest scale (at least 1000s) would be pretty low, if done properly. It could be a very small unit.

March 4th, 2006, 05:19 PM	#64
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	I just gave it some thought, and if anyone wanted to put up something in the neighborhood of $500k (USD) for a small business venture, I'm pretty sure I could put together a small team of very bright gents who could design an excellent device (there are a couple key people I would need to see if they would be interested), and I know I could do the product development (marketing) work to bring it to the marketplace, in probably less than a year. I've got to think that reaching a sales volume of at least a thousand units per year, at reasonable prices (sub 1k USD) with reasonable gross margins (into the hundreds USD), would be fairly easy to achieve rather quickly (almost certainly until there is competition). Contracting with a flash memory manufacturer, to be able to sell branded cards for the device, would boost the bottom line. I'm thinking a pretty small, light weight device that could mount easily on a hot shoe (perhaps no batteries, to keep the unit small), with perhaps 3 or 4 card slots, a few buttons to control the basic functionality, and a small LCD panel to display pertinent information, total unit sized something like 4"width x 3"height x 1"depth. Heck, could maybe even throw in extra mic inputs (to have the ability to record discrete 4 channel live onboard, either at 32khz within the DV or HDV compliant streams, remuxed essentially, or lay down a synched, additional 2 channel soundtrack at 48khz). Might even be worthwhile to fully incorporate Beachtek like device functionality, although that would increase the size of the unit and increase the number of input and output connectors substantially (perhaps two models, one with, and one without).

March 4th, 2006, 11:12 PM	#66
Leonard Levy Trustee Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,684	Steve, what do you think of Iomega Rev & Rev Pro disks. A player burner is about $500. They hold about 35G's each. Are supposed to archive for 30 years Burn rate is "up to 25MB/s" (still too slow but better than 4.5) They cost about $70 @ I think. http://www.iomega.com/direct/product...=1141535159229 That's what the Thompson/Grass Valley camera will record on.

March 5th, 2006, 12:59 AM	#68
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	If I recall correctly (I could easily be quite mistaken), I think I read somewhere here that the HD-DVD-R blank media is expected to be available at around $15/ea. If that's indeed the case, a buck a gig isn't all that bad really, and no doubt the price will fall quickly, once burners are commonplace and widespread demand for the media makes it feasible to produce, transport and sell in bulk (inviting serious competition). I have an inherent distrust for magnetic media as reliable for long-term archiving purposes. I'm old enough that I've seen it degrade and fail many times, and know of no example where any magnetic media has super reliably stood the test of time. Not to mention, magnetic media is, by nature, vulnerable to magnets, which requires one to be absolutely sure no powerful magnetic field gets near the media in storage, handling or transportation, which in turn, can sometimes be at least a little bit difficult, particularly over a long period of time. In theory at least, optical disks should be able to be made, to withstand the test of time (although laser disks didn't make it, and I'm not sure about audio CDs), without being particularly vulnerable to anything but relatively extreme handling/storage/transportation conditions if kept in a relatively inexpensive container. Also, write once optical media has a significant inherent advantage, in that there is no danger of unintentional erasure or overwriting of data. Simply put, magnetic media is volitale, whereas write once optical media does not have to be, if produced withing tight enough tolerances (no air pockets or leaks, leading to "laser rot").