The Future Of Digital Media? Panasonic's P2 Series Leaves Tape In The Dust
DV Dailies - The Future Of Digital Media? Panasonic's P2 Series Leaves Tape In The Dust
by , 1:00 PM EDT, September 15th, 2004
Panasonic has developed a new series of image capturing devices and cameras based the new P2 Card. The card is designed as a high performance memory card with higher storage capacities of standard cards. The cards effectively render the need for bulky and delicate tapes stock unnecessary. The card currently supports DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, and DVCPROHD video formats with plans for larger memory card sizes up to 128GB. According to Panasonic:
Based on the worldwide success of its SD Memory Card, Panasonic is set to further revolutionize news gathering with the P2 Card (Professional Plug-in Card). The new system records audio and video signals in the DVCPRO format directly onto a P2 Card. The next step is camcorders and AC-independent editing systems that operate without tape mechanisms or optical disk drives. And in 2004, the first maintenance-free professional equipment for electronic news gathering (ENG) will hit the markets.
The P2 Card can be used countless times, without any effect on quality whatsoever. It has no mechanical parts, so recording media remain unaffected by extremes of temperature, moisture and dust. In contrast, conventional video often exhibits problems when it meets its limits. Unlike tape recordings, material saved on P2 Cards does not need to be digitized for further processing. When a card is inserted in the notebook?s PCMCIA slot, the software automatically recognizes the data stored. With direct access possibilities, fast forward, rewind and copying are also unnecessary. The P2 transfer rate of 640 Mbps is much higher than that of optical disks or hard disk drives.
Because of the rapid achievement of ever-higher storage capacities, the amount of data that can be stored will soon increase to many times present levels. P2 Cards with up to 128 GB storage capacity are no longer considered just a dream for the future. Soon such a card will enable 144 minutes of DVCPROHD signals (100 Mbps) to be recorded uninterrupted on a single P2 Card. At a data rate of 25 Mbps (DVCPRO), the recording time will total 576 minutes or almost 10 hours!
You can find more information about the P2 series of hardware at the Panasonic Web site.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Here is the next shift in the video market as Panasonic paves the way for tapeless video cameras and post production systems. The near future promises the market high-definition cameras without the dependency on the HD tapes which are often very expensive and are subject to environmental conditions. Other camera makers are also pioneering the tapeless camera system such as Grass Valley's Viper FilmStream camera, a camera that doesn't rely on internal image processing within the camera, thus providing the highest quality images available from the CCDs.
Observer Comments
The reason they don't use HDD is because a DV tape costs like $5 and holds an hour of DV which is like 20GB. Plus it keeps costs down since you buy the storage separately from the camera itself.
And besides don't we all love those wonderfully simple and reliable tape loading mechanisms!?!
Yeah, I realize all that, but come on! I can't even think of how cool it would be to have my GL2 use an HDD, perhaps with a Firewire 800 out. As it is, DV outputs in real time, and when you shoot hours of footage a day (guilty) it gets reeeeeeeeeaaallllllyyyy tedious. Imagine the new Canon XL2 with a SATA HDD and Firewire 800, uploading a days worth of shooting in ten minutes!
Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:36 pm Subject: But How long till they hit 128GB right now its only 4
I devised a simple way to use an iPod for P2 Storage in the field. It has so far proven to be incredibly reliable and with testing has been almost twice as fast as a Panasonic P2Store in both the copy and transfer of files. Putting together an article with photos and instructions should post it in the next couple of days.
hvxworld.com
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