We're way more interested in the Canon and so far I can drop the files from it into Vegas but who'se going to build a VCR for the tapes?
What's even more interesting is the HD recorder from Cineform, that and the Canon is going to smoke everything.
Bob.

HD and DVPRO/50 will be captured to expensive memory cards.

P2 cards are one way to capture. Another is direct to disk. There is a Firestore drive coming that will provide 100 GB of space for those longer events. Alternately, HD can be shot directly to laptop. It's not very convenient, but it is a way to avoid the expense of the P2 cards. I'm sure P2 cards will be available for rent, too.

> There is a Firestore drive coming that will provide 100 GB of space for those longer events.

I wonder how much that will cost? $2000? $3000? It would be nice if someone gave the folks at Firestore a run for their money. $1600 for an 80GB hard drive is ludicrous. I just bought my wife a laptop with an 80GB hard drive for $1100! That’s an entire laptop vs just a hard drive recorder. The difference between their 40GB and 80GB model is $400! There is absolutely no justification for outrageous prices they are charging.

What is needed is a field recorder that uses 3.5” hard drives that are replaceable. Just pop in a new 120GB hard drive that you bought for $60 and keep shooting. Unless P2 cards get a lot cheaper with a lot higher capacity, this camera is a money pit. You could buy a Sony Z1 for the price of 2 P2 8GB memory cards alone!

~jr

Is that the same Firestore that was scheduled to ship for the JVC back in August?
Seriously, it seems like there is a lot of "Take em' out of the market" marketing stuff happening these days. Announce something, name a soft ship date, and then miss it by at least half a year or maybe forever. It's vaporware, but because a mockup exists, people actually hold purchases (bad decision, IMO) based on "what's coming" vs "what exists."
It'll be great if the Firestore actually ships with HVX support, but I surely wouldn't hold my breath.

I had a long talk with those guys at NAB, a bit dated now I know.
Thing that scared me right off was they had no plans to move away from using FAT 32 formatting on their drives.
Do the sums, 100GB of DVCPRO-100 (aka HD) written to a FAT32 drive is going to be split into how many files? They'll do this without droping a frame in a mpeg-2 compressed stream, yeah right, it's still not 100% reliable recording SD DV from what I hear, they've certainly never been able to get our box to work right and that's with 7200 rpm drives.

I think the P2 cards are going to be the only viable solution with this camera, at least they're a known entity that's been field tested. Cost is going to be a problem for most though. To avoid holding up a shoot you'll need 4 of them but even then I can see an issue. Whatever you're hiving the media off to has to be able to sustain the same data rate as the camera's recording at other wise things are going to bank up.
Bob.

Focus Enhancements announcement

Like I said...the same one that was supposed to ship 3 months ago that still isn't shipping today?
They've said NAB 2006, but this seems like part of the game to keep buyers on the fence for a while about what they're going to buy.
Hmm...I can buy a Panasonic when it ships (if it ships before end of year) or I can buy a Sony/JVC/Canon right now because they're available. And after I buy my Panny that might ship by year end, I can either rent P2, mortgage the house to buy P2, or wait til (maybe) April of 2006 to actually shoot anything with my new cam.
Of course, Sony, JVC, or Canon might have a really cool announcement at NAB too, that I'll probably kick myself in the butt for waiting a year after Panny announced their camcorder, only to find something superior was announced 3 months after I'd waited so long.
Talk about a captive audience. Might as well be Apple at that point.
I'm sure the Panny will be a great camera. It's just everything else needed that seems to be what's tripping up the ease of buying one.

At least the Canon has a real shipping date, has been shown to work and companies that have a track record of delivering are getting beind them, not to mention a rumour we've heard that Canon will be offering a decent range of lenses for their camera.
We're giving serious thought to a 'HiDef OB Van in a box' using 4 Canon cameras and a HD-SDI switch. Add the box from Cineform and what a way to go.
Bob.

Yeah, well it is no surprise that Focus Enhancements is delayed in getting models out. The small hard drives are just becoming available at speeds fast enough to support 100 Mbps HD. And, it is stating the obvious to point out that HDV has a lead. It may be unsurmountable by Panasonic trying to buck the HD trend with a codec all by itself. Nevertheless, they will bring out the HVX200 and folks are still wondering if Vegas will support DVCPRO HD.

I think the answer is that Vegas has supported DVCPRO HD for a long time. It's not native but I believe many have installed the free codec from Matrox and then you're all set.
All sorts of wierd codecs have made their way into my system, haven't a clue how I managed to find let along install a Toshiba YUV codec!
The great thing about the P2 solution is that we don't have to worry about VCRs, just drop the files straight in. It was the wierdness of Panasonics VCRs that made DVCPRO such an nightmare for us. Something as simple as DVCPRO 25 which is a superior format to DV 25 lost all its appeal when the only way to ingest was by going through analogue, all the quality improvement that the codec offered was lost in the process. We hung on in the belief that Panasonic would deliver a deck that offered native transfer over 1394, we even drooled over the cardboard mockup, yes it'll be here next NAB or IBC or something but next NAB we find out it's been killed off due to lack of interest!
Bob.

The Matrox codec doesn't support HD.

Two things are needed for Vegas to actually natively support the HVX: a video-for-windows DVCPRO-HD codec, and native .MXF support.

You can get a free DVCPRO-HD codec from Avid which will work with Vegas, but only in Quicktime mode.

As for MXF, the Vegas engineers decided to implement only the Sony version for XDCAM. No other forms of MXF are supported.

A potential solution will be coming from DVFilm; Marcus is updating his Maker program so that it will convert P2 MXF files into .AVI or .MOV files. He's also going to set it up such that if you have CineForm installed, you can have it transcode to the CFHD intermediate codec as well.

None of this is as good as if Vegas would just implement proper support; the MXF implementation is Op-Atom, a SMPTE-codified standard for file interchange.

Barry, I agree about the codec, but in DirectShow, not the older Video for windows format. Sonys' lack of support for the more modern standards can be frustrating at times. I thought they would keep up, one of the reasons I bought into them. Getting long in the tooth.
.

Yes many of us wish that Vegas got on the ball with the DVCpro-HD. A few months ago i jumped the vegas ship and went to Apple just because of the lack of DVCpro-HD support in Vegas.. Granted that lasted about a week till i came back to vegas and pawned off the apple, but im still stuch here twiddling my thumbs hoping there would be some last minute announcement from Sony stating that DVCpro-HD would be supported.

I don't know if that will happen soon, or ever, but I am sure someone will find a solution. It pains me to think of having to basically conform all my footage into an AVI file to bring into Vegas.. but i will do it, because Vegas is the end all for me.. I just can't use any other program anymore. It's that damn scroll wheel zooming thats got me hooked (joke, kinda)

Whilst I agree that Vegas should support DVCPRO HD and DVCPRO 50 and absolutely should support MXF Op Atom can someone explain why we should get all in a lather over DVCPRO HD?
Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that for what it cost to buy into that technology when it first came out, there's much better offerings to be had today for that kind of money. In fact given the way the various manufacturers leapfrog one another isn't it time for Panasonic to move beyond DVCPRO HD?
Bob.

"can someone explain why we should get all in a lather"

umm.. because I will be using DVCpro-HD and I use Vegas.. you don't see how i could have an issue?

As for the alternatives, I do imagine you are talking about the HDV format.. which without question is inferior to DVCpro-HD.. HDV isnt a professional format unfortunately, and I just cant deal with the problems it has... but thats a whole other argument.

HDV isnt a professional format unfortunately, and I just cant deal with the problems it has
I'd have to argue that in a very stiff way, Jarred. I usually agree with you, but that's a silly statement. There is a rapidly growing number of professional camerapersons in Hollywood and other production locations using HDV, editing it, and broadcasting it. You'd suggest that the backlot of King Kong, Miami Vice, or HBO's new series "House Arrest" or 50 Cent, Eminem's recent music videos, Van Cliburn piano competition on PBS are all not professional? All were shot exclusively with the Z1, all are on the air, and all are outstanding pieces of work. Add to that the bit parts the Z1 gets in all sorts of shows ranging from Mythbusters and Monster Garage to National Geographic and MTV. They're all using it.
The Panny is likely going to be a good camera. Everyone was anticipating the JVC too, and it turned out to be mostly a dud. The Panny stands that risk too, although I doubt it. It's very easy to proclaim it "better" than HDV, because it's not out yet. Far and away more entertainment revenue has been generated by the Sony Z1 than by the HVX, wouldn't you agree?
The Panny, like HDV and all other formats have their limitations. It's not the limitations that are the problem, it's not being able to get around them. And no matter how you look at it, you can't get into a complete, useful HVX package for 5k, but you surely can with HDV. And have change left over.

Sorry Doug, I think you read me wrong.

Im not saying the HVX is a better camera than any HDV flavour out there.. Im saying that DVCpro-HD is a better format than HDV.. its just technically true... that's not saying that you cant use HDV to record some amazing things. DVCpro-HD doesnt need to prove itself.. its been out for years and is used professionaly every day.. most "prosumers" though have never seen a frame of DVCpro-HD, because they dont have $12,000 decks or $60,000 cameras.

I understand HDV is being adopted in professional applications, I imagine partly because thats all there is, and partly because so many cameras are using it at this point for acquisition.

but HDV is not a professional format, but its being squeezed into professional situations, and its doing a decent job holding up, but ask people that really work with it and it has its issues and limitiations.

Remember, DV isn't a professional format either, we just all found a way to make it fit our professional applications.

Actually,
I was not referring to HDV, rather HDCAM.
By my understanding DVCPRO HD is only 100MB/sec, basically 4 DV codecs running in parrallel. Certainly a good solution in it's day but hardly an efficient coding system by todays standards.
Bob.

farss.. Considering the color space advantages over HDCAM DVCpro-HD has some legs on it in color space, albiet it a reoslutions loss. The argument on HDCAM vs. DVCpro-HD though is a good one, both sides have thier strengths, and weaknesses.

As for the whole 100MB/sec issue.. i will take 100MB/sec over HDV's 25MB/sec any day., but its kinda like comparing apples and oranges. HDCAM and DVCpro-HD are both professional formats.

Jarred,

How can you say that 4:2:2 is professional?

Only 4:4:4 (as in HDCAM SR) is professional.

4:2:2 is just prosumer. Right?

And a 4:2:2 camera with a prosumer lens is still a prosumer camera. Right?

Only a box of Cooke primes ($110,000) or a good HD zoom ($80,000-$180,000) qualifies as professional. Right?

(TIC).

I sense a bit of hostility here..

sorry if I am ruffling some feathers.

This has nothing to do with cameras Coursedesign... so please, lets stop comparing them. This is a Codec discussion.

If you are telling me that 4:2:2 isn't professional, I know a heck of a lot of DigiBeta users that would love to talk to you.

I emplore anyone to go into a REAL post house and ask them if they consider DV or HDV as a professional format. I know the answer here, but hell im in Canada and only work here and LA so maybe things are different in the middle America.