Re: Considerations and Consequences of P2 technology

[Steve Connor] "I hope Panasonic also include a tape option as well for the situations where you need to shoot large amounts of material"

If I'm not mistaken, Jan has directly stated that this camera will not include a tape transport.

There are many reasons for that. The biggest one is the fact that the tape transport would only be able to handle DVCPro recording. The strength is just not there on miniDV tapes to handle the high speeds needed for DVCPro50 or DVCProHD. On top of that is the fact that DVCProHD requires 16 record heads (if I'm not mistaken). So it would be virtually impossible to put out a camera which recorded DVCProHD to tape and keep it below the 10K price point this camera is aimed at.

And this brings up another huge plus to solid state recording which I forgot to mention earlier, and that is the fact that you no longer require a deck to capture and digitize your footage. This brings the cost of HD post production down considerably.

So while the cost of P2 memory may seem high at first, consider the fact that there is no deck required, as there would usually be when you introduce a new format into your workflow.