[Erich Roland] "but you seem to think the world revolves around Panasonic P2 products, "
Come on, Erich. Do you think I am that short sighted?
[Erich Roland] "I have a different experience and I come here to share it, that's one reason why these forums exist, no? "
Yes, but basically you have said that everyone needs to be more like Red, yet you haven't used one.
[Erich Roland] "This statement shows your lack of appreciation for to what it means to invest large amounts of money into a system, and be confident in the investment years out. "
If I was still editing on my G3 Powerbook, I'd be out of business. If I was still shooting on a Sony Betacam, I'd be laughed off the set. 10-15 years is way too long in today's environment. Also, I got an email advertisement the other day explain the price drop in the 3700, you have to trade in your current 2/3" camera to do so.
[Erich Roland] "I believe this is one of the main reasons P2 is not selling, relative to the "all in" bet that Panasonic has made towards the P2 format. "
First of all, your evidence that P2 isn't not selling, the flagship $60,000 camera aside? All this is is education. If you start to look at what MXF can bring to the table, you will see what the future entails. People look at MXF and see it as complicated, I look at it and think that it's one of the smartest and well thought out post systems out there, keeping in mind the vast amount of different computers, operating systems, and
hard drive file formats out there, and we haven't even talked about metadata yet.
[Erich Roland] "Panasonic has bet heavily the world would follow into P2 and the world has not. "
The world? I doubt it. I don't think Panasonic is looking for world domination. Also, I don't think you have begun to appreciate AVC-I, in my opinion (and others) XDCam can't hold a candle to AVC-I.
ANd while we are on it and since you keep skirting around it, we need to talk about recording formats. Akin to what Gary said (computers with lenses) recording format has really what has driven camera sales forever. Some gross generalizations follow:
Let's go back to Betacam. There were many different cameras and some different manufacturers, but what did it record to? Betacam. Why? Because it was decent quality for the times and became ubiquitous. Then, have a look at dv. For the first time you didn't need expensive hardware to capture video, all you needed was a deck (or cheap $300 camera from best buy) a firewire cable and a computer that knew what to do with it. Why did this become popular? It was cheap, easy, ubiquitous and good enough quality for most people at the time. Now we move to HD. First it was Sony with 1035i, then 1080i. Why interlace? To match the interlace infrastructure that had been in place for the past half century. There's also 720p which grabbed the attention of filmic types due to the progressive nature and the ingenious VFR capability that was built right in to the system. Very smart, very versatile and also great quality. Even though it was a lower overall pixel count, some argued that since 1080 can only display 540 lines at a time and 720 displays, well, 720 that 720 might have an edge. Now, how do we capture all this? How do we record this on tape? How do we record this without tape as our computers get better and faster to be able to handle the highly compressed and processor intensive recording formats? That's when the splintering of the market really started, it wasn't just about tape formats anymore, it was about a multitude of formats and compression schemes. With hardware and tape based systems, you can play out a tape and capture to whatever codec your NLE required, now with tapeless digital formats, you have to work with camera native codecs. This is all new and all being worked on. There's going to be some growing pains.
Please forgive the self promotion, but I feel it's relevant. If you look at the article I wrote about why we choose the 2000, you will see that it really boiled down to the recording format (http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/avcintra-and-the-panasonic-ajhpx2000) . You will notice the article is entitled AVC-I and the 2000, and not the 2000 and AVC-I. I chose recording format first, before looking to a camera. Ask any editor that has truly worked with both XDcam/HDV or DVCPro HD/AVC-I and see which format they like the best? Ask shooters what camera they like the best? I would assume that people like the Sony's due to their low light performance, and it ends about there. If you work with and study the image after it's been recorded (not by looking at the essentially uncompressed video feed of the camera at the shoot) you will see big differences. Taking these images into post and manipulating them, you will see big difference. Encoding and transcoding these images, you will see differences. This is my point, but doesn't really speak to yours directly. I think the people that are shooting Sony, haven't really looked and worked with the material day in and day out or after the image has been recorded. In post production, I-frame makes a lot of sense.
Now, we can move to MXF. As I said before, at first glance, the P2 implementation of MXF seems a bit complex and perhaps daunting. The recording medium seems to be expensive (although this has recently changed with the e series P2 cards). Once you start to learn the format and what is going on, Panasonic has built an infrastructure to help organize, catalog and track and entire digital library of assets, both
during and after the shoot. When you mention 10-15 years, I believe this P2 MXF container will be around at least that long (the specific cameras themselves, not so much, i.e. the 3700 will get replaced with something else) as it is a great way to begin a digital catalog. I am not saying this because we own a P2 camera, I am saying this from a practical users perspective. It's one of the reasons we chose the camera. It was a decision that we made based our needs and potential wants for the years to come at our production company. We didn't decide on a camera, we decided on a recording, archive and master format that we will have to deal with as long as we are employed. Is that still not seeing past my nose? I hardly think so. I decided on our future, not what is best for now. I think the P2 format is still being discovered by more users everyday. When you factor in metadata and cataloging, again, the XDCam format doesn't come close, and we aren't even talking about image quality anymore. See how that works?
If you want to also read about the HDV format, just take a look on Shane Ross's blog. He goes in to detail about the HDV format, and if you think XDCam is not HDV, then it's time to do more research.
http://lfhd.blogspot.com/ and search for HDV
[Erich Roland] "Who can buy a 50k camera if it will only be worth 10 thousand in a few years as many Varicam owners have experienced?"
Not many. People who are buying 50k cameras will plan to make their money back in 2-3 years (as Gary mentioned), not 10-15. I'm sure it's nice work if you can get it.
[Erich Roland] "This is 101 Jeremy, and your failing to see this larger aspect because your intoxicated with proxy files, that most don't use or care about."
Proxies? Don't shoot them or even have the capability to do so, why would I when I can use the real deal? Proxies can be handy for people that don't have fast machines (such as working with AVC-I material on a PPC, which speaks to the broad capability of P2. You don't need the latest greatest) I use a native MXF workflow with FCP. No need for proxies. Again, sorry to stick my humble ego in this anymore than I need to, but you can see that workflow here if you care:
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/garchow_jeremy/dvc_pro_hd.php
[Erich Roland] "I'm here to try and help them be better gear manufacturers because I need them to be smarter then they have been and not make these kind of mistakes going forward."
I am still having trouble finding the mistakes.
[Erich Roland] "I think you are young "
And this is a bad thing? I started editing before FCP was around, in your mind, does that now make me qualified to post here?
