Posted by Toby on 09/26/05 14:13

"AnthonyR" <nomail@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:IQAZe.2057$wf6.168146@twister.nyc.rr.com...
>
> "Toby" <zdftokyo@gool.com> wrote in message
> news:433673bf$0$189$bb4e3ad8@newscene.com...
>>
>> "Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xpr7t.net> wrote in message
>> news:11jbcii718seg73@corp.supernews.com...
>>> blackburst wrote ...
>>>>I run an access studio. The Board of Directors is making overtures
>>>> about going tapeless. This is workable in some ways: Playout will be on
>>>> server. "Live to tape" shows will be ingested straight to server. Shows
>>>> edited on NLEs will be dumped straight to server. Stuff in the remote
>>>> truck can be recorded on a hard drive and dumped to server. (Archiving
>>>> of all shows will be on DVD.)
>>>>
>>>> The problem is acquisition. I can get cheap, easy to use and great
>>>> quality DV cameras for $300 apiece. Is there a cheap, easy to use
>>>> tapeless camcorder? Not DVD camcorders- they are write once, aren't
>>>> they?
>>>>
>>>> Of course we'll have tapeless pro camcorders for staff and experienced
>>>> volunteers, but what about non-techies who want a mini camera?
>>>
>>> IMHO, at this particular point in the life-cycle of digital video,
>>> the economies of scale have not reached the point where we can
>>> expect to see hard-drive camcorders at a consumer level.
>>>
>>> I can't think of any good technical reason why Sony or Panny or
>>> somebody couldn't make a camcorder with a place to plug in a
>>> laptop hard-drive (in lieu of a mini-DV tape transport). But they
>>> apparently think there isn't a large enough market to develop a
>>> product like that. Too bad, IMHO.
>>
>> Panasonic is going the flash memory route with P2, but it's not really
>> economical yet. However Samsung just announced single 4Gb flash memory
>> chips using a 50nm (I believe) technology, so it is on the way.
>>
>> Toby
>>
>
> Hey Toby,
> That's good to hear. I wonder why they are going for flash memory over
> tiny hard drives?
> I would think a small 20gb or 40gb unit the size of an ipod would be
> better but I guess
> from a manufacturing perspective, flash memory should have less repair
> issues than hard drives
> which are mechanical parts as opposed to purely electronic components.
>
> All we really need is enough space to be comparable to a tape, if the
> flash is removable or
> enough to do about 4-5 hours if it's not. Maybe it can be uploaded to a
> bigger unit on the field
> and free up the camera flash to capture more?
>
> But I still think leaving the miniDV tape also is a good idea as a backup
> source.
> I wouldn't want all my capture work just on flash memory alone. One static
> discharge
> from walking on the carpet and touching your chip and all your work could
> be gone. :)
>
> AnthonyR.

Hi Anthony,

Flash memory is stable. The P2 cards are like PCMCIA cards, hot-swappable,
and the camera holds 5 of them. They don't need any time to spin up, no
power source, and no delicate heads to hit the platens if you drop them. The
fly in the ointment right now is the price--I heard that they are $1750 each
for the 8 gig cards. I believe they hold about 40 minutes worth of video at
25 Mb/sec. Of course in a couple of years they are expecting to have 32 or
64 gig cards.

The nice thing is that if you are editing non-linear you just plug them in
to a reader and have immediate random access--no digitizing necessary. For
archiving they can be dumped to tape, but my company--which is beta-testing
the system for Panasonic in Europe--figured out that it is actually cheaper
to dump them directly to HDDs. One 300 gig HDD is cheaper than the tapes to
archive the same amount of material, and the price is only going to go down.
Once you have enough cards you don't have to buy tapes anymore, and you can
save only the material that you need--no more 30 min tapes saved with only
10 mins of good material on them.

Panasonic has already introduced this system in their latest prosumer HD
cam, but the camera is $6000 and the cards are also monstrously expensive,
so we'll need a couple of years until this makes it to the real consumer
market.

And of course there's Sony with XDcam, which is now compatible with Avid for
editing...

Toby

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