Downtown
Ken Stone has published a straightforward review of the HVX200 by MacVideo mastermind, Rick Young.
Rick recently spent some time with the European version of the camcorder to put it through its paces and test P2 workflow. Overall it seems he was very impressed by the experience, especially by the ease of use and the resulting quality of the image.
One thing that made me chuckle in the review was Rick’s assertion that the recording time permitted by current P2 cards is comparable to working with 10 minute reels of 16mm film. It’s a fair comment, but one I’ve also heard during Panasonic marketing presentations!
2 Comments
Rick seems to have had a lot of good luck with the workflow with the camera. I keep coming across so many frustrating experiences using it (mainly associated with the post end, not the shooting aspects). The main frustrations of course being the cards not mounting properly (whether using the camera or the P2 Store) or people losing footage (sometimes their fault for not keeping the LastClip.txt file).
The tapeless workflow seems to have great potential, and yes likely is the way of the future. But personally I don’t believe its quite there just yet. How often can such a new technology be rock solid so fast out of the can? Really, think about that.
I would still recommend using the camera, but people just need to do tests and be preparred for curveballs along the way (moreso than perhaps usual). Also, everyone just has to have patience. The tapeless post workflow will become more stable eventually, its just not there yet.
I agree Matt, I do think there’s a lot to be said about familiarity with the workflow by all involved and I can’t emphasise enough the importance of proper testing.
Mileage does appear to vary though.
We’ve had good success with P2 so far the couple of times I’ve encountered it. (Touch wood) The first time was back in November before the HVX200 and all the other tools shipped—we were plugging a P2 Drive directly into a G5 and using FCP 5 to important the media directly to disk.
I also have a colleague who is using P2 and the HVX200 on daily basis. She swears by the combination.
As far as this being a new technology, I understand where you’re coming from and all the software is just making its debut, but the foundation of P2 is flash card memory, which has been around for a while and is reaching ubiquity!