sundance 2006 - Zoael

To P2 or Not To P2?
BY MICHAEL CAPORALE
THE CHAT GROUPS ARE ALL
buzzing and for those of you who
don’t follow such things or who
don’t own a computer, the really big news
this year that seems to be causing a lot of
confusion is a new technology called P2.
So, let’s get right into it. Just what is P2?
P2 is a tapeless recording media created
by Panasonic for recording video
and audio signals. P2 is format agnostic,
which means P2 does not care what
format you write to it, therefore it can
be multi-format or any format. 1080i,
1080p, 720p, 480p, 480i... all can be
recorded to P2. The housing used for
the media is a PCMCIA card that contains
within its 4 small SD cards striped
as a raid. Currently, P2 cards are available
in 2, 4 and 8 gig configurations.
P2 has actually been around for a
few years. Touted for use in news gathering
because it gives broadcasters
immediate access to their footage for
editing to critical deadlines, P2 has
been misunderstood. Tapeless recording
is not just about immediate access.
That is the least of it. It is more about
freeing the camera from the limitations
and liabilities of recording to tape of
which access time is but one issue. To
record usable video to tape, tape must
move at a constant speed. The speed
that it moves determines how much
data can be written to the tape, hence,
limits the performance of a camera
regarding information such as resolution,
color space and frame rates.
Additionally, with tape comes extra
expense and maintenance as the camera
and tape become subject to heat
and noise and as with all moving parts
will eventually require maintenance
and/or repair. With increased speeds,
tape can break and repeated use can
cause wear familiar to video shooters
as dropouts. Tape can also be problematic
in extreme weather conditions
regarding temperature and humidity.
And tape is a linear format, which is
the reason for those slow access times.
P2 has none of these issues. In operation
it remains as cool as a cucumber
and as silent as a public library on the
92
planet Pluto. It is a non-linear media
that allows random-access, so managing
the footage during recording, playback
and editing is greatly simplified. It holds
the promise of a bright future for filmmakers
because theoretically color
space can expand to 4:4:4, resolution
can be increased and frame rates know
no limits. In the real world, however
there are limits and currently they are
the size of the cards, the codecs of the
formats employed, and the limits
imposed by the other hardware used in
manufacturing cameras.
Even within those restrictions,
Panasonic has already shown us the possibilities.
First in the SDX800 and now in
P2’s latest incarnation, the HVX200, with
its many advanced features, it has set an
entirely new standard and opened a
door to future camera designs.
Cameras are, after all, just small
computers with an analog imaging system.
The HVX200 is not only the smallest
“full-up” HD camera but also the
only camera with a surprisingly broad
range of new features that are not just
equivalent to more expensive broadcast
cameras but also otherwise
impossible in tape-transport cameras.
Right now, cards may be relatively
expensive, but the cost of cards drops
rather quickly. Witness the 4 Gig card
which dropped in price from $1,750 to
$650 in a few short months. More
importantly when you consider that
cards are re-used over and over, the
break-even point on the cost of a card
over film or tape costs is only a few uses.
While the size of the cards will be
ever increasing, current record times
are very good. For example an 8 gig
card records 22 minutes of 24 frame
720p DVCPRO HD and since the
HVX200 has two card slots, a shooter
can currently record in that format the
equivalent of four 1,000 foot loads of
CAN OF
WORMS
35mm without reloading cards, which
incidentally are hot-swappable.
But P2 memory cards are only one
of the many ways that the HVX200
records the P2 format. Users can also
record directly to a Firewire-capable
VTR such as the 1200A, outboard
Firewire devices such as Focus
Enhancements’ 120 Gig cameramounted
drive, or directly into a laptop
or computer with appropriate software
such as Final Cut Pro 5.04.
Workflow is simplified in many ways.
In-camera review allows for reclaiming
space by deletion of bad shots or scenes
and shooting can be resumed instantly,
even while reviewing footage. Cards
can be downloaded in the field to
portable drives such as the P2 Store, or
directly read into the PCMCIA slot of a
laptop such as a Powerbook. A five slot
reader is available for interfacing to
desktop computers and the camera will
also function as a reader utilizing
Firewire or USB connection.
Logging and capturing for editing is
automated and is faster than real time.
11 minutes of 720/24p DVCPRO HD can
be captured and automatically logged in
between three and four minutes.
Archiving is the last step in the
process and data can be written to tape,
DVD, Blue Ray Disc, SAIT, DLT, and
LTO devices. With this many choices
security need not be a concern. Other
fields have already successfully made
the move to various forms of non-linear
capture, such as still photography
(writing to cards) and audio recording
(writing to hard drives).
2006 will be the first year that we
will see a feature film authored on P2
memory cards. The benefits to independent
film are many. In the coming
years as P2 expands into larger professional
models of cameras such as the
VariCam, it will eventually be industry
wide adopted and could easily become
the de facto standard for filmmaking.
DP Michael Caporale is the principal
of production company 24p Digital
Cinema, LLP (Cincinnati, OH).