Pansonic P2 Cards

Many in the industry agree that the AG-HPX170 is an outstanding camera.  I noticed a local vendor has a rebate program that had me entertaining the thought of this cam once again.  After all, tapeless capture is definitely the future.  Perhaps however, this is not yet so for me.

A 32GB P2 card currently goes for around $600 or so.  This is about 20 times some of the other flash media.  Not a fair comparison perhaps, as these card are radically faster in transfer speed, more durable, can me written to more times, and so on.  $600 is pocket change in the film and television industry.  It’s still a pretty good chunk for the event video business.

I’d really love to hear if anyone is using these cams for event video coverage.  It occurs to me that you’d either (ideally) own a number of P2 cards, or constantly be dumping video to hard drives.  You’ll then probably want to back that drive up to some other media just to be safe, as you’ll have to soon wipe those P2 cards with your next event.  As for myself, I still kinda like the idea that I can shelve the tapes until I’m ready for them.

If you’re familiar with this camera, you might also know of Sony’s EX1.  A pretty attractive camera in a similar price ballpark.  It however can use Expresscard drives.  While they don’t have the specs of P2 cards, they can certainly be pretty fast.  This and at about 1/6th of the price too.  Hard to overlook for a budget shooter.