Panasonic AG-HPG10G
P2 Gear

Panasonic AG-HPG10G G&G Price: $3650 Want a better price? P2 Gear View/dump/rename P2 clips List Price: $3995

Description:

Panasonic proudly announces the introduction of the AG-HPG10, affectionately known as the P2 Gear. This compact device is loaded with talent. It is able to do a number of needed functions in the field. The first function being that it can play back your P2 recordings either on its self contained monitor or the on-set monitor using its HD-SDI output. It also has a component analog cable should you not have a monitor with HD-SDI input. That is just the beginning though. Since it has no built-in Hard Drive for storage, it has the ability to host either a USB Drive or an IEEE1394 drive for transferring of footage. There are some differences between these two methods. Under 1394 mode the P2 Gear will not supply power to the drive and when it formats the drive it will make only 15 partitions. Under USB however, the P2 Gear will supply power to the smaller “pocket drives” and it will allow for 23 partitions. Additionally your customer will be able to see the thumbnails of all of the clips that he has transferred. This is a big confidence builder in that “ether” of computer data. It shows solid evidence that the clips have indeed been moved to the Hard Disk Drive. Another unique feature on the unit is that it will allow for the renaming of the partitions. So now when your customer hooks the USB drive up to their Macintosh, these names will be displayed rather than the NoName that is normally displayed from the Cards themselves. This is the year for P2, with the larger card introductions, the 16 GB and the 32 GB, that means even more video will be stored as data. This also has impact on your customer learning more about MetaData, and how to manage the footage with its respective metadata. The P2 Gear supports Metadata Type 2 which allows for renaming of the User Clip Name. This is also currently supported by the P2 Cameras as well. P2 Gear allows your customer to change the user clip name and add more information to a good number of other fields prior to off-loading the cards. The only thing it won’t let you do is rename the Universal Clip Name. There is an SD Memory card slot that can be used for updating the internal firmware. Additionally it can also be used for saving User Files, so that if there are a number of operators that use the P2 Gear, each operator can set up the menus so that the machine always works the same way, save those settings and then every time they use the machine, load in their personal settings. From the reaction we have seen from potential customers, this machine will be a must have for every P2 customer. This P2 powerhouse will be used by Directors and Producers on set all the time to review footage and make judgment calls on performances. The oneperson operation will also find this to be the most confidence building off-load device they have ever have had. He or she will be able to see the thumbnails of the offloaded files. And when all the transfers are done, the P2 Gear can be reformat the cards for another round of recording. Keep in mind there is no internal Hard Drive. However, small USB Hard Drives that the production crew can hand off to a client are becoming inexpensive; virtually cheaper than DVCPRO HD tape. The P2 gear can be used to record with the IEEE1394 input, so any DVCPRO HD orDVCPRO, DVCPRO50 camcorder can be turned into a P2 Camera, provided that it has a 1394 output. P2 Gear also has an HD-SDI output, along with a downconverted SD Video Out and a switchable Component Analog output. This is very useful because the production team can also make a downconverted recording on an external DV deck with Timecode burn-in to hand off to a client. There are three User Buttons which can be programmed to a number of functions including a waveform monitor which can be triggered a second time to display a vectorscope. These can be used in either playback mode or in live record. The IEEE1394 I/O can also be used as a pass through and output for a computer so that the customer can actually view the video on the time line on an HD monitor without an expensive HD card. The User Buttons can also be configure to add a Text Memo to a clip, now this in essence can sub-divide a clip and allow you to copy those desired parts to a new card. This is a pretty powerful feature in its execution. You can also, as the name implies add a text memo to the clip.