Moving mechanisms such as those used in Sony’s XDCAM technology inevitably wear. Solid-state storage has no moving parts and is less sensitive to physical stress. Panasonic’s P2 card, however, costs €1,280 for 4 GB, equivalent to 16 minutes at 25 Mbit/s, making it too expensive for many applications. Changing the workflow is another major obstacle. Sony’s XDCAM provides an easier transition into the IT world, particularly because its optical media can also be used directly for archiving in HD XDCAM workflows. Losing a disc is also rather different from losing a P2 card.
Even so, solid-state storage is clearly advancing at NAB. Panasonic reports that 100 of China’s 300 television stations already use P2. Alongside the inventor of P2, Thomson and Ikegami are using flash-memory storage. Even Sony is adopting solid-state media, adding a Memory Stick to XDCAM for MPEG-4 proxy video recording. Thomson’s new Venom FlashPak recorder for the Viper camera also uses memory chips. Flash is making progress.
