Epson's 80GB P-4000 Photo Fine player
posted Sep 22nd 2005 9:15AM
Yum, so Epson just announced their P-4000 Photo Fine Player. Besides the bump to an 80GB drive, nothing really seems
to have changed over the award winning P-2000; it's still
being billed as a multimedia storage viewer for the hardcore digital photographer who requires the ability to store
images in either RAW or JPEG formats via integrated support for CompactFlash and SD memory cards, the ability to verify
JPEG exposure and Exif information for both RAW and JPEG files, and features a 16x display zoom to check picture
quality. But like its predecessor, owners will quickly find that it also makes for a tasty PMP with its 3.8-inch VGA
resolution display, MPEG-2/4, MP3, and AAC playback, and the ability to pump the video out to your TeeVee. No price
deets yet but we know it'll drop on October 6th.
[Via Le Journal du Geek, thanks
Aniki]
As a professional photographer I have been waiting for Epson to improve on the capacity of their existing unit. These are superb for backing up copies of images instead of having to fish out the laptop all the time. And they are much faster at transfering the images than my state-of-the-art Apple Powerbook. They are also much better priced than the equivalent Nikon product which is overpriced and under "memoried". With D2xs as my main cameras I can soon fill up the smaller sized drives of earlier storage devices. Looks like another fine product from Epson.
It's a good thing I didn't just open up my newly delivered P-2000 on Monday... Oh wait. Damn. Even though it's quite a bit bigger than my gmini 400 there's no comparison in screen size and resolution and brightness and HD space/$... I'm still happy with my purchase! If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Is the annoying 8.3 file renaming problem still a problem? Did the P-2000 firmware updates remedy that??
I can't find any mention on dpreview.com or anywhere else whether the file renaming issue has been resolvified...
ZVUE's spray is, of course, ignorant and ill-considered.
Who uses that much storage on a portable device?. . . exactly the same folks whom the product is marketed at - digital photographers.
With modern DSLR's in the hands of pros and "pro-sumers" a photographer can burn through a 1 or 2 GB CF card in a mere matter of minutes, seconds even - esp shooting action or PJ.
Even with 2,3 or more backup CF cards a DPhotog, on site at an event, will quickly need to be dumping - not to mention the need for redundant backup.
. . . and how useful is such a device that can easily be carried compared to a laptop that is not exactly the best form factor for light aircraft, kayaks, small boats, long treks, short city walks, or the stage of a massive music event?
Is it Epson "madness" or ZVUE ignorance? I'll let you decide.
I just purchased the P-2000 and just found out about the P-4000! I take photos with my D70s and D2X and would love to get the P-4000!!!! When will it be available to purchase????????
Jan :)
Agreed with SurfTasmania... although the P-2000's capacity is sufficient for my needs today, I am by no means the heaviest shooter around. I generate between 12 to 20 gigabytes of data per wedding. Do a double-header weekend, and that could be the entire P-2000 filled right there.
Then consider I shoot with 8-megapixel cameras. Those with the 12 and 16-megapixel cameras will have 1.5x and 2x the requirements. I also shoot fairly modestly, perhaps 1800 to 2000 images at most during a 16-hour day. Some two-shooter wedding photogs will record 5000+ images per day. Even the P-4000 may soon be insufficient to hold just a single wedding for them.
And don't get me started on multi-day weddings or week-long safaris away from civilization... ;-)
Hey, let's not be hating. The new capacity will be a boon to some - I am heading out on my next international shoot in two months and 3 weeks in northern Ethiopia will easily fill the 80gigs - and as I plan to use it as redundant back-up I can't just dump it to my PowerBook and then empty it again. Some people will not use this capacity - that's cool, you save $300. But those of us for whom this is a real step up are pretty thank ful.
I am looking for the Archos AV500 or similar device, with as much hard drive space as I can get. I won't buy anything with less than 80 Gig, which is a reason for waiting on my AV500 purchase (until the 100 Gig model shows up in one of the major photography or electronics retailers).
I shoot about 500+ photographs when I go on a 1-week vacation. Currently, I have a 5 MP camera, but I intend to buy a Canon 20D (8 MP) before I go on a 2-week vacation to Hawaii. Additionally, I would very much like to be able to record as much video as possible on this trip (the Archos advertises up to 12 hours of video recording from a bullet camera attached to its unit). In the future, I would like to be able to mount cameras to my person and my vehicles and record everything around me, as much as possible. It is far more convenient to do so much recording with a hard drive than with miniDV tapes (which have to be changed every hour or so).
I want a device that I can carry in my pocket, that will record live feed from whatever cameras I plug into it. Playback is a nice feature, but the ability to record huge amounts of data in a pocket-sized device is more important.
I would have liked this revue more if it had compared the Epson P-4000 to the Archos AV500.
The Archos AV500 looks a great device but how do you conveniently get images onto it from a DSLR (like the 20D I have) which does not behave as a mass storage device, it therefore cannot be connected directly to the AV500. An intermediary computer is required. Doesn't this make the Epson P4000 a more useful Photographer's device?
To David,
I read that the Archos AV500 has had a USB host port, you can connect a memory card reader to that port to tranfer images onto the AV500. It is not as convenient as the P4000, but still practical.