need some advice
Matthew
distributing our comercials to 3 different markets across the state via
shooting on a PD-170 and then mastering to BetaSP (it's still the one format
that every station will take). The owner wants to go ahead and shift the
shooting to HDV so that we can start to archive some footage of some special
events we participate in for next year's promotion. But he's not ready to
upgrade our edit suite or distribution at this time. I'm currently editing
on a system running Premiere 1.5 with a BlackMagic SD card, firewire into
the system and BlackMagic out to a UVW-1800. I'm looking at possibly going
with a Sony PMX-EX1 or maybe EX3 but am I going to run into problems
dropping the footage down to SD for distribution? Especially with Premiere
1.5? Also... do you think it's a mistake to go with a tapeless camera if we
do need to archive a decent amount of footage? I'm just thinking that drives
aren't extremely expensive these days...but I'm still reading up on
workfllow changed when working in a tapeless enviroment.
Spex
I'm not familiar with Premiere 1.5 but if I were moving into the HDV or
XDCAM EX arena then I would upgrade the suite too. Does Premiere 1.5
support XDCAM EX even?
How do you propose to drop down the footage to SD? The SD Blackmagic
card is unlikely to do it again making a case for an HD version that can
cross convert to SD would be a good idea for your workflow.
My own personal take on tapeless acquisition is that it is still in its
infancy so solid state prices are comparatively high so you'd probably
want to capture to a HDD which Sony now have for the EX3. It is an
absolute must that you have a bullet-proof media backup system in place
as early as possible after shooting. This obviously has a cost
implication not only as far as having a backup while in production but
obviously long term too. I am completely signed up to the rapid
turnaround benefits to tapeless shooting but anything longer term I'm
not so sure at this time.
Personally I'm still happy to spend next to nothing for a good quality
DV tape that records an hour of HDV on my Canon XH-A1 that doubles as a
proven reliable archive too.
If money is tight I would have a look at HDV (have a good look at the
Canon range) instead of XDCAM EX. I'd edit in HDV then render out the
completed project to SD, then import back into your system for output to
tape via your existing SD hardware.
When your company has out grown the HDV solution solid state recording
options are going to be so much more affordable. This is exactly where
I am now.
I'd be very surprised whatever you intend to do if your boss didn't have
to put his hands in his pockets to upgrade some software or hardware to
accommodate the new workflow.
Mike Kujbida
I'd suggest reading the thread titled "SONY.... please, please....
PLEASE....." on the Sony Vegas forum at
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=606433
(or http://tinyurl.com/6br3gr if the above link gets wrapped).
It started off talking about HDV issues but quickly became a tape vs.
tapeless thread with a lot of potentially useful information.
Mike
Spex
I just scan read that thread an one thing that popped out was someone
saying HDDs don't fail if little used. Well, last week I had a drive
die on the shelf. It was fine when I used it some months ago but now it
has died, it is an ex-drive. It was an eSATA Enterprise drive from WD
with the lowest failure rate going! Fortunately I haven't lost any data
as it is backed up to LTO, a tape!
In the light of the above I wonder if there is such a thing as a truly
tapeless workflow? Not for me yet.
Canon said around NAB time that they believe 2 years will be the sweet
spot for tapeless acquisition when SD memory prices for an an hour of
shooting are not that much more than tapes were at the beginning of the
DV revolution. Still more expensive than tape at today's prices but
cheap enough to use once and then place on shelf.
Matthew
"Spex" <No....@ta.com> wrote in message
news:JNmdncjJjubc8ArV...@posted.plusnet...
Well don't get me wrong... we do plan to upgrade the suite as well... I just
don't have the budget for both it and the camera at this point. My goal here
was to go ahead and upgrade the camera now and then the suite closer to the
end of the year. That way I could go ahead and start archiving footage this
year and not waste any time.
The Canon XL-H1 was my second choice and fall back camera if tapeless didn't
look like the right choice for my needs... though I hate that I already own
a few Sony related products that I may have to toss.
I need to dig into Premiere 1.5 to see what it's capaple of, but I was
hoping someone in here might just know off the top of their head. When
you're a one man show, sometimes you don't have the luxury of time when it
comes to research. And after an event we were at last Saturday, my boss is
pressuring me to make a purchase as soon as possible.
Matthew
"Mike Kujbida" <kXuXj...@xplornet.com> wrote in message
news:6fpm4eF...@mid.individual.net...
Thank you for the link!
Richard Crowley
> I just scan read that thread an one thing that popped out was someone
> saying HDDs don't fail if little used. Well, last week I had a drive die
> on the shelf. It was fine when I used it some months ago but now it has
> died, it is an ex-drive. It was an eSATA Enterprise drive from WD with
> the lowest failure rate going! Fortunately I haven't lost any data as it
> is backed up to LTO, a tape!
If I may add a "me too". Hard drives are NOT "archival"
storage. They can be convienent to set on the shelf for quick
access to revise a project or re-use some footage, but NEVER
rely on a hard drive as your primary archive or backup for
any kind of data (especially video that didn't come from a
videotape of some kind).
I have a growing stack of dead hard drives to demonstrate
the effect. Perhaps I should post a photo online.
Bill Fright
If you don't mind me asking, how are your hard drives dieing? Are the
internal or external and what system are you using to kill them? I've
had only one fail since 1987.
Just curious,
Bill
Richard Crowley
> If you don't mind me asking, how are your hard drives dieing?
They either fail to spin up (after sitting around for months/years)
or else they spin up, but report that they "aren't formatted" or
some such catastrophic data failure mode.
> Are they internal or external
I've had both fail. I have seen no distinction between internal
and external.
> and what system are you using to kill them?
Not sure what that means? If you mean what operating system,
I'm using MS Windows. But I don't think MSwin is killing the
drives :-)
> I've had only one fail since 1987.
Then you've had remarkably good luck with them. I wish
you continued good fortune.
At least at this point in the game, digital mag tape is the most
reliable commonly used backup/archival medium.
Jack Perry
Several things to consider:
you can upgrade from Premiere Pro 1.5 to PPCS3 for $299 --
You'll get most flavors of DV, HDV and some XDCAM plus
the new version comes with Adobe Encore ---For Blu Ray and regular Sd
DVD Authoring,Encore is a very powerful and versatile program - just
learned it, AND you get: Adobe On Location -- a nice Field Monitoring
and Straight to Hard Drive Recording program
as an experiment using an old sony VX2000 as a video pass-through
monitoring device I was able to load and scale HDV footage into to my DV
project from my Sony Z7U in real-Time using the cheapest Q6400 Quad Core
Processor editing System in PPCS3. Very Steller performance for $299 and
that's where you should start IMHO
Prem Pro 1.5 is good but very outdated for new formats
The EX1 is an awesome camera, I have one of those too. You can backup
all your files very quickly onto Dual Layer DVD's -- (Verbatum Brand -
$1 or so apiece) If Critical, make 2 copies. Use Hard Drives for Working
backups
They DO FAIL sitting on the shelf --I've had several go down like that.
Shoot in HDV Mode DownConvert to DV in PPCS3
or save a Grand and Get the Sony Z7U --- Shoot and Archive on Tape
--Simultaneously record to Flash Media
The Z7 is also Phenomenal Camera --Just shot a bunch of stuff for E
Networks and REUTERS with mine and the picture quality blows away stuff
I used to shoot on my trusty Betacam rig
--JP
Matthew
"Jack Perry" <vidp...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:489921ef$0$29515$607e...@cv.net...
budget and the extra $300 to upgrade the software puts me over that amount.
I will make the purchase soon... but just not right away... maybe in a
couple of months. With the way the economy is my area we are pinching every
penny at this point.
I looked at the Sony Z7U and I liked what I saw but I can get a Canon
XL-H1a for about $500 cheaper... so that's the route I may end up going...
who knows.. maybe I can talk the powers that be into the extra $300 for the
upgrade too...
Thanks again!
Bill Fright
Thanks for the reply Richard. I used to only archive on tape but work
flow and redigitising forced me to rethink. What I do now is digitize
and edit with my raid system and dump all data to a pair of archival
external hard drives. I have about 30 of them now. All archives have
backups. Doing this is still cheaper than a reel of 1" tape when you
consider raw footage, master edit, graphic parts and edl.
Of course if everything goes bad I still have the master camera tape and
can start all over again.
Your history of dead drives has me stumped! I think you've mentioned
here that you live in the northwest. Your office isn't on a yacht with
lots of salt sprayed air is it? hehehe
best,
bill
ushere
i agree with richard, you're remarkably luck. i use a variety of ex
hd's, and have had failures with them not spinning, up, reporting
unformatted etc., this is with most brand named ones as well...
leslie
Bill Fright
I'm not trying to make this a Mac/PC war or anything but I wonder if
that has something to do with it. I've always been Mac/Amiga and only
recently bought a PC for one specific purpose.
Were your drives dieing with a PC Leslie?
bill
ushere
they were dying on everything. mostly stuff transferred from pc, but a
couple from mac, and playing back to macs and pc's, but i don't think the
os plays much part in their deaths. i now believe in the old adage, use
it or lose it. spin up my few remaining drives every couple of months.
so far, so good.
leslie
Richard Crowley
> I'm not trying to make this a Mac/PC war or anything but I wonder if that
> has something to do with it. I've always been Mac/Amiga and only recently
> bought a PC for one specific purpose.
I think it is easy to dismiss that as an issue. I can't conceive of
any possibility that it is related to the brand of computer. The
interface is standardized across all hard drives and across all
computers so that they are interchangeable. And there is little
question that a drive bolted into a computer sitting there for
years is less likely to go bad than one in an external case, or
(as I use them) just a raw drive with no case at all.
It likely has more to do with the handling of the drives.
I am willing to concede that I don't treat the drives with "kid
gloves" as I consider them disposable (and non-archival).
But that being said, there are some that have held up for
many years, and others that seemed to die prematurely.
Of course some brands (such as the IBM "death star"
series) were notorious. IBM finally sold off their hard
drive business to Hitachi who seem to be doing better at
making drives with some reasonable life expectancy.
Mike Kujbida
Since I started using computers for video work (an Amiga, back in the
late '80s), I've only lost one drive and it was an IBM "death star".
However, a friend who runs a local post house has a pile (10, as I
recall) of dead drives, all of which are Maxtor.
Mike
Richard Crowley
> Since I started using computers for video work (an Amiga, back in the late
> '80s), I've only lost one drive and it was an IBM "death star".
> However, a friend who runs a local post house has a pile (10, as I recall)
> of dead drives, all of which are Maxtor.
I'm willing to live with a life expectancy of a few years. But I
reiterate that hard drives are NOT an "archival" media.
None of the planet's valuable data is archived on hard drives.
It is virtually all saved on digital mag tape (of various formats.)
Mike Kujbida
The biggest problem is that most of us (speaking as a consumer here)
can't afford the cost of mag tape drives :-(
Mike
Richard Crowley
The low-cost (but high-hassle) alternative is to use DVDR discs,
but re-copy them every 2-3 years. Field-burnable discs are NOT
"archival" either, IMHO, but they are good for at least 2-3 years
if you use good discs (Taiyo-Yuden) and burn them as slow as
possible (for good contrast).
Mike Kujbida
Sorry Richard but I still trust hard drives a LOT more than I do any
blank media - and I use Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden exclusively, both at
home and work.
Spex
You could be right on the use it lose it.
I've lost drives from all my computing eras from Amiga to DEC Alpha to
PC and now latterly on a Mac. I lost a load of drives to heat when I
built a PC and filled it with drives in every available drive bay. But
this last occasion the drive was sat in a 2 drive enclosure with
excellent cooling. Heat was not the reason for this last failure.
The real problem is the hard drive manufacturers are in a battle to
increase the storage rather than improve reliability. It's just not
sexy for marketing and it is not in their interest to build bullet proof
drives.
Incidentally has anyone ever had a SMART warning prior to failure? I
haven't once been notified that a drive is unhealthy via SMART. Just
here today gone tomorrow type failures.
Spex
Drobo looks interesting especially now it has FW800.
I am going to have a look at it for home purposes. I can't and won't do
without the Quantum in the office.
Spex
And film.
Arny Krueger
news:A5qdnYsm2O_VcQfV...@posted.pcez
> "Mike Kujbida" wrote ...
>> Since I started using computers for video work (an
>> Amiga, back in the late '80s), I've only lost one drive
>> and it was an IBM "death star".
I've built many a machine with IBM and then Hitachi drives. They fail at an
approximately competitive rate.
>> However, a friend who runs a local post house has a pile
>> (10, as I recall) of dead drives, all of which are
>> Maxtor.
Entirely believable, and not just true of Maxtor drives.
> I'm willing to live with a life expectancy of a few
> years. But I reiterate that hard drives are NOT an
> "archival" media.
Agreed. Hard drives are well known for their ability to go sour while being
stored under ideal conditions.
nobody special
the latest version of Premiere so he can edit HDV properly, shelve his
HDV tapes as cheap self-standing archives, and burn archival master
copies to BluRay when he can afford a burner. Down-converting to SD
betacam aopies from an HDV master should look very nice, and, if the
betacam tapes are 4:3 aspect, well, mastering in HD in the NLE system
gives you the chance to add pans, zooms, and re-frames in post without
degrading the quality of the SD output. For a camera, JVC makes a nice
one, and I also like the Panasonic HVX200, which can shoot DV or HDV
to tape. My preference is a "belt and suspenders" system, shooting to
tape as well as to an external firestore hard drive, if quick turn-
around of the project has to be combined with high volume of footage.
Card- type storage a la P2 and others is great for qucickie, short-
duration news work and small commercials, but anything that needs
longer runs, I find the card thing ti be too awkward a workflow. Also,
too expensive to allow you to put the cards themselves on a shelf, so
you are under constant pressure to unload and recycle the cards. But
to what??? Right now, I would say to Data DVD-R and BluRay would be
the best and safest thing, hard drives would be a second choice, and
I would want them in striped RAID arrays with redundancy.
Richard Crowley
> Sorry Richard but I still trust hard drives a LOT more than I do any blank
> media - and I use Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden exclusively, both at home and
> work.
No apology, explanation, or excuse is necessary. If it works for you,
then I wish you continued good fortune.
Richard Crowley
> Incidentally has anyone ever had a SMART warning prior to failure? I
> haven't once been notified that a drive is unhealthy via SMART. Just here
> today gone tomorrow type failures.
Never.
Richard Crowley
But the preservation folks in Hollywood are decrying the many
irreplaceable films they lose every year because they can't keep
up with the decay.
Spex
I think that has to do with the volatility of those early stocks. Today
stocks are stable and can be stored for tens of decades if not
substantially longer. The beauty is they only require a very simple
mechanism, the projector, to be seen again.
In the highly likely event of global Armageddon where all our HDDs have
been fried by the EMP we might be glad of a little light relief of
watching films by candle light during our long cold nuclear winter.
Martin Heffels
wrote:
>The low-cost (but high-hassle) alternative is to use DVDR discs,
>but re-copy them every 2-3 years. Field-burnable discs are NOT
>"archival" either, IMHO, but they are good for at least 2-3 years
>if you use good discs (Taiyo-Yuden) and burn them as slow as
>possible (for good contrast).
Maybe this is the ticket for you
http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/archival-blue-ray-delkin.html
Only $250 for a ten-pack :-)
cheers
-martin-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk
Martin Heffels
wrote:
>But the preservation folks in Hollywood are decrying the many
>irreplaceable films they lose every year because they can't keep
>up with the decay.
The current films use a better base, which lasts much longer. The old base
decays very quickly and is very flammable.
-m-