Camcorders Finally Find Hard Drives
 

From the New York Times by David Pogue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/te...82b8b8d7525c0d

About the JVC Everio GZ-MC100 and GZ-MC200.

They're tapeless; recording 1 hour of Mpeg2 on a removeable 4-gig MicroDrive

Very interesting, a sign of things to come? It's about time!

It's a two-page article -- be sure to check out both pages. There are some real limitations with these little camcorders but it's still a very interesting development in my opinion. They're each just over $1,000 with the MicroDrives going for about $200.

Those do look interesting, but seems like they need some refinement. However I see 2GB compact flash cards falling in price near the $100 level, and 4 GB cards for under $300. If history repeats itself then it won't be long before the 4GB cards are under $200, so who would want a 4GB microdrive? :-)

that is really a pitty.
4 gig micro drive ?
When any laptop or mp3 player has now a 2.5" 40gig drive ?
the space needed by a tape transport in a camera would take very easily such a drive.

I think they were going for the smallest practical size possible on that one. And perhaps they definitely had to have removeable media. That might explain it...

Isn't there a new micro-mini version of Secure Digital media now? Once prices come down on 4GB media in that format, we may see further... eh, shrinkage of the camera.

I think tape is a great value when you consider how much information it holds and how much they cost. I think it will be a while before that kind of camera is worth it to me. Give me a DV camera with large removable hard drive. I wish I could use DV tapes with my digital SLR. You could store like 13gb on a tape. Of course you'd have to capture your photos which might suck.

DV Rack seems to be a great alternative to tape right now if you've got a big hard drive on your laptop.

Yet another pirating tool for the movie studios to worry about in theaters. It will be on the internet that much faster and cleaner.

those little jvc cameras apparently record mpeg2 at 8.5Mbps, which is xlnt... and it's hard to appreciate tapeless media until you have worked with it.

the panasonic av-100 records to sd media at 6Mbps, but you can plug the sd card right into your laptop... and prices on those cards are dropping fast... it's also slightly smaller, and you'll never have to worry about crashing the hard drive.

Can the mpeg2 footage they record be converted into another format for NLE use w/o loss in quality?

That's the real issue for me!

(can the camera's ".mod" files be renamed to mpg2 and readable on a Mac?)

Well, I dunno. Digital alternatives to tape are the future, but I'm not sure as to what will be ideal. Obviously, the first cameras to use this technology will be those little consumer cameras that are about the size of credit cards. My only issue is to what will happen with us, the big pro video group. Look, HDV is the new DV, all the features we want will eventually drip down (like 24p or full on progressive CCD's), but it brings up problems. HDV is 25mbps, right? Plus there's the chance that the HDV spec will be bumped up to 50mbps. Plus, HDV takes up a lot more space than DV. So the current media is going to have to get a lot faster (50mbps vs. 8.5mbps) and be able to hold a lot more (perhaps 10gb?).

I'm not too sure, I'm just rambling and making guesses. If I'm wrong, correct me, or rather, inform me on this subject a little more.

it would be nice to have the cameras record in a format that can be DIRECTLY used by the NLEs without re-encoding (and re-compressing as a result).

Tape is a very good format that last a long time, stores itself, and doesn't die easily. Any move to a non-permanent storage format (like memory cards, hard disks, and the like) will also require real serious looks at backup and storage. The expense of going down that road makes these things currently less interesting.

Alex

both hdv and dv use the same 25 mbps bandwidth, so they take up the same amount of disk space... but decoding the hdv mpeg2 for playback is a lot more cpu-intensive than decoding dv footage.

there are numerous editors on the market right now that will work with dvd-bandwidth native mpeg2(under 10mbps) without re-encoding, but your typical editors will want to re-encode the entire mpeg2 timeline.

what i have done with the av100 is put it in race cars, then plug the footage into a dvd... unfortunately it's only 704x480 instead of the full 720x480, so most dvd authoring programs won't handle both sizes on the same disc, even tho both of those frame sizes are fully dvd legal... dvdlab pro will take 'em both, tho.

i resized with 2-pass procoder, and it looked pretty good, but what i'd really like is that mpeg2 plugin that premeire has... it's supposed to resize mpeg2 with no loss in picture quality.

one of the simple mpeg2 editors i've used is womble, but it's main claim to fame is that it'll only re-encode the transitions... i think that canopus has a full-on native mpeg2 editor that won't re-encode all of the footage??

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex B Henderson : it would be nice to have the cameras record in a format that can be DIRECTLY used by the NLEs without re-encoding (and re-compressing as a result).

Tape is a very good format that last a long time, stores itself, and doesn't die easily. Any move to a non-permanent storage format (like memory cards, hard disks, and the like) will also require real serious looks at backup and storage. The expense of going down that road makes these things currently less interesting.

Alex -->>>

I agree. With memory cards and hard disks, I would always make a tape backup of my footage anyway, making the novelty sort of worthless.

I think an optical disk technology would work best. Maybe an HDVD disk that could hold about 120GB and record on the fly. That storage format would probably be even more durable than tape, easier to backup, and easier to load. Recording could be an issue, it wouldn't exactly be rugged.

Of course, that's probably at least a decade away... :-(

Tape has better archival qualities than writable optical discs. Tape remains the prefered archival medium in the information technology world.

The thing that makes video tape such a pain is that capturing the tape to an editing station is a real-time process (one hour of video takes one hour of capturing). The lure of disk is that data can be copied at computer speeds.

The ultimate pro solution is hard disks at the camera, transfer to hard disks at the editing station, and archive to IT quality backup tape. The most contemporary tape drives are very fast, so recovery of footage from archive will be much faster than recovery of footage from the original video tape. These kinds of tapes and tape drives are rather expensive, so this isn't something for the everyday consumer, at least not yet.

Last year I had occasion to look at some tapes recorded with my original Sony Video 8 camera. Those tapes are fine. I also looked at some older manufactured CDs (i.e., stamped, not burned) that were younger than those old video tapes. A few of the CDs had started to deteriorate and could not be read.

It was the first time I came face-to-face with the mortality of CDs and it did not make me feel good about my large DVD collection. It is the dirty little secret of optical media.

Actually that's backwards. Tape is a poor archival medium if you're talking about 10+ years. It's magnetic media which means it's still susceptible to strong magnetic fields. Optical media is not as susceptible but it is more expensive.


I think Hard Drives are indeed the future and that the Japanese companies will do everything in their power to promote Flash Memory(panasonic) or optical blue laser(sony)

Hopefully some enterprising company will realize that hard drives offer far too much bang for the buck. They are reusable and can be replaced indefinitely. We'll see what happens. I don't have my hopes up for the large companies but maybe someone smaller will make that defining product.

The world's data is archived on magnetic media. There is a lot of magnetic media that is more than 10 years old, much more.

Hard disk is magnetic as well. While magnetic force is a threat to any magnetic media, manufacturers and users have learned to deal with it. Average IT facilities take no more than mild precautions. The more critical the data, the more the storage facility is hardened.

About a year ago I transferred all of the data I had on 600 diskettes to CD-R discs. Some of the diskettes were 20 years old. I lost approximately 0.5% of the data due to media failure. Based upon my research, my CD-Rs will fail sooner. I have therefore planned a renewal four years hence in which I will copy the CD-Rs to new media.

Will

<<<-- Originally posted by Will Fastie : Tape has better archival qualities than writable optical discs. Tape remains the prefered archival medium in the information technology world.

.....

Last year I had occasion to look at some tapes recorded with my original Sony Video 8 camera. Those tapes are fine. I also looked at some older manufactured CDs (i.e., stamped, not burned) that were younger than those old video tapes. A few of the CDs had started to deteriorate and could not be read.

It was the first time I came face-to-face with the mortality of CDs and it did not make me feel good about my large DVD collection. It is the dirty little secret of optical media. -->>>


I don't think it is fair to compare your camera tapes with your audio CD. You probably stored your tapes carefully without using them often whereas I believe you listened your audio CD a number of times.

My own 15 years old CD are fine unless there are scratches (accidents happen). My VHS tapes quickly lost colors or were unreadable after a few years. So I was really happy when the DVD arrived.

I don't think CD and DVD are the best support ever but I really don't like tapes. Maybe I am paranoid, I always make a backup on an external hard drive and on DVD.


Benjamin.

Benjamin:

You make a good point about using audio CDs frequently.

In my case, however, these were data CDs intended for archival storage and used very infrequently. In storage, they delaminated. I surely don't have hardened storage. My video tapes and data CDs are stored in the same area of my house, so they are subjected to the same environment.

Will

Yeah..... but floppy disks are still worse! >.<

I'm amazed that no one has mentioned the FIRESTORE and like devices.

I work in the NOW and the NEAR FUTURE...


We need to make $ now and plan to make $ tomorrow

forget about yestarday....

What do you guys think of the FIRESTORE?

Hard disk is the future, no question, especially for pros. Fujitsu just jumped into the small form factor hard drive fray with plans for a 2-1/2" 120GB drive, which is enough to hold 10 hours of AVI, less for HD of course.

That still does not address the issue of archive.

Brent, the reason we haven't mentioned FireStore (and I am a big fan of that concept) is because this thread is about built-in drives, not external (for those not aware, FireStore is an external add-on, see our dedicated FireStore forum for more info). While there have been a handful of higher-end, very expensive video cameras with built-in drives, what I'm really curious about are the more affordable prosumer cameras and consumer camcorders finally getting built-in drives. JVC is at least taking steps in the right direction.

Please direct all FireStore discussion to our dedicated FireStore forum. Thanks,

Chris...So true... thanks

I can't wait for built in hard-drives....


In the meantime I think firestore is a fantastic option...

Because U are getting tape and digital simaltaneously...

One for archive, one for quick editing....


The problem is the price of these units... and the batt time.
I can deal with the battery time on the firestore's
Just not the price:)

I will go to the firestore thread now!

Thanks

Not only is JVC going microdrive for it's size, but they are less prone to bad-writes due to vibration or other physical hiccups caused by the user (running while recording, in-car, etc. than the 2.5" laptop counterparts.

I still wait for the day of high capacity solid state drives. No moving parts are what we DV folk really need.

As for CD/DVD media, I archive to Taijo Yuden discs, but keep any absolutely important stuff on tape (in addition to the CD media). I am now considering investing in 1 or 2 high capacity hard disks with an enclosure strictly for archiving, and stored in a safe dry place (a fireproof safe perhaps?).