Time to hoard mini-DV tapes?

Jim Andrada · April 17th, 2011, 08:11 PM

A year or so ago I read a good article about the Harvard University library's digitization and archiving program. They keep three copies of the digital archive in three separate centers. and they continually scan all the files in the background checking for errors - which they find frequently! They correct the errors by looking at the other two copies of the file. The key here is that if the data weren't online, they wouldn't notice an error until possibly too late. Just writing data to disk and storing it on a shelf, in my humble opinion, is a recipe for disaster. It isn't a matter of WHETHER the data will become corrupted, just a matter of WHEN. And if you don't know it's gone, there isn't much you can do to fix it.

This stuff requires a lot of planning and effort.

Brian Drysdale · May 4th, 2011, 01:49 AM

I was speaking to another camera guy the other week and he was coming across producers who thought tapeless meant that they didn't need to spend money on tape. They were rather shocked about having to buy hard drives to store material, the cost of which would probably be more than the cost of the HDV tapes.

Jim Andrada · May 4th, 2011, 10:11 AM

Thanks Brian! Great story.

Of course tapeless doesn't mean free! You have to buy the memory cards and THEN pay for HDD to keep the stuff on so you can re-use the cards. And SOMEBODY or SOMETHING has to expend the time and effort ($$$) to manage the archive process. About the only gain is capture/ingest time (which can be a big deal - after all aren't we all impatient to get the footage up in our NLE???)

Erik Norgaard · May 4th, 2011, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

Of course tapeless doesn't mean free! You have to buy the memory cards and THEN pay for HDD to keep the stuff on so you can re-use the cards. And SOMEBODY or SOMETHING has to expend the time and effort ($$$) to manage the archive process. About the only gain is capture/ingest time (which can be a big deal - after all aren't we all impatient to get the footage up in our NLE???)

Doesn't mean free but does mean cheaper. First, mini-DV tapes as a storage medium is more expensive per GB than common harddisk drives.

You save time, and that can be worth a lot too: Not only is it faster to transfer data it is also possible to select only part of the data you actually want to keep. So you become more productive.

And, so you thought that using mini-DV as archive is safe and doesn't need any maintenance? Think again. You need to manage your archive on mini-DV as well, verify data integrity, tapes deteriorate too.

BR, Erik

Jim Andrada · May 4th, 2011, 09:13 PM

Well, everything deteriorates with time - including us.

The comment about "free" was a direct reaction to Brian's post about producers who did indeed seem to believe that tapeless equated to free.

Brian Drysdale · May 5th, 2011, 11:44 AM

Storage costs can also depend on the number of hard drive copies you keep and cost of the hard drives which you consider to be of acceptable quality.

Download time can be an issue if you're just the DP and you're working 12-14 hour days, then tape makes life a lot easier.

Cost savings come on cameras because you no longer need expensive VTRs to record the data.

April 17th, 2011, 08:11 PM	#31
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Re: Time to hoard mini-DV tapes? A year or so ago I read a good article about the Harvard University library's digitization and archiving program. They keep three copies of the digital archive in three separate centers. and they continually scan all the files in the background checking for errors - which they find frequently! They correct the errors by looking at the other two copies of the file. The key here is that if the data weren't online, they wouldn't notice an error until possibly too late. Just writing data to disk and storing it on a shelf, in my humble opinion, is a recipe for disaster. It isn't a matter of WHETHER the data will become corrupted, just a matter of WHEN. And if you don't know it's gone, there isn't much you can do to fix it. This stuff requires a lot of planning and effort.

May 4th, 2011, 01:49 AM	#32
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,143	Re: Time to hoard mini-DV tapes? I was speaking to another camera guy the other week and he was coming across producers who thought tapeless meant that they didn't need to spend money on tape. They were rather shocked about having to buy hard drives to store material, the cost of which would probably be more than the cost of the HDV tapes.

May 4th, 2011, 10:11 AM	#33
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Re: Time to hoard mini-DV tapes? Thanks Brian! Great story. Of course tapeless doesn't mean free! You have to buy the memory cards and THEN pay for HDD to keep the stuff on so you can re-use the cards. And SOMEBODY or SOMETHING has to expend the time and effort ($$$) to manage the archive process. About the only gain is capture/ingest time (which can be a big deal - after all aren't we all impatient to get the footage up in our NLE???)

May 4th, 2011, 09:13 PM	#35
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Re: Time to hoard mini-DV tapes? Well, everything deteriorates with time - including us. The comment about "free" was a direct reaction to Brian's post about producers who did indeed seem to believe that tapeless equated to free.

May 5th, 2011, 11:44 AM	#36
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,143	Re: Time to hoard mini-DV tapes? Storage costs can also depend on the number of hard drive copies you keep and cost of the hard drives which you consider to be of acceptable quality. Download time can be an issue if you're just the DP and you're working 12-14 hour days, then tape makes life a lot easier. Cost savings come on cameras because you no longer need expensive VTRs to record the data.