Field Backup for shooting overseas
 

I will be traveling to rural asia to do some documentary work and need a realistically expensive solution for recording and storing lots of footage from my trip. I have an HVX200, a 16GB P2 Card, and a 100 GB Firestore. Currently I shoot to the P2 Card or the Firestore then backup to HDD. However, I cannot just spend 2-5K on external HDDs so I know I am covered. I will definitely buy and bring some HDDs, such as the G-Raid Mini, but wanted some advice from more experienced users. Exactly how much quality is lost by shooting to tape?

Thanks for the help.

First, you can't shoot HD to tape in the 200, only SD-DV25 signals. DVCPRO/DV50 must also be recorded to P2. There is zero quality difference between tape or P2 (the data-rate is unchanged, you're only changing media type) but you risk dropouts and other tape-related issues when recording only to tape.

It's your choice whether to use tape or go exclusively tape-less. If getting power to your externals is going to be an issue then tape might make the best option.

I shoot tape often on the HVX. It can definitely solve storage problems if you are concerned about that. Are you shooting DV only? Or are you shooting DVCPRO or HD? If you are just shooting DV then I would go with tape. The only issue with that (aside from the drop frame issue-which can be minimized if you pack the tape) is keeping up with the tapes and I'm sure you have a solution for that. But as the post before said, if you want to shoot DCVPRO/50 then you will have to use the P2. I travel shooting all the time and I use the mini-g raid all the time and am very satisfied. They are small and light. I don't think you will have any problems taking a few of those to use. It all depends on the quality of the image you want (DVCPRO or HD vs. DV) and how you want to catalog the footage.

I hope this helps