EX, FCP and storage space.
 

I haven't worked tapeless yet and have a few questions about the EX workflow. I have a MacPro running FCP and a Huge 1.6TB drive. I want to know how much footage my Huge drive will hold. What I don't understand about the workflow yet is:
Are you importing the files from the camera directly to the drives?
Or are you running it through the XDCam software and the FCP ingest and creating new files?
I'm just curious how much I'll fit on my drives and how much need I'll have for archiving. I'm also trying to figure out how you would import and archive the 1920x1080 footage.

All thought appreciated. Thanks.

XDCAM HD files are about 1/3 larger than DV. DV 25mbps, HDV 25mbps, XDCAM 35mbps. If you go to ProResHD422 it's 140mbps I believe.

Sony will be distributing a Viewer and they'll be a plugin for FCP also. I'm not sure if it'll work through Log and Capture or whether it'll be an import utility.

Archive, there are a few ideas floating around. By NAB Sony will have an XDCAM burner (USB to computer) that'll be about $2500 street and will take XDCAM 25 and 50GB discs. Actually the device will be out as a player only soon but will become a burner with an update around NAB. Question is will it only record 1440x1080 or will it handle the EX1's 1920x1080?

There's Blu-Ray. Burners are around $600 last I checked.
Dual layer DVD at about 8GB a disc. That may be "just right" if you're using 8GB cards.

It also depends on what you mean by "archive." I expect XDCAM disc would be better than DL-DVD or Blu-Ray but even those discs, with good media, should last a few healthy years.