Am I right in thinking that if you recorded onto say SxS cards, transferred to hard drive then dragged the files straight to XDCam disc you wouldn't lose any quality? ie the data in the files would not go through Mpeg compression, you'd have a 1:1 likeness of the original SxS material but stored to disc?
Steve

You can use the U1 as a data device to store EX files, but they won't play back in any deck.

I thought you are currently limited to the 500MB of general data storage space on Professional Discs in the U1?

There is a firmware update coming in the future that will allow full general data storage on a Professional Disc in the future, but AFAIK, you can't do that currently.

Sorry your right Eugene, the firmware isn't out yet.

by time sony releases firmwares to write all xdcam formats to disk - so you could convert ex3 files to mxf and write it back to a VIDEO professional disk.

The other way is also right: in future you will set a disk to "DATA" and can store up to 50GB of any PC data to disk - but its not a video disk then (not playable in a XDCAM Player).

Regards

uli

I am about to buy a Sony PDW-U1 XDCAM aiming to copy the 32 GB SXS cards onto professional video disc as EX-3 footage storage, so that I could erase SXS card and reuse it again. Can I do that or will this 500MB limit (mentioned above) prevents me from archiving my footage in this manner?

A Sony Rep told me that the update (free access to 23/50GB) will be

EDIT: IS (!) released for HDW-1500 deck (via firewire), later coming (...) for PDW-u1.

Regards

Uli

So, it is nor yet possibel to archive in this manner.
OK. What is the deal with standars consumer Blue Ray disc, can I burn the content (rushes) of my SXS card - after a daily shooting - onto standar Blue Ray disc, using Nero or other burning software?
The thing is that I am about to start a project with tens of hours of rushes, which I have to download to 'something' before erasing my SXS cards for further filming. What would be the best 'something' for that purpose?

I´d recommend to go for any dual harddrive RAID-Enclosures via eSata.
(Buffalo and others).

Its fast, reliable and you get your stuff archived easily.

A 2 x 750GB Raid 1 (= 750GB safe storage) equals roughly 45 hrs of EX1 video (16GB ~ 1hr).

Afterwards, why not burning several BluRay Data Discs for additional backup? But that will take some time...

ULI

Another way is to use Shotput with a pair of USB hard drives. Shotput can be set to make simultaneous verified copies to both drives and then one drive can be kept in the office to work from while the other drive can be kept at a different location as a backup. So even if your office burns down you should still have your valuable material.

I believe I will do exactly that.