Going Tapeless - now what do I do with all these tapes?
 

I think I'm going to take the plunge and get an HF11. The Canon HV20 is great, but I am getting at least 1 dropout per tape in HDV mode. Also add the time lost in capturing...

I've been using the HG10 here at work and I love it. There are limitations to it, no doubt, but for my day-job, I don't need the extra features of the HV20 or the HF11.

Here's the problem though:

I have two HV20 cameras. I want to sell the two of them. That means no more capture deck for the HDV tapes... although, I suppose that if I really did need to recapture the data off of tape, I could simply rent a deck for a weekend... oh.

yeah, that makes much more sense.

I think I just answered my own question.

I like the idea of tapeless however tape is such a cheap storage medium that I can't imagine a better solution. I shoot with two XHA1's and don't get any drop outs, I would be unable to store all that tapeless data securely, with tapes I just toss them in a box rest assured they are safe. I'll go tapeless when 50Gb Blu-Ray discs cost next to nothing.

Brian,

What have you been doing with the capture files when done editing a project? When I got my first external USB drive, I had my "C" drive (250GB) at the time almost 75% full with SD AVI's from all my previous projects so I copied them over to a 320GB external. When I got the first 500GB USB external I moved everything over there along with new stuff.

With the HV20 I only did 2 projects before selling it to move into HF100's but by that time I had a 2nd 500GB USB external and all previous captures in SD, HDV, and now AVCHD are on 2 external drives that get powered up once a week or two.

And I just added a 3rd picked up at a bargain price. So I have access to all my previous original captures without having to go back to the tapes (which I still have).

So if you don't have an external, pick one (or two) up, and until you sell the HV's start doing some back to back captures on the most important projects.

Happy New Year and Good Luck.

P.S. You'll really enjoy working with the HF11. Couple of hints: Fast quad core (2.8Ghz or faster) required. The high bitrate on what that cam will do requires stout computer horsepower!

Also working outdoors you will need a good hood for the LCD. I use the Hoodman with 2x magnifier (B&H Photo Video | Digital Cameras, Camcorders) if I can shield the top surface of the lens from sky reflections, and sometimes the Cinetactics ScreenHoodie 30 (cinetactics Home Page) which is a real sturdy thick ballistic nylon folding hood with velcro. With either hood I push the bottom part out of the way when I need to access the menu buttons. And I position either so the joystick is not covered.

You get used to it.

The HF11 at the highest bitrate will give you better detail with movement than we get with the HV's or the HF10/HF100's. Panning often results in loss of detail/blurring on stuff like grass, building detail, etc. with our slower bitrates; but footage I've seen from the HF11 gets noticeably better in that respect due to the higher bitrate. I think you're making a good choice.

Well, here's the thing.

I'm getting dropouts at least once a tape, even using the professional stuff. I don't know if I'm getting a bad panasonic batch or what. I was considering switching over to the Sony brand, but there's the whole "never switch tapes" thing. And yes, the data isn't on the tape, and yes, I"m doing the rewind-to-add tension thing.

While tape is a great archive medium, I figure if I need an archive, I'll burn to DL-DVD or go from the computer to the tape.

I was also considering a firestore, but they're more expensive than just getting the HG20.

As for what I do with files after editing a project: I've got about 4 TB of Hard drive space here. Everything's duplicated, nothing's thrown away. With the new computer, I can use ESATA and buy new drives to archive each project when I'm done. That may seem expensive, but 500 GB drives are around $60. Pro tape is around $3 each, so I can buy 20 of them for the price of the hard drive. That's 20 hours with tape.

Using AVCHD 24mbps compression, that's 45 hours. Even if I buy two 500GB drives in order to have a backup, I'm still breaking even.

I figure if I buy a bunch of hard drives and make backups, I'm thinking about sending all the tapes back to Panny. I've got about 50 tapes here, and I'll bet you there's drop-frame errors on all of them, recorded on two seperate HV20s.