You're right. My mistake: I should have said 64gb of media, rather than 32gb. That's the minimum needed to shoot for 4 hours uninterrupted, which as a documentary filmmaker would be essential for me. That makes the EX1 around US$ 10,000.

And yes, I am assuming that the HDV tape will serve as the archive for the Z7's compact flash. As for hard drive storage, I don't consider that to be a long-term archival solution because of the failure rate. So, for the EX1 add a $1,000 (or so) for a good tape backup system or for an XDCAM disk deck.

EX1 Costs
 

Brian,

With the new PHU-60K hard disk recorder $800(www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=174) that will give you over 200 minutes of record time, the card costs will be negated. Add 2 8G cards (Free), EX-1 (wNAB Sony $500 discount:)) $6000, 1TB archive HD - $200, 1TB Backup archive HD - $200, Card Reader - $250, better picture- $priceless! Total Cost = $7450.

Mike Jensen
Jensen Wedding Films
www.jensenvideo.com

At NAB, JVC claimed that SD card cost is reaching the cost of BetaSP tape. Thus, after shooting, you'll file cards just like tapes. I'm not saying this is true, but it sounds interesting. And, considering one is recording HD -- how do cards compare to Sony Blue-laser discs and Pana DVCPRO (HD) tape?

In other words, if you think of SD cards as "pro" HD media -- how does it compare to the costs of other "pro" HD media?

$800 for the hard drive unit? The article you linked to says 750 British Pounds, which is roughly US$1500. At US$25 a gigabyte, that's still a darn site better than the US$55 a gigabyte that SxS media costs. So, figure $7500-8000 for camera plus HD....
O.K., getting closer....

How do I qualify for the NAB discount if I didn't go to NAB? Reading the promo, I thought it said something about getting a discount if I attended a NAB presentation. Did I misread it?

The media situation is complicated. The basic 8GByte SxS included with the unit and the free 8GB rebate allows you to copy one to a laptop hard drive while you use the other. The money could also be put into an HD-SDI capture device such as the upcoming Matrox field converter that will feed 4:2:2 to a an ExpressCard in a MacPro or MacbookPro.

The Ex1 offers video quality way beyond HDV on a Z1. I haven't used a Z7, but the EX1 video is clearly a class above my Z1. Hard drives are offered with a five year warranty, indicating that they last at least that long. Tapes may last 10? years? Although, you're right, the entire tape won't be lost. I agree with your skepticism about hard drive failure, but in recent years, this is exceedingly rare unless you play football with your hard drives. Also, data recovery tools are easy to use provided the disk still spins. In a pinch, you can pay a data recovery specialist to get it back.

Two years ago, I moved my most of my VX2000 and all of Z1/FX1 footage to a hard drives, now single 1 TByte hard drive. It's easy to keep your projects backed up on other hard drives. As larger drives emerge, just keep your old drive as a backup and copy all of your projects to the new, larger drive. This is a major convenience in that you have a flat access time to all of your data. When you do a bit-for-bit copy with your hard drives including a verify, you can be assured that your data matches. Tapes are still subject to dropouts. I haven't had many dropouts, but my biggest dropout was on my first HDV tape. Many tapes aren't filled completely, so you're looking at an average of 10 GBytes / tape. I realize it's hard to shed the tape habit. I'm just learning that.

I worry more about the optical disk recording than magnetic hard drives given my experience with the variability in disc media as well as DVD recorders on the PC. Dual layer recording is nuts on all but a couple of drives, which is noticed on systems with a full verify process. Optical disks don't last that long either.

Z7U Focus Hunting ETc
 

Just Curious

did you perform the backfocus adjustment "Flange Focal Length"

for the C Zeiss lens --- and are you using peaking to help you focus?

When I used the "FFL" adjustment -- the auto focus wasn't as much of an issue

I noticed your tagline on your videography website "You're the focus"
Oh, the irony!