How are you guys archiving your EX-1 master edits.
With SD, I just made a firewire copy back onto DV tape. What's the solution now?
BluRay? Hard drives? Thanks. |
BluRay for me. Working nicely. I bought a portable BluRay drive so I could take it in the field with me when necessary.
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Hard drive for me. I save the Avid intermediates and non-destructive edit files. Each of my customers own their own hard drive storage media.
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Each of my customers own their own hard drive storage media. Dump in field.
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I'm just a guy who likes to make videos, not doing this for money or anything.. I keep it all on my computer. Will be buying a backup drive a little later as I have more than half filled this 650gb drive already..LOL It's all hooked to my TV so I just watch them from my computer, although I will be going Blu Ray probably by the end of 09.
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I do weddings, and thinking about archiving, not so much archiving in the field. Maybe I'll check out the wedding threads, unless anyone else has other suggestions. I may do the bluray path.
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Backing up masters to DL-DVD but I don't doubt Blu-ray is on my horizon.
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I use a Windows Home Server, connected through Gigabit Ethernet. With the WHS I specify that the folder that contains these video files should be stored redundantly. The WHS makes sure that all of the files are then stored on at least 2 hard drives. If a drive fails, I haven't lost any files.
So, I put all my eggs in one basket, but I make sure it's a really reliable basket. The WHS can be expanded to many terabytes. It also backs up all of your Windows PCs very nicely, and it makes shared files available to all of your PCs. I totally recommend it. I have a Blu-ray burner also, and I can back up to BD-Rs, at about $7 each for 25 GB disc (when you buy a 25 pack). Note that Blu-ray includes a great feature - defect management. When you burn a BD disc the drive will read after writing, and it will relocate any bad sectors to a "spare area". So when you are done writing you will know that you have a good disc. |
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How would you break up a 2hr 30min program on DL-DVD? Break up my FCP timeline into 8gb segments, export a few QT movies, spread across a few discs? |
Along with a hard drive backup I also record a HDV tape. I know people think I am nuts right now but I hope to never have to use it. It is still HD however even if it does get reduced to 25 mbits and 1440x1080. At the end of the day it is still HD and if I am in a major crunch I still have some form of a HD master to go back to if I really need to. Eventually I will use Blu-ray once the discs get cheap enough. If you shoot in the 25 mbit mode anyway then there is no reason not to backup to HDV tape. It can be much cheaper then blu-ray and you know for sure it will last for many years.
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Writing out a full sized mp4 file and saving onto DVD-DL would be cheaper and higher quality. And you can avoid the pain of having to do real-time data transfers...
In fact, you can easily fit two hours of high quality mpt4 onto an 8gb SDHC card for $20. Or an hour of nearly BluRay spec footage. I'd take that option over tape any time. I don't EVER want to go back to tape. EVER. -P Quote:
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1) We capture all our footage onto a Ciprico 5-drive RAID striped as RAID 5. With this setup, if one of the drives was to go bad, we can replace it without loosing data. In fact the RAID will run with only 4 drives in it (no loss of data) but will temporarily be operating in RAID 0.
2) We use Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) to automatically backup all the data from our RAID to a Western Digital My Book drive. That way if something was go wrong with the Ciprico RAID, we'd have a backup. 3) When the Ciprico fills up and we need to move data off of it and "archive" it, we use Retrospect (now owned by Dantz) Backup to library it. This is a slick system that I'm surprised more people don't use. For example, if 5 years later you need to find a logo or something associated with a project, you can perform a Search for the file and Retrospect Backup will search through all the archives you've performed over the years and tell you which drive or disc you have saved it to. It's a HUGE time saver when you want to restore data from the archives. I've always thought one of the video magazines should do an article on redundant backups AND archiving. They always seem to leave out the archiving part, and it's important. I guess the other alternative for our step #3 is to just keep buying more hard drives. But in our case, they are expensive and we can't afford to keep adding $3500 RAIDs when ever they fill up. :) |
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My situation is like yours which is why I write to DL bluray. Oh, and an mp4 file is mpeg4. aka Mpeg4 par t10, aka h.264, aka AVCHD. |
Okay, you've piqued my curiosity: I've been keeping an eye out for dual-layer BD-R discs, where do you buy yours? And how much do they cost?
For me, BD-Rs are still too expensive for the amount of material I go through: DVD5: USD$0.09 / GB LTO3: USD$0.12 / GB DVD9: USD$0.28 / GB (IMHO not suitable for long-term archival) BD-R: USD$0.43 / GB FWIW, I'm still archiving to Taiyo Yuden DVD5 discs using Toast's disc spanning. Also, few if any of my clients have a bluray drive yet. |
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Also would you mind including the price per hour of the other current HD archival media? Probably should include Sony Professional Disk, HDCam 64 tapes, HDCamSR 64 tapes, And whatever Panasonic writes to for Archival purposes.. Frankly, I looked at the costs to save 1hr of HD video on BluRay, 2 hours on BD-DL, and an hour and 2 hour on HDCam/HDCamSR tapes, it was no contest. LTO might work, but I sure as heck am not going to want to retrieve my video files from an LTO tape drive in 4 years. Sticking a disk in the computer and copying my masters back to my editing machine is a MUCH more friendly method. |
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But you didn't answer my question about dual-layer bluray discs. |
I don't know where the disks come from or what we pay. I send an order to my purchasing dept., and disks show up 4 days later.
Cheapest I just found online was an Imation BD-DL for 27.17. So $0.54 per GB. The had 15 single sided for $83. Or $0.22 per GB. I wonder how cheap the blanks will have to get before people consider them viable. Out of curiosity, how do you write long form HD projects to DVD5? |
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I use a rather nifty feature of Roxio Toast that will split large files across multiple discs. At first, I didn't consider it a valid approach, but at some point I discovered that it doesn't write them in any proprietary way. It simply creates two (or more) chunks that I can concatenate back to make the original files. On each disc, it places a small Mac app and another Windows app that can handle the task for you. But in some number of years, if those apps aren't viable, I can just "cat" the chunks together. I have tested the process by comparing MD5 signatures of the original files against the recreated files. (for archive, I place a small text file in with the others which contains the MD5 signatures of each file so I can have some way of validating any future restores) I agree that I'm using more time than I would if I used BD-Rs, but for now it's a cost thing. When BD-R prices come down, I'll switch over. You wanted a cost threshold? For me that would likely be when the blank SL discs get to be around $6 or $7. Lastly, these discs are for off-site storage. For on-site, I use a SATA dock with bare 1TB disk drives. Those come out to be about USD$0.10 / GB. So my total cost per GB is $0.19 instead of $0.53 (BD-R off-site + SATA on-site). And some people think that with tapeless, your media costs go to zero! |
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The issue with this stuff seeming expensive invariably comes from former miniDV or HDV shooters, and not people who've worked with film or HD for some time. HDCam tapes (64 minutes) are about $49.99 HDCamSR 64 (if you 1920x1080) are about $103 DVCPro 64 $41 Even in the SD world, Digibeta 64 minute tapes are about $25 each. So to me, BluRay's $7-15 or so an hour is a terrific bargain. As for media being free, well try showing up for a 3 day conference with 6 shooting hours per day with digibeta or hdcam, and compare SxS costs. It's not free, but it's WORLDS cheaper. |
Before I bought the EX1 I read a lot of reviews. Many of the reviewers apologized for Sony's price gouging on the SxS cards by reasoning that you only have to mortgage your house once,
and then you could keep reusing all the SxS cards you bought for normal shooting. Sony was bold enough to include labels with the cards, the assumption being that you would not reuse them, but rather archive footage on them, go to the bank to take out a bridge loan, and go out and buy some more. So now we have with firmware 1.11, an unexpected consequence for Sony in that cheaper SDHC cards will work with the cameras when combined with certain card readers. Which brings us to this thread. When some of you say that this process is cheaper than tape, what are you basing that on? Are you including the cost of archiving? At between $3 and $7 for MiniDV tape, the total media cost was done when you shot it. The aquisition media was the archived media. Done! No matter which way you slice it, EX footage is going to cost more than tape for you to archive. John |
I disagree John.
If you go back to page 1 of this thread, you'll see how we archive to hard drives using Retrospect Backup. This is a very quick process, but more importantly it's quicker to restore footage than restoring it from tape. For example: For the last 7 years, we have shot on DV tape. We "Batch Digitize" using FCP. When the project is finished we archive it to firewire external hard drives. When we need to find a shot from a project we produced 5 years ago, we simply type the name of the project (or file name) into the Search field in Retrospect Backup, and it tells us to connect which ever hard drive it's saved on. About 2 minutes later (maybe less), we have the shot. Better yet, about 10 minutes later we could have the entire project restored if necessary. What I've noticed using this method for the last 7 years is that once we capture our footage to hard drive, we NEVER use the tapes again. True, we still store them alphabetically on shelves in case we ever need them, but the truth is, we haven't ever needed them. Maybe we're lucky and some day we'll find an error with our archive system, but for 7-years now, it's been working great. The short answer is, I believe we save time by not using tape. I can access footage off a hard drive MUCH faster (10 times faster?) than off of tape. EDIT: BTW, we bought the EX3 because of the increase in the quality of our video. Because it's not tape based we can overcrank and undercrank our footage for some really cool effects. That's why we bought it. Not because it's memory card based. |
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I'll outline my two most common shooting scenarios. The first is the 3-hour conference shoot, and the second is the multi-day. miniDV workflow: 1. Approach conference leader and explain that my camera can only record 1hr at a time and tell him he will be prompted with 5 minutes and then 1 minute from time. 2. Load tape and shoot first hour. 3. Pause room full of people to make tape switch (repeat twice). 4. Take tapes back to edit bay, and transfer them real time. (3 hours) 5. Put tapes onto shelf. 6. Edit in NLE and produce master. 7. Write master out to 4hr Master DV tape ($18) 8. Cut CD-R with project EDL, Assets, etc. For multi-day this process is repeated except that I now have 4-6 miniDV tapes per day, I have gaps where I changed tapes because I couldn't stop a conference to change tapes, and I need 2 $18 master tapes per day's footage. If we are taking labor into account, I have at least 2-3 days of work just getting the tapes ingested in real time to the editing suite. Eventually, I begged for a Firestore, not so much for the increased speed, but just so I wouldn't have to stop the conferences or have gaps in the footage. Going to tapeless flash media has saved me time, money, and added a HUGE amount of convenience. On a single day's footage I had 3-6 miniDV tapes and 1-2 master DV tapes invested. Re-usable SDHC with BluRay mastering has saved me money already. Quote:
As I have abundantly illustrated, there is absolutely NO WAY you can TOUCH EX1 recording costs when you compare any other method of recording 1920x1080 playable footage off an archive media. None. it's as cheap as it gets. |
+1 for everything Perrone said. His example is much better than mine.
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In terms of "professional" I think many wedding videographers, etc would argue that what they produce on MiniDV is in fact professional, format aside. Don't forget, at the price point of the EX1 many MiniDV camera videographers were attracted to it. It seemed aimed at us IMO. And many of the reviews were targeted at us as well. I read them first as I mentioned. I am not yet sold on the notion that "tapeless is better". Maybe in time. I guess what I really resent is the game Sony has played with the SxS media. That type of attempt at corporate monopoly and subsequent price gouging really turns me off the same way it does at the gas pump. John |
John, DL-DVD is comparable in price to miniDV and DVD may actually be cheaper. The XDCAM EX file, at 35mbps, are only slightly larger than a DV file. Restoring for DVD or DL-DVD is faster than real time. So you have comparable cost backup and faster retrieval.
Tapeless is better so many ways it would be long and boring to list. When you compare to HDV, I'd have to say HDV tape may be the worst tape format every invented (Beta SX is close though). |
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If you charged someone $10k to shoot their wedding and showed up with an HV20, you'd be laughed out of the place, and you'd likely not get paid. Show up with a Red or a Varicam, or F900 with a mattebox and rods and a dolly, and people would be asking for your business card. Quote:
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That said, I'd probably HIRE a video guy with a RED for my wedding! And there would be PLENTY of light! |
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As for my hard drive backup you guys should look into the Thermaltake BlacX external devices for SATA drives. With this device you just pop in any 3.5" or 2.5" drive into the top like a piece of bread in a toaster and you are good to go. The version I have has USB2 and ESATA so it is very fast for backups. I just pop a drive in the top, copy my data over and hit the eject button when it is finished. With this device hard drives act sort of like tapes since they can be changed so quickly. Just be sure you have a ESATA hooked up via PCI-express or else it isn't going to be all that much faster. Some motherboards put their ESATA ports running through the old PCI which isn't all that fast. I highly suggest getting a nice ESATA card and then your backups will run as fast as moving files between two internal drives. |
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A quick search shows that 1hr HDV tapes are running about $6-8. BluRay 25GB disks are running about $7-10 at discounters. The EX1 shoots 16GB/hr. So right now, the cost is actually in favor of BluRay. And if we were to compare the costs of a BluRay burner to the cost of a deck that could write HDV, BluRay wins hands down. So I don't know where the perception is that BluRay is some very expensive solution, when in fact, it's one of the cheapest backup solutions for HD media out there, if not THE cheapest. Is the problem simply perception? Yes, it is marginally more expensive than miniDV, but it beats out everything else. |
I always archive to a project dedicated hard drive. I know that mag tape used to be the defacto archival standard, but, that was before my time. My experience with HDV tape is that it is extremely fragile and very prone to dropouts from the recording coating flaking off of the substrate. My worst nightmare would be to retrieve an HDV tape that was 2 years old and have it full of uncorrectable dropouts. Isn't this a very real problem for HDV tape?
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Again it isn't so much that I can't afford Blu-ray discs it is just that for the money I want to see the format mature a bit more first. I would be willing to spend a lot per disc if I knew the technology had all the kinks worked out. There is still part of me that wonders if Blu-ray will make it yet. Lets be totally honest here, for as much as we all love HD and really want a HD disc product we have to admit that Blu-ray wasn't really the best invention of the 21st century. I really want Blu-ray to do well but the format was fumbled from the beginning. It has come a long way but it still has a ways to go. As a data format it isn't bad but I think they can do better and I'm sure that better is just around the corner.. |
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My interests are not in BluRay as a delivery medium, but for data storage. And I have yet to have a bad burn. My burns are slow, but every one has been perfect, and I am using the dual layers. I am quite happy I don't have to buy 276 minute large DV and 64 minute DVCam tapes any more! |
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I've just ordered my 2nd Drobo to safely back up my media. The Drobo isn't 100% safe, but it's as safe as a RAID 1 or a RAID 5 with some pretty good features. It's quite simple to set up, and is pretty 'future proof' (as long as Drobo stays in business). It takes up to 4 drives, and if 1 of the drives fails it will still function with no data loss and allows you to replace the defective drive.
I have 4 1TB green drives in the unit I currently have, and ordered another 4 for the new one. 4 TB of drives gets about 2.7TB of usable storage. Those drives are about $100 each if you shop. The Drobo is currently available for $450 and they are running a $50 rebate for a few days this month. When I do the math it's hard to get RAID redundant storage for less from another vendor. I like the design and thought put into the Drobo, the interface is good, and I like that it can email you with status, from level of 'info' to 'emergency.' The Drobo is actually a fairly smart computer, with easily upgradable firmwire via the internet and it's "Drobo" application running on the PC or Mac it's attached to. I believe what I'm going to standardize is on is Drobo for online backups, internal or external eSATA RAIDs for online work where speed is important, and Taiyo Yuden Premium DVD-R's for offline archiving. I may even make a couple copies of the media on DVD-Rs and keep them offsite. The thing about the Drobos is that they are fast enough for online editing in a pinch, especially for EX1 footage which doesn't need the extreme throughput of less compressed formats. |
I love the Drobo. It's what I wanted for our backup drive, but couldn't afford it at the time. (it was like $1200 vs $850 for a 2TB drive)
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Thing about hard drives is I don't trust them. They don't fail often but if and when then do you better be prepared with a good redundant backup scheme. |
VXA tape
I archive files to VXA tape, and a second hard drive.
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I looked into the Drobo but to me it looks a lot like external eSATA RAID anyway - just in a nice box and it'd FW or USB, which sound like a bottleneck. Am I wrong - can this also be used for editing realtime?
I was also dismayed by the failure rate of the Drobo - quite a few online reviews talk about this, but I guess all hardrive solutions are in this boat. I had two HD's fail in the same week last month - one internal and one external sata raid. I bought disk warrior and it worked like a dream. In fact, it also rescued an old drive that failed 4 years ago, that no one could revive! With drives, its usually the directory that breaks down and though it may seem like a mechanical failure it is not. Now DVD really scares me for archives. 50% of my older DVD discs (over 4 yrs old) are not readable anymore - Toyo brand, which are supposed to be good. |
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