Traveling w/HVX - P2 vs. Firestore

[dffiorito]

I'll be working on a doc for 8 weeks using the HVX. We will likely have 2-3 hrs of footage to transfer every day...most likely shooting in 720/24P to match with Varicam footage. We'll probably be traveling in two-week stretches and will have to bring everything with us to back-up what we shoot. I've used the HVX on several occasions but I've never had to worry about traveling with laptops, external drives, etc.

What do you guys recommend? I think one option would be to record directly to Firestores and download the footage every night to an external drive, then back it up to a second drive for safety and finally burn DVD copies for archive purposes. The Firestores would be wiped clean once the footage is downloaded so they could be used the next day.

The other option would be to use P2 cards...but we might not be able to get our hands on enough cards in time to travel and we might be limited as far as manpower goes to download P2 cards during the day. It's possible that the only chance we'll get to download is at the end of the day. Download to external drives, etc.

So I'd love to hear what methods others have used...it would be really helpful!! Thanks a bunch!

[dregenthal]

If you're shooting 2-3 hours of footage each day (and can't get enough P2's and or manpower) I think you've already answered your own question: Record direct to disc.

I think you will want to mimic whatever your primary backup drive is with another identical one, i.e., using a 500 GB drive for archive? Have a second 500 GB drive to copy to contents to (from the first hard drive). This will at least give you two archives and save you a lot of time.

No question that two different types of backup might be ideal but if you stop to consider how long it will take to burn 2-3 (raw) hours of footage on DVD's you'll get where I'm coming from.

Best.

[ProfessorU]

Totaly agree with dregenthal
Cost/benefit analysis here.
The benefits of P2 are over/undercranking native, nothing "hanging off" your camera.
The benefits of a FS are much greater capacity, cheaper cost per GB.
Even if your doc wasn't being shot far, far away, the firestore is probably the best option.
I have never backed up any HD projects on DVD. It's just not practical.

[mrWr0ng]

I just did a doc where we flew from SF to Ireland and recorded every day for about 2-4 hours. We brought a Firestore and 2 P2 cards. 99% of everything got shot on Firestore, then the director copied the footage on a macbook to two 500 gig drives. I took the P2 cards for times when it was just too much hassle to bother setting it up (like when I went out and just shot signs)

Everything went well, I lost only one shot and it was my own fault for not doublechecking the firestore to make sure it was running.

[Luis Caffesse]

One thing to keep in mind with the FS100 is battery power.
The standard battery will only last you about an hour and a half - so you'll want to get the extended battery...possibly two of them.
Or look into the option of using the Tekkon batteries that many here have posted about.

[mcvideo]

One thing to keep in mind with the FS100 is battery power.

I don't own one so i do not know, but depending on the power needed a option (again, depending on the power needed to run properly) you could probably use alternatives such as this (http://www.global-batteries.com/product_info.php/products_id/1334) used in the making of COYOTE to extend the power of RR M2. Posted only as example, but of course you would apply to the FS100. You can read more about this great alternative here (http://themexicandream.com/blog/redrocks-m2-adapter-coyotes-best-friend/). Scroll all the way down, second to last paragraph that start "The M2"... maybe some one knows if this is even possible or if there are alternatives to extend the power life besides the extended battery unit.

Just sharing other idea used to power our great toys! :beer:

[rob@headland]

I am in a similar situation. We are shooting in Kosovo, so we have to bring everything with us. We take 2 firestores, a laptop and 2 or 3 500GB GRaids, shoot onto the firestores, and dump and format each night.

You will definitely need the extended batteries for the firestores, the short battery life has caused us problems before. We considered backing up to DVD, but it's simply not practical as we're shooting 1080 - 1GB per minute... unless you can get your hands on some kind of HDDVD or BluRay solution, and I have no idea how you'd go about that.

The only thing I can tell you is to be aware that you've got about 2 hours dumping footage after shooting each day to build into your schedule - I reccomend setting up the dump before dinner, then backing up before you go to sleep. One thing to consider, and I don't know where you'll be shooting, but this was a problem for us, is that if you get a power outage in the middle of dumping your footage you run the risk of everything f*cking up. Might not be an issue for you, but if it is look into one of those thingies that gives you a few moments to sort things out in the event of a power cut.

Finally because I don't think anyone has mentioned it, the firewire port on your HVX WILL break if you continue to use it in the field without some kind of protection - on my last trip I lost a couple of shots because of this. A DVX user has come up with a solution - he calls it the firewire saver, I think. It's basically an essential purchase if you plan to use the firestore, and it's practically free. His username is Siniarch, I believe.

Despite the minor issues to be aware of, I would reccomend the firestore to anyone shooting docs with the HVX.

Oh, and the new firmware will let you do all the variable frame rates and so on. It's free if you bought your firestores with V3.0 firmware.

Good luck.

[ProfessorU]

Wait, firestore lets you do variable frame rates native? Even the 'hacked' frame rates?

[siniarch]

Hey Rob,
Just ran into this post. Thanks for recommending my FireWire Saver.

Dffiorito,
yeah, you can just purchase it from my web site if you like.

ProfessorU,
Yes with revision 4 of the firmware, the Firestore, can do everything the P2 cards can and more. I believe you can capture more frames rates with the Firestore than with P2 cards. The one thing that you still can't do, which I hate is that you cannot monitor the footage out of the component cables. but this is a function that Panasonic has disable. They don't want us to use the HVX as a cheap VTR.

[Pierre Petit]

almost every day someone is selling p2 cards in the selling section of the forum.....4 or 5 16gigs card would probably do the job and it would probably be more simple, no cables or batteries. They are a good investment for future projects as well....then again it's definitly more expensive and you might have less margin of maneuvre if you need more recording time then you have.

[siniarch]

Pierre,
also don't forget that with P2 cards, unless you have tons of them, you will need to dump on the field. Obviously, you can dump while one is recording, but you will need an extra person and a station to do that. (at this point, I'm short handed so the Firestore saves me one set of hands. Priceless)

[Pierre Petit]

If you have enough p2 cards i don't see much of a difference transfering p2cards to hard disk or firestore to hard disk. It might even save time.
720 24pn fits 40minutes on a 16gig card . 4 cards fits 2 hours in 40 minutes. 5 cards would be safer.
If you have the cards it seems more simple to me.
It seems to me recording on p2 has many advantages.
It's just a different point of view to the workflow. It might be worth considering it.