Long Term Recording Direct To Disc

Spartacus

Spartacus

Veteran
Hey,
were planning on recording up to 8 hours continuously to external harddrives through final cut pro.
Here are a few questions:

1) Has anyone done this before? If so please share some of your experience...

2) Will USB2.0 drives be sufficient enough for this task, performance wise (transfer
rates a.s.o.)? Would Firewire400 be better? Or do we even need FW800?
Do we need a Raid setup for the this streaming recording?
Any recommendations for good value external drives?

3) We thought about this: record to an usb drive, after shoot back up to a second drive, use one of the drives for editing (read only, render to MacPro internal Raid), after completed render put original drive in the shelve for archiving, format the second and use it next time as recording drive.
Anything wrong with that?

4) We´ll do this with two HVXs. So later we´ll have to edit this together (only hard cuts...) - how long may a DVCproHD sequence in FCP be, performance wise?
Will FCP record one continuous clip (I doubt...) if not in what intervals will FCP create clips?

Any advice greatly appreciated!
 
Do I stink like poopoo?
Never had no reply...
Is this undergoing so unusual?
Noone ever recorded a couple of hours continuously straight to external disk?
Maybe I should repost in the General section...
Damn, this is like talking to myself...
Hey, you look good today!
Oh - thanks...
 
On a Mac in FCS using USB drives is a bad idea. Theoretically, USB2 is faster than FW drives, but in real world practice with FCP, they cannot sustain continuous throughput.
 
So I´ll have to use Firewire for connecting the HVX and the external HDD to the MacBooks?
Do the differnt ports use the same bus?
 
USB drive... and long recording

USB drive... and long recording

I have the same question and a few answers. I just finished recording 140 hours of video this summer onto USB2 drives. I used to be one that said only use firewire. And although I still think firewire is a better choice, USB does work. That said although I have tested recording video from a HVX in HD for short times, I have not done this for long periods in HD.

I think I want to record HD from 3 HVX cameras through FCP on macbooks onto 500gig firewire drives. I have not got a chance to test this and will not until I get back to the US and make my way into my friendly neighborhood Apple store to test my hypothesis on a Macbook. (This probably would normally not be allowed, but I have friends in high places :) So if the question is not answered, I will post later - October. But I would love for someone to test this. I have a Macbook Pro and I am confident it would work. But I want to use Macbooks. Basically I can buy a macbook and a 500gig FW drive for roughly the same price as a Firestore 100 - longer recording times, use as an extra computer during post work, not for field use, but studio.

Adam
 
First, thanks for your reply...
I´m really hesitant about using USB with the Mac, I read that the data throughput wouldn´t be as high as on a PC.
Well, I consider this quote to be one of the Mac vs. PC legends, but still want to do more research on that, before starting to test.
It´s simply a matter of costs, I´ll need approx. 4 300 GB disks a day and the USB ones come in cheapest, the FW800 the most expensive.
I know that considering the plain specs, DVCproHD at 100Mb/s maximum will work with any of the standards, but I have to be on the safe side for sure here...
We´re planning on using a Powerbook and a Macbook pro, cause we have them, but I also would buy a Macbook with a firewiredrive over a Firestore anytime.
Good luck with your projects!
 
Spartacus said:
First, thanks for your reply...
I´m really hesitant about using USB with the Mac, I read that the data throughput wouldn´t be as high as on a PC.
Well, I consider this quote to be one of the Mac vs. PC legends, but still want to do more research on that, before starting to test.
Click to expand...
Read barefeats.com, they do all sorts of performance comparisons on Macs. Near as I can tell, USB performance on the Mac platform is not as good as it is on the PC. Oddly, FW800 performance hasn't been all that good either, but then again in the first revision of WinXP FW800 performance was awful too.
 
I defer to Robert Lane's discussions over on DVInfo, he really laid out the external drive recording circumstances for the Mac.
 
Barry_Green said:
I defer to Robert Lane's discussions over on DVInfo, he really laid out the external drive recording circumstances for the Mac.
Click to expand...
I searched his posts and found one reporting his early tests whitout having P2 cards yet.
There he used an external Raid connected via FW800 for streaming to disk.
Pricey when you at least need four of them...
In one of your posts you pointed out, that FW400 would be enough for streaming HD to the mac since the camera itself only has FW400.
I would asume that this also goes for the external drive, right?
Anyhow, before I can do any tests, I need that FCP update comming out in a few weeks...
If there only were 250GB P2 cards ;0)
 
On a Mac laptop, both FW ports use the same FW buss. You can capture to USB dirves, but I'd never edit with them. FW performs better than USB due to the protocol of the data line. FW is more like a network protocol, and IMHO is much more stable and reliable than USB on any platform of computer. Just MHO.

I'd get a FW card for my Mac laptop to plug my FW drive into. Plug the camera into the laptop's native FW port. Should work just fine! You will have to go into FCP's preferences and tell it to NOT limit capture times, or it'll stop in the middle of everything.

When I upgraded from a 450/G4 to a 2.0 dual G5, I used the same FW400 250GB drive on both. On the G5 it was not fast enough, FCP kept craping out. I upgraded that to a FW800 500GB drive and everything ran just smooth.

I'm just a firm beliver in FW over USB for a variety of technical reasons. But folks are using USB drives just fine in some set ups. Just bear in mind that not all hardware setups are the same, and there are LOTS of variables that effect system performance in different applications. So, "your mileage may vary".

But capturing to USB drives shouldn't be much of a problem. I'd just never "edit" with one. But that's just me...
 
I've done a lot of long captures this way with a Powerbook, without problems, using Glyph firewire drives. I think that, given the data rates USB2 should not be a problem, especially given that you're splitting the data over two separate buses/interfaces. If you get a good, reliable USB drive (hey, I'd get a Glyph that has FW, USB, and eSata so you can use it in all stages) that you've teseted, it should be fine.

My main caveat would be that you should pause and restart your FCP capture as often as possible. As I've said, I've recorded many multi-hour clips without problems, and really haven't had any lost clips in 3 years now; but when FCP DOES have a problem, it tends to toss the whole clip rather than save everything up to the problematic point. For that reason, eight hours would make me a bit nervous.

Come to think of it, FCP has an option to split clips up automatically at specific size/time limits; I haven't tested this, but I'd assume that all but the current "split" would be safe if a problem does indeed come up... so in that manner you could leave it unattended for the eight hours and have some increased safety....
 
You guys do know that you can by-pass FCP all together on a Mac for simple video caputer, right?

Connect your DVX or HVX, turn it on.

Then open QuickTime Pro Player. Go to the prefs, set things as you like in the Recording section. This is the "Preferences" under the QuickTime menu, NOT the "QuickTime Preferences"! They are two different animules!

Now, you can capture, save your files, and no need to wait on FCP. Unless you want to do all sorts of variable frame rates and such, then you'll need to use FCP. But for straight, live captures, this works great.

One caviat for the HVX users, in my test, I find it only gives a good image when in 1080i60 mode, only.
 
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Thanks BenB and Ullanta!
I heard about the "same bus" problem and will buy a FW/PCMCIA/Expresscard to split the data load.
First i will do some tests with USB.
Thing is, FW a or b drives are more expensive than USB drives, even if its only 15 bucks or so, but for the beginning of this project I´ll probably need around 20 discs, so that be 300 bucks saved.
I´m also wandering about how the scenes will be split, I don´t wanna end up with an 6 hour clip...
And thanks for the QT tip! But why wouldn´t it be the same quality, I thought FCP is QT based?
 
Why would you need 20 discs? I'm doing a massive documentary, I budgeted a G-Tech 1TB FW drive for it (actually 2, one for a mirror back-up). I don't think I'm going to fill it up. But one massive drive, from my shoping around, was cheaper than a bunch of smaller drives.

As for your comment about quality, if you plug in your HVX200 via FW, launch QT Pro Player, try to record anything besides 1080i60, you get a scrambled image. I'm not sure why. I assume this is what you were refering to.
 
BenB said:
Why would you need 20 discs?
Click to expand...
We were asked to shoot daylong seminars with two cameras.
We didn´t want to shoot it in DV mode (actually I never want to shoot DV again), and since DV50 and 720p take up about the same disk space, we´re opting for HD...
Now do the maths.
For now, we´re going to do it the hard way: no live switching, but massive editing in post - that´s why we are looking forward to the upcoming Pana switcher or other possible solutions like maybe VideoToaster/Tricaster using the component out.
It´s really not what we normally do, but it was a matter of keeping the client, we´ll find a better solution in the process or hire more unpaid interns ;o)
Anyone know a better solution for live switching two HVXs?
 
Spartacus said:
I heard about the "same bus" problem and will buy a FW/PCMCIA/Expresscard to split the data load.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear though - I've done all my long captures on the "same bus" (FW400) without problems, mostly at 720p30.
 
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