footage handling on location & archiving footage
- Thread starter Cofe
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Chris Kenny
Well-known member
Finner said:
Shelf life is usually estimated at around 30 years, and the LTO formats are industry standards with drives and tapes available from many vendors. Such a widely used format is unlikely to become inaccessible in the future. Even if it's hard to come by drives normally, there will almost certainly be companies that specialize in reading old tapes.
Of course, you'll probably want to recopy all your tapes to your hard drive when you have dozens or hundreds of terabytes of online storage in 10 years anyway. (Seriously. If you had a bunch of old floppy disks with data you cared about, wouldn't you just copy them to your hard drive instead of worrying about whether they'd last? It might seem ludicrous today to talk about doing the same with 400 GB tapes, but consider that hard drives are basically 250 times as big as they were ten years ago at about the same price. Now, project that out.... 180 terabytes of storage for $400, anyone?)
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alacritymedia
Active member
Optical storage longevity
Optical storage longevity
Like many technical standards, the specs for CD and DVD offered many options. Manufacturers of blank media found out quickly that only thing the market seemed to understand or care about was price. Pretty soon the supply pipelines were stuffed with ink based writable disc solutions that do indeed have serious technical limitations as many of us have found out the hard way. There are a few companies that make optical discs using a gold foil tech that has an expected lifespan of 50 years and can be purchased in quantity for about 50 cents each. While 50 cents may be 5 times what you pay for the ink based media it still works out to less than 12 cents per Gig.
In any case, I still believe that with the use of high quality blank media that Blu-ray optical drives will provide the tapeless community with a valuable option for distibution of content. I also think that with the right strategy that optical media can be the right archive strategy for many producers. Ultimately, storage tech still in development will eventually supercede the current solutions much like the RedOne is changing the options for image aquisition. That is one of the great things about jumping on this ride, the demand from the IT community for better storage options is exponentially bigger than just those of us in the media content space. Now don't get me started on Moore's Law...
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Optical storage longevity
Like many technical standards, the specs for CD and DVD offered many options. Manufacturers of blank media found out quickly that only thing the market seemed to understand or care about was price. Pretty soon the supply pipelines were stuffed with ink based writable disc solutions that do indeed have serious technical limitations as many of us have found out the hard way. There are a few companies that make optical discs using a gold foil tech that has an expected lifespan of 50 years and can be purchased in quantity for about 50 cents each. While 50 cents may be 5 times what you pay for the ink based media it still works out to less than 12 cents per Gig.
In any case, I still believe that with the use of high quality blank media that Blu-ray optical drives will provide the tapeless community with a valuable option for distibution of content. I also think that with the right strategy that optical media can be the right archive strategy for many producers. Ultimately, storage tech still in development will eventually supercede the current solutions much like the RedOne is changing the options for image aquisition. That is one of the great things about jumping on this ride, the demand from the IT community for better storage options is exponentially bigger than just those of us in the media content space. Now don't get me started on Moore's Law...
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Chris Kenny
Well-known member
I'm not sure just how great Blu-ray is going to be for this application. A 50 GB disk will only hold about 30 minutes of REDCODE RAW. Plus, 2x Blu-ray drives only do about 9 MB/s, not enough to play back REDCODE footage directly off the disc.
Maybe in a few years, when blank media is $1 and the 8x drives are out... still, hard drive technology is moving pretty fast. I expect mailing around hard drives to be the primary means of exchanging RED footage during production for the foreseeable future.
Maybe in a few years, when blank media is $1 and the 8x drives are out... still, hard drive technology is moving pretty fast. I expect mailing around hard drives to be the primary means of exchanging RED footage during production for the foreseeable future.
alacritymedia
Active member
Hard drives vs tape
Hard drives vs tape
If you can put 2 hours of RedCode on a 250 GB FW800 drive that goes for $200 how different is that than the cost of HDCAM-SR tape stock per minute? From what I understand once the drive heads are parked the shipping/handling of hard drives is not high risk for data loss. I just like having the option of using Blu-ray due to its low cost and portability, I would never tout it as the best choice available.
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Hard drives vs tape
If you can put 2 hours of RedCode on a 250 GB FW800 drive that goes for $200 how different is that than the cost of HDCAM-SR tape stock per minute? From what I understand once the drive heads are parked the shipping/handling of hard drives is not high risk for data loss. I just like having the option of using Blu-ray due to its low cost and portability, I would never tout it as the best choice available.
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Chris Kenny
Well-known member
alacritymedia said:
At that price, about the same. And an external case is a fixed cost, so you can reduce your cost per megabyte by buying larger drives. For instance, if you buy a decent FW800 case for $90 and then add a 500 GB hard drive for $210, you're at $300 for enough storage for maybe 4.5 hours of footage, whereas you'd pay over $400 for that much HDCAM-SR tape.
And, of course, with hard drives, you don't have to buy the extremely expensive deck, you aren't limited by the formats the deck supports, and you can randomly access and actually work with the files straight off the drive.
And next year, hard drives will probably get a lot bigger at the same price, where as HDCAM-SR tapes won't. And when Sony does eventually release a better format, you'll have to buy another ludicrously overpriced deck....
There's really no contest here, for the kind of work most people interested in RED are going to be doing.
Thanks guys
Thanks guys
A lot of good stuff in here.
My conclusion: only if e(lectronic)-magazines are getting big enough to cover more then a days shooting tapeless is getting practical for small crews.
And the only way to store the footage is DLT/LTO as it is the only proven long term archiving medium.
And when you think about it shooting tape is putting your footage straight onto the only reliable storage solution...
Progress needs to improve things not take us back to the good old film ages.
Thanks again guys
Cofe
Thanks guys
A lot of good stuff in here.
My conclusion: only if e(lectronic)-magazines are getting big enough to cover more then a days shooting tapeless is getting practical for small crews.
And the only way to store the footage is DLT/LTO as it is the only proven long term archiving medium.
And when you think about it shooting tape is putting your footage straight onto the only reliable storage solution...
Progress needs to improve things not take us back to the good old film ages.
Thanks again guys
Cofe
alacritymedia
Active member
I am sure there were people who scoffed at the need for DVDs when we already had VHS, after all there was a place down the street with thousands of movies on tape ready to rent - heck you can't even record on DVD, etc.
Film, you must be kidding? Film is expensive and you can't even see what you shot until its come back from the lab (video assist is relatively new) - mmm, sounds great - oh, and if you want to edit it without physically cutting film you'll need to transfer the whole thing onto expensive videotape media using an expensive telecine process and then later on there's the conforming of the original film, interpositives, etc, etc.
Tape has a lot of benefits but there are practical limitations to its datarate and high end studio decks go for the price of a median priced home in 32 states. If NTSC or PAL standard def video is your comparison then the Red workflow must seem like more trouble than its worth. If HDV is your reference then you, or your clients, must be OK with image quality that falls miles short of what the Red can be expected to deliver. If XDCAM-HD is your alternative then you will have far easier workflow but due to the high level of compression the image is not in the same class, not even close.
IT based workflows that integrate into NLE post solutions will be the standard, sooner or later. On board flash media is a better solution than on board hard disks but until the cost per Gig drops a bit hard drives it must be for many of us.
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Film, you must be kidding? Film is expensive and you can't even see what you shot until its come back from the lab (video assist is relatively new) - mmm, sounds great - oh, and if you want to edit it without physically cutting film you'll need to transfer the whole thing onto expensive videotape media using an expensive telecine process and then later on there's the conforming of the original film, interpositives, etc, etc.
Tape has a lot of benefits but there are practical limitations to its datarate and high end studio decks go for the price of a median priced home in 32 states. If NTSC or PAL standard def video is your comparison then the Red workflow must seem like more trouble than its worth. If HDV is your reference then you, or your clients, must be OK with image quality that falls miles short of what the Red can be expected to deliver. If XDCAM-HD is your alternative then you will have far easier workflow but due to the high level of compression the image is not in the same class, not even close.
IT based workflows that integrate into NLE post solutions will be the standard, sooner or later. On board flash media is a better solution than on board hard disks but until the cost per Gig drops a bit hard drives it must be for many of us.
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
taubkin
Veteran
I totally agree with Blair here. We must remember we are not abandoning tape because tapeless is more practical. Today it isn't. Even when we look at the HVX, it isn't P2 because of practicability, it's P2 to allow prosumer videographers to shoot DVCPRO HD. We're abandoning tape because for more robust HD formats, tapeless is much cheaper. And there is nothing wrong with that!
Your conclusions are absolutely right. There is no progress in shooting REDCODE straight to HD (Well, a little progress, sure, but not a revolution). The revolution is being able to shoot 4K redcode. The magazine is a price to pay, just like we pay for the quality of 35mm. But if it eliminates lab costs and processing time, we are looking at an upgrade, no doubt. If RED proves to give us a reliable, durable, Hard-Drive magazine that can shoot 3 hour of material each, then it could still mean quite a progress from film cans.
If the data can be easily manipulated and reviewed on set in High definition, it could mean a lot less hasle for FX complex shots. Not so with regular fiction, since lowress video taps already make offline on set previsualization a reality.
Your conclusions are absolutely right. There is no progress in shooting REDCODE straight to HD (Well, a little progress, sure, but not a revolution). The revolution is being able to shoot 4K redcode. The magazine is a price to pay, just like we pay for the quality of 35mm. But if it eliminates lab costs and processing time, we are looking at an upgrade, no doubt. If RED proves to give us a reliable, durable, Hard-Drive magazine that can shoot 3 hour of material each, then it could still mean quite a progress from film cans.
If the data can be easily manipulated and reviewed on set in High definition, it could mean a lot less hasle for FX complex shots. Not so with regular fiction, since lowress video taps already make offline on set previsualization a reality.
yes and no to the above
yes and no to the above
I know the old arguments about that people are always scared of the new because they just used to the old.
But what if the new makes my life more complicated then it was before? I'm not talking cost as I sure know film is more expansive and the same amount of harddrive space for the same amount of minutes on tape is actually the same if not cheaper on hard drives.
This is neither a discussion about picture quality as you stated the obvious comparrison of the diff format.
BUT I for instance have to opt for HDV against P2 for pure work-ability reasons. Small crews can't handle to workload required at this stage for tapeless work! All this downloading - backing up - and so forth just takes to much time. Feature film or big non-feature productions can throw the extra men power at it, but we can't.
Yes that means lesser picture quality but this is academic if you can't get the story because your still busy copying those files. Reality doesn't wait, actors do.
Anyhow I keep watching the developement
Cofe
yes and no to the above
I know the old arguments about that people are always scared of the new because they just used to the old.
But what if the new makes my life more complicated then it was before? I'm not talking cost as I sure know film is more expansive and the same amount of harddrive space for the same amount of minutes on tape is actually the same if not cheaper on hard drives.
This is neither a discussion about picture quality as you stated the obvious comparrison of the diff format.
BUT I for instance have to opt for HDV against P2 for pure work-ability reasons. Small crews can't handle to workload required at this stage for tapeless work! All this downloading - backing up - and so forth just takes to much time. Feature film or big non-feature productions can throw the extra men power at it, but we can't.
Yes that means lesser picture quality but this is academic if you can't get the story because your still busy copying those files. Reality doesn't wait, actors do.
Anyhow I keep watching the developement
Cofe
mike the beginner
Well-known member
Great posts guys very informative. The point that Blair makes about IT needs must surely force more robust and improved hard drives or superior alternatives. How many companies want to risk loosing important data to a faulty hard drive. The drive for cheaper and bigger hard drives appears to be a higher priority on the surface but surely all these companies crying out for solid robust archives will demand loss free storage.
I was a little surprised that red announced their red drive new storage level. Given that things are changing so fast in this area and that first cameras not ready for say April at the earliest. That is 4 months from now and more progress may have been made by then? I suppose it makes us happy that we have moved from 160Gb to 320Gb in say six months.
If i presume (a dangerous thing!) that we are talking about 2x160Gb drives in raid form. Then IF we find that 3 months from now red could make those drives at 2x320Gb AND include 1Gb of flash drive inside the red drive enclosure prior to production, but the cost would have to be that bit higher. How many reservation holders would be willing to pay that bit more for something that big and damn useful for those that demand pre-record as an important facility.
Michael
I was a little surprised that red announced their red drive new storage level. Given that things are changing so fast in this area and that first cameras not ready for say April at the earliest. That is 4 months from now and more progress may have been made by then? I suppose it makes us happy that we have moved from 160Gb to 320Gb in say six months.
If i presume (a dangerous thing!) that we are talking about 2x160Gb drives in raid form. Then IF we find that 3 months from now red could make those drives at 2x320Gb AND include 1Gb of flash drive inside the red drive enclosure prior to production, but the cost would have to be that bit higher. How many reservation holders would be willing to pay that bit more for something that big and damn useful for those that demand pre-record as an important facility.
Michael
alacritymedia
Active member
Crew size for tapeless
Crew size for tapeless
I have been dealing with the realities of P2 workflow for several months now with the HVX200 and Cofe's issues with that iteration of tapeless are points well taken. Even if you have a ton of cards there are only two slots and the biggest cards I've actually seen are a paltry 8GB. Laying out a day rate for a card shufffler is a tough sell for a lot of producers. The HVX200 has a great value proposition which has goosed sales and made it the first experience with tapeless workflow for tons of folks. The dark side of that is the low capacity of the available P2 cards is making these early tapeless productions too much of a hassle and I fear is souring the guys with the checkbooks on the whole idea. Hopefully those of us that wish to sell the Red solution will be able to re-educate the producers.
Assuming that you are in situations like Cofe's where you cannot assign a crew member to data management only, you could try the solution I laid out in another post where you have an assistant who wears several hats. If that is simply not practical then you need more RedDrives. Yes, I know they are $1,000 a pop but if the current spec holds we're looking at 320GB. The rough math using 24p/4k RedCode is almost 3 hours of RAW image data, that is a far cry from the 8 minutes on a P2 card for about the same price. Say you don't care about 4k, it stands to reason that you will be able to get even more time on the RedDrive with smaller frame sizes. What would you say if you could shoot all day to that one 320GB RedDrive? Could I interest you in a solution like that?
rogar-Evil(DBG):
Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Crew size for tapeless
I have been dealing with the realities of P2 workflow for several months now with the HVX200 and Cofe's issues with that iteration of tapeless are points well taken. Even if you have a ton of cards there are only two slots and the biggest cards I've actually seen are a paltry 8GB. Laying out a day rate for a card shufffler is a tough sell for a lot of producers. The HVX200 has a great value proposition which has goosed sales and made it the first experience with tapeless workflow for tons of folks. The dark side of that is the low capacity of the available P2 cards is making these early tapeless productions too much of a hassle and I fear is souring the guys with the checkbooks on the whole idea. Hopefully those of us that wish to sell the Red solution will be able to re-educate the producers.
Assuming that you are in situations like Cofe's where you cannot assign a crew member to data management only, you could try the solution I laid out in another post where you have an assistant who wears several hats. If that is simply not practical then you need more RedDrives. Yes, I know they are $1,000 a pop but if the current spec holds we're looking at 320GB. The rough math using 24p/4k RedCode is almost 3 hours of RAW image data, that is a far cry from the 8 minutes on a P2 card for about the same price. Say you don't care about 4k, it stands to reason that you will be able to get even more time on the RedDrive with smaller frame sizes. What would you say if you could shoot all day to that one 320GB RedDrive? Could I interest you in a solution like that?
rogar-Evil(DBG): Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
Chris Kenny
Well-known member
taubkin said:
I am.
Tape is expensive, labor-intensive, inflexible, and awkward with IT-based workflows.
(I'm referring here to using tape for acquisition. Backing up to LTO is fine; most of tape's disadvantages aren't a problem with backups. Mostly because you hardly ever have to work with your backups.)
P2 specifically is fairly impractical, but a lot of this is because P2 cards are lower capacity and more expensive than today's technology would allow. It doesn't look like RED's solutions will have this problem; three hours of footage on a digital mag... that could be three entire shooting days worth of material for a narrative feature.
evinsky
Well-known member
One very good reason IT based workflows are better is that they don't depend on just one industry for support or innovation. If tomorrow a an IT company develops a 1TB flash drive for $100 then it's a simple matter of integrating it into the IT based Red workflow. But locking a digital imaging device like the Red into a single tape format severely limits it future potential. And if you really are nervous rent a HD-Cam SR Deck and shoot like Mel Gibson.
Chris Kenny
Well-known member
Evinsky, that's another great point, and it's some of what I was hinting at saying tape is inflexible.
IT technology is commodity stuff which now supports a big fraction of the economy. There's huge incentive to push capabilities up and prices down, and IT-based systems give you the integrate the latest stuff into your existing infrastructure.
It's a very different world from the world of high-priced specialty equipment a lot of folks in the traditional video/film world are used to.
IT technology is commodity stuff which now supports a big fraction of the economy. There's huge incentive to push capabilities up and prices down, and IT-based systems give you the integrate the latest stuff into your existing infrastructure.
It's a very different world from the world of high-priced specialty equipment a lot of folks in the traditional video/film world are used to.
Ok, I take the point that if the the Red-Raid is big enough to hold more then a day even in max res then it's workable.
Only problem remains reliability which we'll find out when the system ships and can be tested.
Because one question remains even then. When a tape breaks I loose max of 40-60 min worth of footage and even that is unlikely because I can salvage still parts of the tape that are ok. If the raid fails I might loose 10 hours plus. And when this happens on the remote island I'm on....
We just have to see what Red will come up with and make a call on the day
Only problem remains reliability which we'll find out when the system ships and can be tested.
Because one question remains even then. When a tape breaks I loose max of 40-60 min worth of footage and even that is unlikely because I can salvage still parts of the tape that are ok. If the raid fails I might loose 10 hours plus. And when this happens on the remote island I'm on....
We just have to see what Red will come up with and make a call on the day
JDHolloway
Member
OK, enough.
P2 cards suck.
They are to be avoided. They are expensive, small and unsatisfying like french cuisine.
They do have a place in handheld/steady cam work, super-lightweight crane work, underwater shoots, ghetto car/bicycle/wheelchair rigs ad nauseam. If you shoot studios, reasonable locations or are on dolly, sticks or shoot limited handheld/monopod/steadycam work...go hard drive.
With the HVX, the Firestore works well enough. You can shoot all morning and dump your drive at lunch. You don't even have to risk losing an entire day. Dunnit, it works. It can be improved. I know team RED will.
Tape is expensive, shouldn't be reused and decks are *****'n expensive. Hard drives are cheap and erase over and over. How many Pro decks do you have v.s tape stock types you shoot? Is your current camera your deck? Should it be? Hard drives are getting better and better. More reliable, cheeper and more capacity. Tape drives are not getting physically/mechanically better.
Good time to switch mindsets IMHO.
Rant over. Sorry.
P2 cards suck.
They are to be avoided. They are expensive, small and unsatisfying like french cuisine.
They do have a place in handheld/steady cam work, super-lightweight crane work, underwater shoots, ghetto car/bicycle/wheelchair rigs ad nauseam. If you shoot studios, reasonable locations or are on dolly, sticks or shoot limited handheld/monopod/steadycam work...go hard drive.
With the HVX, the Firestore works well enough. You can shoot all morning and dump your drive at lunch. You don't even have to risk losing an entire day. Dunnit, it works. It can be improved. I know team RED will.
Tape is expensive, shouldn't be reused and decks are *****'n expensive. Hard drives are cheap and erase over and over. How many Pro decks do you have v.s tape stock types you shoot? Is your current camera your deck? Should it be? Hard drives are getting better and better. More reliable, cheeper and more capacity. Tape drives are not getting physically/mechanically better.
Good time to switch mindsets IMHO.
Rant over. Sorry.
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