P2 Cards, 720 vs. 1080, Hard drives and rec times

[meddesigner]

So my employer saw the test footage Jarred shot and wants me to go ahead a buy the HVX since it is “affordable”. A few questions for you all:

1. 4GB or 8GB P2 cards? It really is amazing how much cheaper the 4GB cards are. I saw one package with 5 of them and the camera in the $9,100.00 dollar range. Thoughts?

2. 720P or 1080i? We produce medical documentary and training materials. I am leaning toward 720P.

3. Hard Drives - RAID 0 or Fiber Channel? Want to buy with the future in mind but I currently only work with a maximum of four streams at a time. I am thinking of a G-RAID right now.

4. Tripods - my is a piece of junk. I would like something that can help get me nice controllable pans and tilts that has the proper amount of resistance and is not sloppy. Something that has a fluid head. Anything in the $1,000 - $1,500 dollar price range is fine.

So it looks like 720P is going to eat up a 4GB card in 10 minutes so 5 cards would be 50 minutes. I read somewhere that the cards “rollover” after one is filled. So can one pull the card when slot 1 and replace it when recording continues on the card in slot 2? Can this then be repeated when the 2nd card is filled till I am out of cards.

Also what is the recording times for 1080i on the 4GB cards.

 

[BigMike]

Can't speak for medical documentary filmmaking -- I want to emulate the cinema experience.

However, I suggest a RAID 3 or a RAID 5.

RAID 0 is fast, but if one drive fails (and one will eventually), all the data from the other disks are unrecoverable.

RAID 3 will crash if a drive fails, but if you put a duplicate drive in, the Parity will fill the drive with the data that used to be there and you can continue from that point.

RAID 5 sacrifices a drive as protection. If one of your drives fail, the extra drive will kick in and you can continue editing (in theory) without interruption.

 

[Barry_Green]

1. 4GB or 8GB P2 cards? It really is amazing how much cheaper the 4GB cards are. I saw one package with 5 of them and the camera in the $9,100.00 dollar range. Thoughts?

4GB cards are a much better buy; you can buy six of them for less than it costs to buy two 8GB's. If you absolutely positively need the larger size cards, go ahead, but if there's any way you could make it work with 4GB's, you'll get much much much more bang for your buck.

2. 720P or 1080i? We produce medical documentary and training materials. I am leaning toward 720P.

That's up to you. They're both high-def. If you're doing a lot of slow-mo stuff 720p is better suited to that.

So it looks like 720P is going to eat up a 4GB card in 10 minutes so 5 cards would be 50 minutes.

Only if you're shooting in 720/24P mode. If you're shooting for the "reality"/"video" look, 720P will go through a 4GB card in 4 minutes, so 5 cards would give you 20 minutes of that.

I read somewhere that the cards “rollover” after one is filled. So can one pull the card when slot 1 and replace it when recording continues on the card in slot 2? Can this then be repeated when the 2nd card is filled till I am out of cards.

Yes.

Also what is the recording times for 1080i on the 4GB cards.

1 minute per gig; same as 720/60p.

 

[pastywhiteboy]

Only if you're shooting in 720/24P mode. If you're shooting for the "reality"/"video" look, 720P will go through a 4GB card in 4 minutes, so 5 cards would give you 20 minutes of that.

Barry, quick question concerning the record times: I thought that shooting in 720p 24 "native" mode gave you over double the record time over the other modes... is this true? I believe it even says that in the brochure, but I can't remember.

-pasty

 

[Brian Petersen]

Barry, quick question concerning the record times: I thought that shooting in 720p 24 "native" mode gave you over double the record time over the other modes... is this true? I believe it even says that in the brochure, but I can't remember.

That is exactly what Barry was saying. The original poster said that the 720p mode would give him 10 minutes. But since the original poster will be doing doc/reality type stuff he would probably want to shoot in the 720/60p mode which will only give 4 minutes. It's the 720/24pN mode that gives 10 minutes. So yes to your question.

 

[Barry_Green]

As Brian explained, yes your understanding is correct; the difference is in the frame rate. If recording "reality" at 60p, that'll last a certain amount of time. If recording "film-look" at 24p, that'll last 2.5 times as long, since 24 x 2.5 = 60. It's the total # of frames getting recorded that is the limit. With 24p you're recording only 40% as many frames per second, so the card lasts 2.5 times as long as if you were shooting 60p.

 

[Anders Holck]

Regarding harddrive options, it's really not wise to buy to far into the future as prices go down fast.
So if you stay in DVCPRO HD codec for the next year, I would recommend you to go the firewire 800 way, either with the G-Raid or maybe the new maxtor Onetouch III turbo edition.

I have a 1.5GB 3-way SATA Raid 0 in my G5, and it works like a dream even with uncompressed 8 bit HD. I use SoftRaid software to partition my stripe into a fast and a slow stripe.
This way I can use the outer faster part of the disks for uncompressed HD and the inner slower part for DV, DVCPRO HD and uncompressed SD without dropping frames

 

[pastywhiteboy]

As Brian explained, yes your understanding is correct; the difference is in the frame rate. If recording "reality" at 60p, that'll last a certain amount of time. If recording "film-look" at 24p, that'll last 2.5 times as long, since 24 x 2.5 = 60. It's the total # of frames getting recorded that is the limit. With 24p you're recording only 40% as many frames per second, so the card lasts 2.5 times as long as if you were shooting 60p.

Sorry Barry, guess I just missred or just missed that in your post. Sounds good!

-pasty

 

[abeljerrod]

So my employer saw the test footage Jarred shot and wants me to go ahead a buy the HVX since it is “affordable”. A few questions for you all:

4. Tripods - my is a piece of junk. I would like something that can help get me nice controllable pans and tilts that has the proper amount of resistance and is not sloppy. Something that has a fluid head. Anything in the $1,000 - $1,500 dollar price range is fine.

Looks like Barry took care of all the rest of your questions. As for tripods, one of the best in that prices range is the Cartoni Focus. It will hold from 2 to 22 pounds. You can get either a single stage or a dual stage with a continuously variable fluid damping system.

(info at: http://www.mediumblend.com/abelstore/customer/product.php?productid=1029&cat=189&page=2 )