Black Magic PocketHD and 4K production camera

[refocusedmedia]

And BMD said in the live interview yesterday that they have no plans to add any HFR options to any of their current cameras, which includes the PocketCam and the BMCC-4K. John Brawley has said as much as well.

Looks like we'll be waiting for gen3 for that.

 

[Grug]

As much as I want one of the new Black Magic Cameras, my concerns are storage and the storage of storage.

How are other people archiving their work from the Black Magic Cinema Camera? At this point on my T3i and HMC150, I have been keeping my original footage on an SD card for archiving purposes because they are cheap enough.

My feeling is that the Black Magic cameras are very good for narrative work, and probably music videos and commercials, but for corporate work, where the better dynamic range and color would be useful, I don't see them as practical.

You can always spend the money you save on the camera to purchase an external recorder that will do something like ProResLT for times that you need more compact file sizes.

I'm starting to think seriously about making the $3k or so investment in an LTO-6 tape deck. For serious storage requirements it starts to make a lot of sense as the terabytes add up (and you get a far more reliable storage medium as well).

 

[Razz16mm]

4TB hard drives are breaking below $200 each now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178338

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

You can always spend the money you save on the camera to purchase an external recorder that will do something like ProResLT for times that you need more compact file sizes.

I'm starting to think seriously about making the $3k or so investment in an LTO-6 tape deck. For serious storage requirements it starts to make a lot of sense as the terabytes add up (and you get a far more reliable storage medium as well).

External recorders are not really a good option for me.

I was looking at LTO last night, and I need to learn more, but while I was looking at how many minutes per gigabyte I would get + the cost of solid state drives at this time, I came to the conclusion that planning for storage/recording media is perhaps the most important consideration for anyone who wants to use these Black Magic cameras on a regular basis.

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

Lets just say that I shot a corporate video destined for web and I went with a combo of raw and prores (maybe 70/30) and it took 2.5 TB's to archive the work. Prores 4k will be just as large as shooting RAW on 2.5k. So yes, data storage comes into play greatly when considering these cameras.

If you don't mind me asking, how long was the finished product, and how much raw footage to you shoot?

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

4TB hard drives are breaking below $200 each now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178338

Personally, I am a Western Digital man, and those floods in Thailand from a year and a half ago are still affecting the prices of WD drives.

Previous to the floods, I routinely saw 2 terabyte drives on special for under $100. Just recently I saw a two terabyte Caviar Black drive for $139, and that was the lowest I have seen since the price increases.

But even if we can purchase 4 terabyte drives for $200, you can still eat through the storage pretty quickly, and storage storage becomes a concern.

My hope if for sold state drive to get to around $150 per terabyte, and then I can keep my source footage on the drive, as is my preference. But we are a long ways off from that.

 

[dustylense]

If you don't mind me asking, how long was the finished product, and how much raw footage to you shoot?

Let's just say it will be a 3 minute video.

Sure, prices of drives are coming down. That is if you want cheap drives to backup your hard work. Then, I back everything up 3 times. One for working, one for onsite backup, one for offsite backup. The 2.5k BMCC shoots RAW at 6gb/min. Get out your calculator and start crunching numbers.

 

[Razz16mm]

I don't consider spinners an archival storage medium unless you buy enterprise network grade drives. More like $100p-125/ TB for now. But prices on all media are coming down pretty fast.
LTO tapes are definitely cheaper and better for long term backup.

But for practical work space and short term backup the cheaper drives at $50-75/TB should be OK.

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

I don't consider spinners an archival storage medium unless you buy enterprise network grade drives. More like $100p-125/ TB for now. But prices on all media are coming down pretty fast.
LTO tapes are definitely cheaper and better for long term backup.

But for practical work space and short term backup the cheaper drives at $50-75/TB should be OK.

What brands of hard drive are you purchasing at $100-$125 per terabyte?

 

[snowblindfilm]

Sounds like a lot of posters here are not in video/film business, but in data storage business. Once the project is finished (it states clearly in my contract) the paying party is responsible for their data storage. This also protects me from eventual data loss issues. Storing project on your own HDD's exposes you to liability, and you are basically giving services away- unless you reflect storage in the price of the project.

 

[True North]

Lets just say that I shot a corporate video destined for web and I went with a combo of raw and prores (maybe 70/30) and it took 2.5 TB's to archive the work. Prores 4k will be just as large as shooting RAW on 2.5k. So yes, data storage comes into play greatly when considering these cameras.

Thanks for the breakdown, very helpful. I suppose I could have just done some math but your real world example is better. Did you shoot raw because you wanted to or did the client request it? On a job that required/requested RAW you would just work in an added cost for the additional data storage.

 

[dustylense]

Sounds like a lot of posters here are not in video/film business, but in data storage business. Once the project is finished (it states clearly in my contract) the paying party is responsible for their data staorage. This also protects me from eventual data loss issues. Storing project on your own HDD's exposes you to liability, and you are basically giving services away- unless you reflect storage in the price of the project.

Really?

I'm fairly confident that all of us post a fee in our contract for archive and backup. In fact, I mark it up. Now think what kind of line item you are submitting for storage when shooting a BMC vs a house that is shooting say AVCHD? There are many forms of clients out there ranging from a wedding video to a broadcast documentary. So generalizing what is right and wrong varies greatly. Say you're bidding on a corporate video and shooting BMC and the other house shoots a compressed codec. You line item storage out and it cost $2400 and the other guy is shooting 5d and charges $250. That right there might just cost you the weeks work. You can tell them that your camera is better all you want. Your reel has to back that up against the price you submit in the bid.

See, with a camera like the AF100, FSsony, 5d, C100/300 you can easily backup source files and edit in proxy. With something like the BMC shooting RAW, your source file is 5MB's per frame. Like I said, 6gb a minute at top framerate and that's just the DNG. Start adding the space for your transcodes and what not and it add's up very quickly. For some people it works. For others it doesn't.

Not everyone here is shooting narratives, BMW commercials, or a broadcast sitcoms. We all want the best image we can get. But it's a business and these line items become a very competitive aspect of getting the work or not. From the wedding shooter all the way to the BMW commercial shooter.

 

[dustylense]

Thanks for the breakdown, very helpful. I suppose I could have just done some math but your real world example is better. Did you shoot raw because you wanted to or did the client request it? On a job that required/requested RAW you would just work in a cost for data storage.

I shot RAW because the BMC shoots RAW. If I drive a corvette, should I only top out at 45mph? Sure, you can save gas by shooting Prores and prores works really well in the BMC. But I wanted to take the camera to it's maximum offering in image.

 

[Robert Ruffo]

Sounds like a lot of posters here are not in video/film business, but in data storage business. Once the project is finished (it states clearly in my contract) the paying party is responsible for their data storage. This also protects me from eventual data loss issues. Storing project on your own HDD's exposes you to liability, and you are basically giving services away- unless you reflect storage in the price of the project.

I'm in the customer service business - like all of us are here. Whether you or someone else owns and stores the drives, it's still a cost, and that cost varies based on which cameras you recommend. This is a reason why Alexa with ProRes is often chosen over Red Epic - easy/cheap storage and easy/cheap playback. This is often the case even in very high end situations.

 

[Robert Ruffo]

It's not an obvious issue, but it's definitely there with handheld footage. It's not so much the pans as it is the jello that can really hurt shots.

It has never been a problem for us, not even once. CMOS with mild skew was good enough for many multi-million feature films shot in Red and Alexa. Nobody noticed nor cared.

 

[dustylense]

I'm in the customer service business - like all of us are here. Whether you or someone else owns and stores the drives, it's still a cost, and that cost varies based on which cameras you recommend. This is a reason why Alexa with ProRes is often chosen over Red Epic - easy/cheap storage and easy/cheap playback.

exactly. I've bid on many jobs only to lose to some guy shooting on a much inferior camera. Clients look at bottom line item costs and take that into consideration greatly. Questions like "Why is your archiving fee so expensive?" You can explain it all you want over the phone. But do this, go talk to your Uncle or somebody and start telling them about bit rates and compression and they will look at you with that dazed expression. You have to expect that there are many potential clients with that very same mentality. Now if you are bidding on a BMW spot, you might get more understanding of these costs. But like I said, there are all sorts of things to film at all levels. Not everything in the world is shot in 4k or even on Alexa.

 

[Sfernald]

Really?

I'm fairly confident that all of us post a fee in our contract for archive and backup. In fact, I mark it up. Now think what kind of line item you are submitting for storage when shooting a BMC vs a house that is shooting say AVCHD? There are many forms of clients out there ranging from a wedding video to a broadcast documentary. So generalizing what is right and wrong varies greatly. Say you're bidding on a corporate video and shooting BMC and the other house shoots a compressed codec. You line item storage out and it cost $2400 and the other guy is shooting 5d and charges $250. That right there might just cost you the weeks work. You can tell them that your camera is better all you want. Your reel has to back that up against the price you submit in the bid.

See, with a camera like the AF100, FSsony, 5d, C100/300 you can easily backup source files and edit in proxy. With something like the BMC shooting RAW, your source file is 5MB's per frame. Like I said, 6gb a minute at top framerate and that's just the DNG. Start adding the space for your transcodes and what not and it add's up very quickly. For some people it works. For others it doesn't.

Not everyone here is shooting narratives, BMW commercials, or a broadcast sitcoms. We all want the best image we can get. But it's a business and these line items become a very competitive aspect of getting the work or not. From the wedding shooter all the way to the BMW commercial shooter.

Isn't that what makes the BCC so amazing in that you can use ProRes whenever you want for the fastest workflow and best image combination in town. When I had a C100 and I brought in AVCHD footage into FCPX usually if I had the time I would have it transcode to ProRes because it worked so much more efficiently with that type of footage. This could take hours depending on the amount of footage and wasted drive space. It seems like BCC wins the codec wars so I don't see what people are complaining about.

If you need RAW, RAW DNGS are amazing. It is like having a virtual negative. I love opening up individual frames in Photoshop and processing them by hand. It is amazing what you can do with them. The bare metal power and flexibility of having each frame editable in Photoshop is unbelievable. There was a day when people would scratch the actual film negative to create effects. Now you can do ANYTHING to your footage in Photoshop one RAW frame at a time.

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

Dustylens and Rubert Ruffo have got it exactly.

I wold like to add to that that I don't open myself to exposure when I store footage. But I do open myself to repeat business when my client calls back and asks me to send them a video in a different format, or if they need to incorporate some footage into another project, they want to re-edit for a different purpose, etc.

Most of my clients would just take a SD or CF card, or a drive of footage and throw it in a drawer. They would not know what to do with it, and they might not be able to find it later on. I guess that is their problem unless it is a client I work with repeatedly, then it may become my problem.

Obviously data storage costs must be accounted for no matter if you store footage or whether you hand it off to the client, and that is what I am discussing, not who should be in possession of it after a project is complete. However, storage during a project is important too.

 

[snowblindfilm]

People choose my services not because of the cost, but because they like my work. If people just care about the cost, it is not a good match. They will also look for a cheaper car mechanic, cheaper restaurant or other cheaper services. I offer a level of value- people like it or not. If not- move on- open a space for someone else. And I don't let them dictate what equipment I use. You don't go to a car mechanic and tell them what wrenches to use. I don't see why it should be different. And I choose a car mechanic based upon quality. A lot of times the cheapest quote did not get the job done. I present to to client exactly in these terms.

 

[Kenneth Fisher]

People choose my services not because of the cost, but because they like my work. If people just care about the cost, it is not a good match. They will also look for a cheaper car mechanic, cheaper restaurant or other cheaper services. I offer a level of value- people like it or not. If not- move on- open a space for someone else. And I don't let them dictate what equipment I use. You don't go to a car mechanic and tell them what wrenches to use. I don't see why it should be different. And I choose a car mechanic based upon quality. A lot of times the cheapest quote did not get the job done. I present to to client exactly in these terms.

So let me get this straight:

1) Your clients don't care about cost!
2) If a potential client cares about the cost of a project you tell them to move on!
3) You use the gear you want to use on a project, period! Budgets don't affect the equipment choices you make, the way they do for production teams ranging from wedding shooters all the way through 100 million dollar movies!

***

I wish I was that much of a badass. It makes me wonder why you are even concerned about the Black Magic cameras and not just shooting with an Epic, Alexa, or film on every project?

Unfortunately, since I am not Spike Jonze, I bid on projects and try to tailor my effort, including time and equipment, to a given budget.

I don't take every project, especially if the client is trying to get steak on a hamburger budget, but I do try to work with potential clients to see if I can come to an agreement that leaves them with good work and me with good profit.

I am hoping that with time, I can walk into my potential clients office and say: My name is Ken Fisher, don't even think about discussing fees or budgets, take or leave it!

But I am just not there yet.

P.S. I don't think your car mechanic metaphor matches up that well to what we are discussing. In fact, most of what you wrote has very little to do with the discussion of storage costs that I initiated.