EX 1 XDCAM storage

R

Roca

Member
hey guys,

So ive recently started a thread asking about how come the gh1 footage takes up so much more space on hard drive space than on the sd card... as i suspected, when coded to prores the computer has to create the frames that arent there with avchd...

Im about to shoot a doc on the ex1 all around the country, where back storage is extremly important since we will be shooting TONS of footage a day... (by tons i mean 30 hours worth during 12 days at least)

Does the XDCAM codec work similar? WHat should I expect here in order to be 100% safe about this?

Thank you all once again...
 
You will have the same experience with the XDCAM codec. If you work with it natively it's a tidy 35Mbps. If you transcode to an intra-frame codec, file sizes will be much larger. You could always transcode when you get back.
 
for sure, just archive the master footage in its origonal state, not the transcoded. Same goes for the AVCHD, unless you need to edit it while away, just archive the origonal stuff and transcode later...

XDCAM EX is easier to edit natively than AVCHD as well, so that might be an option for you too
 
Robert Ruffo said:
Just curious, what is your doc about?
Click to expand...

Ah, actually very excited... this singer is coming to the US to do a 12 day tour, and a crew of 3 people (myself included obviously) will be following him around through LA, Las Vegas, SanFran, San Diego, Mexico City....

Thank you all for your replies, I feel pretty confident with everything regarding cinematography and composition, but when it comes to technical computer aspects, i get sort of lost...

So i guess you guys are suggesting just dumping the content of the cards, as oposed to use log and transfer in final cut, which inevitably means transcoding? The only thing would be... i wouldnt generate .mov files that way, to preview and such, would I?
 
Roca said:
So i guess you guys are suggesting just dumping the content of the cards, as oposed to use log and transfer in final cut, which inevitably means transcoding? The only thing would be... i wouldnt generate .mov files that way, to preview and such, would I?
Click to expand...

Definitely make the card contents your long term backups. Then you can always import to any format and any NLE in the future. Previews can easily be done from those files using Sony's XDCAM Clip Browser or I prefer XDCAM Transfer for full resolution playback.

No transcoding is necessary in the XDCAM workflow. The transfer process from camera files to video files is more of a quick re-wrap than a transcode. That's why it can be done so quickly. I've got close to 9x real time using eSATA drives.
 
There's never been a better time to develop an optical storage product that has 60GB or better capacity, and can be written in under an hour. If that format were to hit the market, at under $500 for the drive and $7 for the media, it would be the answer to all our storage woes.
 
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