HD Mini-DV Tapes...

smier33

smier33

Active member
Okay, so I think what I've gathered is that the only way to record true HD with the HVX will be to stream it, or Firestore, or put up the cash for the P2 cards.

My question is: is there any hint that Panasonic will release some sort of a HD tape that would be compatible? Or is that the same thing as the Sony HDV tapes? Is there any possible way that in the future someone can record to a tape, while still being able to utilize the HD settings?
 
MiniDV tapes are basically bound to their data rate (25 Mb/s) by a number of physical factors. HDV falls within the limits of miniDV (either 19 or 25 Mb/s) by the use of an aggressive compression algorithm (long GOP MPEG II).

DVCPro is either a 50 or 100 Mb/s stream and can not be made written to a miniDV tape in real time, and in the case of the HVX, the presence of a miniDV mechanism is exclusively to provide a backwards compatible system for SD recording. Development of a better tape would still not allow an HVX to record DVCPro to miniDV as the capability of the mechanism does not allow for the necessary higher data rate (not to mention that there are no supporting standards for this type of use).

P2 or an external HDD is the only path that the HVX will support for non SD recording.
 
They've already released tape that is compatible. It's called DVCPRO-HD tape. Of course, a deck is $25,000 and the individual tapes are $50 each. This is real HD, not HDV, and real HD costs big bucks.
 
Okay, so, sorry. That may of been a premature post.

After further exploring the details on both tapes, I think the price difference is in relevance of how much time each tape can record. But still, $75 a tape is a lot. Where are these tapes $50 for the 63-minute ones? Also, how many uses could one tape get?

Theoretically, could you use the same tape for several different shoots and just record over it after you have the data on a hard drive somewhere else? I know it would degrade over time, but approximately how many times could something like that be done before you started to really lose a lot of quality? I realize it's just going to be very expensive overall, but hey -- I gotta try and cut corners somewhere.
 
smier33 said:
Theoretically, could you use the same tape for several different shoots and just record over it . . .
Click to expand...

I may be a little paranoid but I can't imagine anyone on a professional shoot using old tape (unless they're doing their kids birthday party or something like that). Nice thing about the P2's is there's no degradation, over and over and over . . .
 
Right -- you're describing the P2 workflow, but wanting to stick to tape. You can't. A tape drive for this format costs $21,000 -- the parts alone would cost $16,000. It's not an option. If you want to be cabled via firewire to a DVCPRO-HD tape deck I guess you could, but if I was going to be cabled to something I'd much rather be cabled to a FireStore or HD Rack.
 
you do not under any circumstances want to re-use tape for any video projects.

ok maybe some but those would be for rare things like you are experimenting and dont care about he drop outs that WILL occur when you reuse tape. just because these tapes cost 50x more than your typical VHS tape does not mean they are more robust. recording to tape is a very fragile process even though its a rather old technology.

as barry points out it seems as if you are imagining what is the P2 workflow but still using tape. put up the cash for a single 4GB card and experiment with that until the firestore comes out. you wont wear out any tape heads or have dirty rollers or tape dropouts.
 
Yeah, I have no real push to re-use tapes; I've never done it before. But then again, I've never paid $50 for a DV tape, so...

But, I have looked into this Firestore, and I think that sort of sounds like the most viable option for now. At least until the P2 prices come down. From what I've read online, it sounds like the Firestore is already out, though. Is it not?
 
the firestore for the HVX camera is not out yet. there are other firestore devices for miniDV and HDV use out now, but nothing for the DVCPro codec yet.
 
When I used to shoot for a small tv station we were running DVCPro25 through AJ-D400 cameras. We were creating about 20 hours of programming a month and had a tape archive that numbered in the 10s of thousands (tons of money sitting on the shelf). For cost savings and since we were a closed loop system (shooting, editorial, and broadcast under one roof) we were able to successfully reuse DVCPro tapes without a major incidence of glitches up to 3 times. We did extensive testing and found that 5 times was possible but the error rate started to become a problem. We had 100 shoot tapes in use at all times on a rotating basis. They would go from the degauser to the raw tape pile, be filled with glorious footage, move to post, then either be stored for the archive (if it was archive worthy footage) at which point a brand new tape would take its place. Otherwise it would sit on the shelf waiting for the 99 tapes after it to run through the cycle at which point it was marked, degaused and run again. This system has been in place for about 6 years now and when last I spoke with the stations engineer, they are still happy with it. But P2 might change it all. For a facility like this, P2 really is a major cost savings.

Note that this was done in a professional facility after extensive testing and a concious descision was made between acceptable risk and the cost savings. Make no mistake, recycling tape is a very risky proposition and in most cases is not worth it.

-David C. Smith
LA / OC D.P.
 
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