Help Explain The Storage Issue!

S

SquidLips

Well-known member
Okay, I am starting to get all the pros and cons of the new line of HD cams coming out, but one thing is still throwing me: storage. Can someone help simplify the storage alternatives of the HVX, JVC and the XLH1? All other things aside, which one is offering the easier (cheaper) HD storage possibilities? Some say one will cost more because of extra equipment required or maybe the type of HD (which also confuses me) is worse/better on another.

I will be shooting mostly narrative films so I think the HVX is what I'll be getting but am confused as to all the future requirements for actually using it.

Any simple answers for the non-tech guy?
 
Easiest would be HDV I guess. You just hold on to the tapes. Well, that's mainly archivewise then.
As for storage, DVCproHD will take up more space then HDV (do a search or ask Barry to find out how much). But everything needs to be stored on harddisk so it's more or less the same.
For archiving it's another deal. I think I would use harddisks there aswell. If you copy important stuff to two separate ones you've got a bigger chance to win the lottery then losing your footage IMO. ;) Like I said HDV goes on inexpensive DVtape so you can hold on to those. But if you're willing to spend some money you could get a second hand LTO deck and back up to that. Safe as hell for many years to come.
 
Hi Oliver, thanks for that but I guess I was wondering if one could break down the following three cameras options for storage and what the pros and cons are? All the HDV, DVCPro, etc. is making me dizzy and not sure which one of those formats is on tape, disc, requires other hardware, etc.

Panasonic HVX200

Canon XL H1

JVC HD100
 
Okay, here it goes...
The canon and the JVC have the same workflow. Shoot to tape and digitize that. DV and HDV to tape. A mac/pc with a recent NLE should do the trick.
For the HVX, its a bit more complicated. DV to tape or P2. Everything upwards to P2. So no digitizing. Off course P2 is expensive, but robust and reliable. Here again recent soft- and hardware should work fine. Keep in mind that you'll need (quite a lot) more storage room for HD shot with the HVX.
There is an alternative for all the cameras: the firestore. A portable hdd made for the road that has proven to be good quality. This could be a way around digitizing HDV for the canon and jvc or, for the hvx, serve as a temporary solution until P2 gets bigger and cheaper.
Hope this helps...
 
You should be able to do that with others aswell right?
But unless you can have a cart or a table near you during the shoot its not an option I think. I'm speaking from a more run and gun kinda perspective that is...
 
Yeah, for run and gun with the HVX, the Firestore or P2 is the way to go.

HVX with firestore should cost less than $8000.
 
With P2 there is no built in archive or backup strategy. It's left up to you. This get's overlooked with P2. Since there are no tape archives you'll have to store the files on hard drives or you can come up with another alternative.

Also there is the question about mastering your P2 content once the project is complete. You'll want to master in the native codec. You'll have to decide where you want to send your masters to electronically. Since there is not tape drive to master to, you could rent a deck and master back to DVCPro tape or you could export your project to more storage space for safe keeping. There are decisions to be made with P2 simply because there is no built in way to store the data or masters like there is with tape.

This is not my opinion but Panasonic's own published workflow on their web site. Their intention with P2 is that you have an Archive server (data content) and a Material server (index database with pointers to the archived content). Now Panasonic, as I understand it, will bundle the P2 viewer program with all P2 cameras which will allow indexing of content. Still the archive must be provided by you.

I posted in the middle of this thread two rather large workflows for HDV and P2. Have a look at it. It may help Click HERE


With HDV, you've go the archive on the tape and you can master to a tape. So in essence, with HDV your workflow is nearly identicle to DV25.
 
Lets say for HVX HD footage once it is time to back up final projects what are your options. With DV you have tape. Besides having multiple HD to back up on is there a tape alternative for DVCpro. I saw mention of an LTO deck what is that exactly.
 
I touched on this issue myself. What I said was the one thing to consider is storage. Where are you going to store all that great footage. Think about it. One or two hours of tape is about equal to a days worth of work. 1 minute is about equal to 1 gig of storage with the HVX right? You're going to need a raid to really get down with this camera.

Now if you've got a terabyte drive or a good raid system this camera is all you. A big terabyte raid could cost an extra $5,000 - $10,000. Now if you're working in HDV, you can buy a 1 terabyte drive for about $1000 and a 80 gig Firestore which holds about 3 hours of 1080/24p HDV. You can put you whole film on the drive (in the end you're looking at about 60 - 100 hours or more that you're going to pull you 90 or 120 minutes of footage from.

Let's be conservative and say 60 hours. 3600 minutes of footage so you'll need a 4000gig. Now a whole DV project can be stored on a 250 - 500gb drive. If HDV specs are accurate a 1TB external drive should hold your whole HDV project plus. Even at the $9000 price tag you're looking at $9000, $1000 (80 gig Firestore), and another $1000 for the harddrive if you buy a 1TB drive. so all and all you're looking at $11,000. That's a difference of $5000 or more in end user cost based on the Raid system you buy (don't forget you're going to need an inexpensive HD monitor either way). Is my math right on this?

My only concern is how motion looks in HDV and if film output is good. There's been some complaints about the motion but if you remember some people said the motion on the original XL and the DVX wasn't so good, but most people didn't see a problem and these became the top two cameras used by indie filmmakers. It's something to think about.

-Nate
 
Indeed the HVX will bring extra storage and archive costs.
But you can put your master on harddisk and get it mastered somewhere. That should cost less then hiring a deck. And for archive, as I said, I'll be archiving on harddisk aswel. For relly important stuff I put the same data on two different disks. That should get you going for 5 to 10 years. And LTO is a datacompression tape archive system. In this case the video won't be compressed, and the deck will set you back a few thousand. But the tape is affordable and holds up to the years very well.
 
This is a good discussion about workflow. Now I'm not pushing the JVC, I'm just linking so that you'll have a chance to look at the possible workflows for HDV. On the left hand side of the linked page there is a list of "Applications" Click on the links and a workflow will be displayed at the bottom of the page.

Click on "Applications" on the left
 
I think the rough part right now is the camera price is declining (HVX) but the storage solutions have not....yet. Until the P2 cards and Drives come down in price, HD will not be a sustainable or cost effective work flow for most. HDV is a short term answer but for me personally I could not imagine not shooting with the panasonic. For that very reason is why I am so glad they did add a miniDV tape option. This will give us a chance to transition over and have both to start. I may stay with DV for the first year of the HVX and use HD when I can. Or more importantly when the client needs it. The format for me is only worth what I can get my clients to pay for.
 
OliverM said:
Indeed the HVX will bring extra storage and archive costs.
But you can put your master on harddisk and get it mastered somewhere. That should cost less then hiring a deck. And for archive, as I said, I'll be archiving on harddisk aswel. For relly important stuff I put the same data on two different disks. That should get you going for 5 to 10 years. And LTO is a datacompression tape archive system. In this case the video won't be compressed, and the deck will set you back a few thousand. But the tape is affordable and holds up to the years very well.
Click to expand...

My problem is I like masters to be tape. My problem is HD space. I do believe if one was to shoot a film on the HVX would a 1 terabyte drive be enough to hold the footage. 1 TB is 1000Gigs so I guess that would hold about 1000 minutes of 1080/24p footage (16 hours at 1080/24p or about 32 hours at 720/24p) but a film could easily need 60 hours or more of footage. The HVX looks good but we're talking about a 5 or 6 TB set up. With HDV a 1TB drive can hold maybe two or three hundred hours of HDV footage. Right now the Canon is looking real good although I am looking at the JVC again but I don't think I'd buy it knowing it may have that split screen/hot pixel problem. Even masked it's annoying to know it's there.

-Nate
 
Boomerang said:
I think the rough part right now is the camera price is declining (HVX) but the storage solutions have not....yet. Until the P2 cards and Drives come down in price, HD will not be a sustainable or cost effective work flow for most. HDV is a short term answer but for me personally I could not imagine not shooting with the panasonic. For that very reason is why I am so glad they did add a miniDV tape option. This will give us a chance to transition over and have both to start. I may stay with DV for the first year of the HVX and use HD when I can. Or more importantly when the client needs it. The format for me is only worth what I can get my clients to pay for.
Click to expand...

This is rational thinking to me and irrational all in the same breath. Let me explain:

It's rational in the fact that using the miniDV capability of the camera until storage solutions are affordable and a full workflow can be established is reasonable. I think this is the intention from the beginning. I can loosely quote J. Crittenden "This is a transition camera, from DV25 to DVCProHD". There is a lot of sense to that rational.

HOWEVER

It's irrational in the fact that there are many high calibur miniDV camera's on the market right now at a much lower price. It doesn't make sense to buy an HVX unless you intent to shoot a higher codec than DV25. This reintroduces all of the needed additions to support the workflow. Namely a P2 card (even a 2G card).

That brings the equation back to the good old Time/Resources/Money triangle. You could hedge with the miniDV on the HVX and buy time to build the resources to support P2. The key is time. The more time you take to build you P2 workflow the less it will cost. If you don't have time and you want the full solution right away, it will cost more.

HDV-You know the workflow already. At most you'd need a more powerful computer to handle the HDV but other than that. The workflow is pretty much set.
 
Okay....so shooting HD on one camera (HVX) is not as cost effective because you are recording to the P2s instead of tape?

Does the HVX record to tape? Just at a lower res (720)?

How does one camera, recording at the same res as another, require less or more storage on a RAID deck for instance?

And is this firestore deck something that digitizes or down converts HD? Would it work as a player with HD tapes (say I was shooting on an F900 and needed something to download footage to an edit system)?

Is the HVX capable of shooting to a P2 (HD at 1080) and a tape (720)?

Thanks in advance as some of the descriptions get a little "deep" for my pea brain, but I am getting some of it.
 
Okay, so the HVX will shoot the exact same thing as the DVX on tape (plus variable frame rates) and then will also do the 1080 res HD on the P2 discs? But is this Firestore another available alternate capture device for the 1080 on the HVX?
 
stephenlnoe said:
Since there are no tape archives you'll have to store the files on hard drives or you can come up with another alternative.
Click to expand...
There are many alternatives. You can store it wherever you like. You can store it on DVDs or on blu-ray or HD-DVD or on DLT or LTO tape or on hard disks or on DVCPRO-HD tape...

In fact, if you wanted to get silly about it, you could always archive it onto HDV tape too. I mean, if you're satisfied enough with the quality of HDV to trust it to shoot your original footage, surely you'd think highly enough of it to use it to archive your footage, right? I wouldn't, I'm just saying it's a possibility.

Also there is the question about mastering your P2 content once the project is complete. You'll want to master in the native codec.
Click to expand...
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you want to master to your delivery codec. Maybe you want to master to uncompressed for some reason, or to a visually lossless codec. Not sure what you're getting at there...
 
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