HMC40 for a Documentary Film: Storage and ect.

N

Nono

Member
Hallo everybody, first of all thanks for posting, sharing, discussing and helping people out, this community is really fantastic and truly important in a lot of ways, for a lot of people.
This is my situation: In a couple of weeks I'll travel to South of Italy to shoot a documentary film in a little town, the main topic will be about a candidate who's running for mayor and his campain, plus the city itself in this circumstances and the people living in it.
I order the HMC40. I don't have any doubt that is the right camera for me, I can't go SD and I want to make this project in HD, I was looking a lot into different cameras but my DVX100B served me so well that I do trust Panasonic and I feel confortable keep going and working on their machines.
My question is how should I behave with the datas. Is the first important project where I'm not using tapes and I'm a bit nervous, because its new I guess, that's all.
How should I store the material, back ups, how much memory do I need?
I came back from Mexico recently where I shot, in two months, more then 50 hours of material. I'm figuring that down in Italy will be just the double or even more. How can I prepair my self? Compressions, memory, space? It could be a problem? I would like to know how you people cope with that, if you back the material up on different hard disks and so on. The support is a bit weird, because you use always almost the same memory cards and in the end you got everything in a hard disk, that's quite spooky.
Thanks a lot in advance. Maybe is a stupid question or is obvious but you may come up with something useful afterall.
Thanks a lot and kind regards.
 
Nono,

Great camera choice. I've been very impressed with my HMC40 and hope you will be too.

As you know AVCHD is highly compressed, so is very space efficient by nature. However, if you convert for editing, your files can become much larger. The workflow that works for me is as follows:

Copy MTS files from SDHC card to computer.
Backup MTS files from computer to portable hard drive.
Erase SDHC card and reuse.
Edit MTS files directly with Vegas Pro 9.0 so no conversion is needed.

Your mileage may vary, but I'm sure you'll work it out and enjoy your new camera.

Best Regards,
Dan
 
First, before I get into the answer....

When shooting in Europe with an HMC40 or any other place with 50 HZ power; remember to use a shutter speed of 1/50 or 1/100 of a second for your video. Otherwise, florescent, LED, and neon lights will flicker badly in the video.

Those who shoot in the US, Canada, Mexico, or any place with 60 Hz power using an HMC41, need to remember to use a shutter speed of 1/60 or 1/120 to avoid the same flicker problem.


Protecting your video files:

Have more than 1 copy of your data. While it's nice to have all the data on the laptop's drive, 320 GB --> 1 TB USB drives are reasonably priced and provide a nice place for a second copy of your data.

Now it's only fair to point out that IF you drop a hard drive or your laptop, chances are that your drive is trashed. That is the risk of using a hard drive. I've never dropped a hard drive, but accidents do happen at the worst time...

Several users have selected 8 GB SDHC cards, because 8 GB of data fits nicely on a DL DVD. OK, the 8.5 GB DL DVDs cost a lot more per GB than the single layer 4.7 GB DVDs, but it's only around $1 or $2 for a blank DL DVD. I'm assuming that your laptop can burn DL DVDs or you purchase a USB DVD Drive that can burn DL DVDs.

Figure that 8 GB gets you about 45 minutes (0.75 hours) of material. If you have 100 hours of material, that would require about 134 DL DVDs. Well over 1 TB of data.

To be safe, you would need 2 (or several) USB Drives and 134 (or more) blank DL 8.5 GB DVDs. As well as cases for your disks.


IMPORTANT, REGARDING MEMORY CARDS:

I'm sure we have another thread where people talked about which memory card to use. Avoid getting the cheap cards. Cheap cards are VERY likely to fail.

No matter which memory card you purchase...

STEP 1: Format the card in the camera.

STEP 2: Record anything to the card. Try several clips...

STEP 3: Try playing back anything from the card.

STEP 4: Repeat steps 1 --> 4 several times for each card.

Why do this? Because if a memory card is going to fail, they tend to fail early in their product life. While this is not 100% perfect, it might catch a failure BEFORE you shoot anything important.

Always format the card in the camera, never format the card in your computer.


I hope this helps...


Bob Diaz
 
If you don't often shoot clips that exceed 20min of non-stop footage, using 4GB SDHC cards and then simply copying the entire contents of the cards to single layer DVDs is both simple and very inexpensive (about 50 cents/hour of footage if you purchase 100 disk spindles from Newegg, when they have good rebate deals w/free shipping - which is often). Burn (and verify) at least 2 copies.

You can do the same thing with 8GB cards and dual layer DVDs (as Bob mentioned), but getting good burns with dual layer DVDs is considerably less consistent (yielding more coasters) than with single layer DVDs, and I have some doubts that dual layer DVDs are as reliable a medium of storage either. Btw, you can get dual layer DVDs for a little under $1/ea nowadays (in spindles of 25 or more), if you watch for good sales at Newegg.

I have a 4GB, 8GB and 32GB SDHC cards. I almost always shoot with a 4GB card though, because I seldom do go over 20 minutes of continuous recording and it is so easy and convenient to store the footage on single layer DVDs that way.

For folks who regularly need to shoot clips that go over 40 minutes of continuous footage (or simply want to wind up with fewer disks to store), I suggest considering storing the original footage on single layer Blu-Ray disks. Blank single layer Blu-Ray disks have come down in price enough, that if you buy them in bulk (like spindles of 15 or more), the cost (per hour of footage) is roughly in the same neighborhood as the cost of dual layer DVDs. I've seen spindles of 15 Memorex BD-Rs for $35 w/free shipping at Newegg at least once recently, and the user feedback on those disks is just excellent thus far.
 
dan.carter said:
Nono,

Great camera choice. I've been very impressed with my HMC40 and hope you will be too.

Copy MTS files from SDHC card to computer.
Backup MTS files from computer to portable hard drive.
Erase SDHC card and reuse.
Edit MTS files directly with Vegas Pro 9.0 so no conversion is needed.



Thanks a lot everybody, is already what I need. Dan, I use final cut pro for editing. You do mean I hope I'll need additional disk space when editing, so this mean when in production times what I have to do is make copies of the files in the card without log them in the Editing program, then when cutting the film then the space will be a little issue to solve in terms or disk space, is this correct?

Thanks Bob, actually I'll shoot with the PAL version of the camera, but I do remember to have seen this flicker problem in Mexico that I fixed just like you said, with shutter speeds.

I guess I'll do that with single layer DVD and a portable Hard disk and when editing I'll need some additional space. Cool, is fair I guess.

Thanks a lot everybody, really thanks.
Click to expand...
 
Nono,
I'm also a Final Cut user. Here's my tip. Download the Panasonic AVCCAMViewer program from Panasonic's website, here's why:

When you load footage into Final Cut, you greatly expand the file size (you're converting it into Apple Intermediate, or ProRes422.) You can use the AVCCAMViewer program to copy the native AVCHD files, in their original and much smaller form, to your computer, and then back them up to a hard drive and/or DVDs. You can then later go back and "capture" these files into FCP. This way you'll need much less disk space to store your footage and you get really quick and easy backups.

Hope this helps.
 
Hallo ShugPro,
Thanks a lot, this sounds like a really good tip, so I'll be able to have all the data there and backed up, this sound cool. Thanks a lot everybody.
Nono
 
Can someone chime in here on how well editing native MTS files works. Don't you have to have a monster 8 core machine?? AVCHD was never designed be editable. Sure any dual core machine can play it back (VLC on the MAC and native in Windows 7) but I'm wondering how well editing it works out.
 
thabo said:
Can someone chime in here on how well editing native MTS files works. Don't you have to have a monster 8 core machine?? AVCHD was never designed be editable. Sure any dual core machine can play it back (VLC on the MAC and native in Windows 7) but I'm wondering how well editing it works out.
Click to expand...
I use sony vegas pro 9. WOrks great.
my system however is the i7 920 with 12gb of DDR3 ram.
 
Works like crap for me on Pinnacle. I got the Edios program with the 40 but it doesn't do much really.
Following several threads on other forums for editing software and even the quad cores with 12gb of ram are having a tough time with avchd. Thats my experience with researching anyway.
If I dont do much with the .mts, its manageable. I can output the depositions that I do with a basic title somewhat OK. I have to lock the sound track before dropping in the transition or it gets wonky.
But if you want to cut up clips, use overlay track, transitions, etc, then you are hurting with a rig like mine. I convert to mpg2 and move on. Nothing I am doing is high def anyway. I dont even know anyone with a Blu Ray.
Its going to depend on your output I believe. To DVD? convert to mpg.
 
Robert M Wright said:
If you don't often shoot clips that exceed 20min of non-stop footage, using 4GB SDHC cards and then simply copying the entire contents of the cards to single layer DVDs is both simple and very inexpensive (about 50 cents/hour of footage if you purchase 100 disk spindles from Newegg, when they have good rebate deals w/free shipping - which is often). Burn (and verify) at least 2 copies.
Click to expand...

Definitely true... though I don't know about carrying along a stack of DVDs while travelling. My transfers go directly to my laptop (built-in SDHC card reader is nice, too, and I have dual 640GB drives on this bad boy). If I had enough to shoot on a long trip, I'd drag along a spare USB drive. But I strongly recommend the laptop, simply because it's easy, and you get a viewer to tag along. At some point in time, this might change to one of these forthcoming tablets, but only once they have some decent internal storage.

For backpacking, I just keep everything on SDHC, and hope that's enough. I've also done that with HDV tape, but the SDs travel much better, and the camera is less likely to break when you drop it. No, I don't take the HMC40 backpacking... I have a cheapish Sanyo FH1 for that.

Robert M Wright said:
You can do the same thing with 8GB cards and dual layer DVDs (as Bob mentioned), but getting good burns with dual layer DVDs is considerably less consistent (yielding more coasters) than with single layer DVDs, and I have some doubts that dual layer DVDs are as reliable a medium of storage either.
Click to expand...
Definitely agree here... DLs are kind of questionable in burining, and not always easy to find. And not cheap... I can get BD25s for less cash per byte stored (about $1.80 each in cakeboxes lately). At home, I store on a project HDD for new stuff, make copies on my RAID, and archive on BD-R rather than DVD.

Robert M Wright said:
Btw, you can get dual layer DVDs for a little under $1/ea nowadays (in spindles of 25 or more), if you watch for good sales at Newegg.
Click to expand...

Way, way under. I generally buy 200-500 disc stacks, Taiyo Yuden, printable, and get 'em for under $0.30 each. That's DVD5's, not DVD9s.


I always shoot on 16GB or 32GB SDHC cards. Until we get to SDXC and exFAT, the camera's going to break up the files into 4GB chunks anyway, so there's no advantage to using a smaller card. Well, maybe for organizational purposes. And I also shoot shows, regularly... plays and concerts. 32GB cards are the best thing since 83 minute HDV tapes, if you need the time!


Robert M Wright said:
For folks who regularly need to shoot clips that go over 40 minutes of continuous footage (or simply want to wind up with fewer disks to store), I suggest considering storing the original footage on single layer Blu-Ray disks. Blank single layer Blu-Ray disks have come down in price enough, that if you buy them in bulk (like spindles of 15 or more), the cost (per hour of footage) is roughly in the same neighborhood as the cost of dual layer DVDs. I've seen spindles of 15 Memorex BD-Rs for $35 w/free shipping at Newegg at least once recently, and the user feedback on those disks is just excellent thus far.
Click to expand...

Yup. You will pay more for the BD-R drive, but it's worthwile anyway, if you're shooting HD, you eventually may want a delivery medium worthy of your camcorder. That would be Blu-Ray. I did my first wedding Blu-Ray in 2006, even though I didn't actually have the BD-R drive until 2008 (I waited until the format war concluded... back then, the drives ran around $400).
 
Kimchoc said:
Works like crap for me on Pinnacle. I got the Edios program with the 40 but it doesn't do much really.
Following several threads on other forums for editing software and even the quad cores with 12gb of ram are having a tough time with avchd. Thats my experience with researching anyway.
If I dont do much with the .mts, its manageable. I can output the depositions that I do with a basic title somewhat OK. I have to lock the sound track before dropping in the transition or it gets wonky.
But if you want to cut up clips, use overlay track, transitions, etc, then you are hurting with a rig like mine. I convert to mpg2 and move on. Nothing I am doing is high def anyway. I dont even know anyone with a Blu Ray.
Its going to depend on your output I believe. To DVD? convert to mpg.
Click to expand...
WOW! Really? I must have a gifted rig then. Mine seriously is like night and day when I had my IMAC 3.06 duo core and my Quad 6600. I have the corsair Dominator memory. I wonder if that made a difference.
 
JoeJITSU said:
I use sony vegas pro 9. WOrks great.
my system however is the i7 920 with 12gb of DDR3 ram.
Click to expand...
== monster rig :)

I have quad-core AMD machine, but at 2.4GHz it is a bit slow for 24/30 fps (cuts are especially painful) and way too slow for 60 fps (gets about 40-45 fps on 1080p60 footage from the TM700). I suppose that for Vegas sheer clock rate is more important than number of cores.
 
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