After 3 days of DVExpo and some good conversations with Barry and Company, here's a workflow idea for you all to poke holes in for me. This is for a location (not studio) based documentary or indie film with final delivery on film. This presumes 720/24P Native Mode (for film finish), recording 20 minutes to an 8 Gig Card:
1). Shoot HVX to P2 Cards (or Firestore device).
2). Immediately download to G4 Laptop (120G internal ATA) on set, erase Card and keep shooting.
3). At lunch time or end of day, burn all footage from G4 Laptop to DVD (data). 4 Gigs per DVD. Estimate shooting 1 hour per day: 24 Gigs = 6 DVDs @ around $.40 per DVD.
4). Fed-Ex the DVD's back to your production office / edit suite / editor. **THESE DVDs BECOME YOUR ARCHIVE!** Much more stable archive format than using additional firewire drives (which are mechanical and can break). Plus very cheap.
5). Backup your G4 Laptop footage to a G-Drive (500G) on location and then delete all footage from G4 Laptop and shoot Day 2...
6). Wait for your Editor to report that the DVDs have arrived and were downloaded to the NLE. Then erase contents from G-Drive.
7). BACK AT THE EDIT SUITE: The Editor is cutting on a Final Cut Pro system, using an Xserve Raid for up to 7 Terabytes of storage. Lots of storage, but then you're editing in HD. Unlike Firewire Drives, the Xserve Raid is stable enough to run full time with no overheat problems -- you can just leave it ON for the 6 months of Post Production. Setup as RAID-5 for extra protection.
8). Network the XRaid to a 2nd NLE system for the Assistant Editor / 2nd Editor.
9). Cut your movie. Export CUTS ONLY EDL from FCP.
10). Take your EDL and your Xserve Raid to a DI facility. They UNCOMPRESS your footage and reassemble into a color correction system like a Nucoda. Color Correct / add Titles in Uncompressed format.
11). Final Delivery: Film Negative and D5 Master.
1). Shoot HVX to P2 Cards (or Firestore device).
2). Immediately download to G4 Laptop (120G internal ATA) on set, erase Card and keep shooting.
3). At lunch time or end of day, burn all footage from G4 Laptop to DVD (data). 4 Gigs per DVD. Estimate shooting 1 hour per day: 24 Gigs = 6 DVDs @ around $.40 per DVD.
4). Fed-Ex the DVD's back to your production office / edit suite / editor. **THESE DVDs BECOME YOUR ARCHIVE!** Much more stable archive format than using additional firewire drives (which are mechanical and can break). Plus very cheap.
5). Backup your G4 Laptop footage to a G-Drive (500G) on location and then delete all footage from G4 Laptop and shoot Day 2...
6). Wait for your Editor to report that the DVDs have arrived and were downloaded to the NLE. Then erase contents from G-Drive.
7). BACK AT THE EDIT SUITE: The Editor is cutting on a Final Cut Pro system, using an Xserve Raid for up to 7 Terabytes of storage. Lots of storage, but then you're editing in HD. Unlike Firewire Drives, the Xserve Raid is stable enough to run full time with no overheat problems -- you can just leave it ON for the 6 months of Post Production. Setup as RAID-5 for extra protection.
8). Network the XRaid to a 2nd NLE system for the Assistant Editor / 2nd Editor.
9). Cut your movie. Export CUTS ONLY EDL from FCP.
10). Take your EDL and your Xserve Raid to a DI facility. They UNCOMPRESS your footage and reassemble into a color correction system like a Nucoda. Color Correct / add Titles in Uncompressed format.
11). Final Delivery: Film Negative and D5 Master.