immediate storage and archival storage

C

christa@hg80media.com

New member
Hello,

I have just joined this group and I am about to get the HVX200. I have been reading a lot of posts about the firestore and the problems that people have been having with it and I have been wavering between getting one and not getting one. Some of the main issues I have read about were the noisiness of the fan, the instability of the cable, the dropping of the frames, the length of time it takes to transfer the footage to a hard drive, and the short length of the battery. What have been your experiences? Good or bad? I make documentary films and I have just been trying to work out some kind of a workflow before I get started on my next project. Because of the uncertainty of the firestore, I have been thinking of getting 3 P2 cards and the P2 Store (60gigs). Transfering the footage to the P2 Store in the field and if necessary transfering to a macbook pro (120 gigs). I know this option is more expensive, but unless I start hearing better things about the firestore, I am going to have to do this.

Has anyone had any luck with any external PCMI to firewire or USB 2 devices for Mac? I have looked around and can only find ones for PC's.

What are your favourite storage devices for editing with FCP? I am hoping to get 2 - 1 terrabite drives. I have heard that there have been issues with the Lacie. Has anyone had any experiences with these?

Finally, how have people been archiving their projects. I want to be able to keep everything uncompressed and I don't want to dump it to tape as I think that this would defeat the purpose. Has anyone been using DLT and if so what kind? I don't know much about DLT. I have been looking at the drives and the prices vary greatly and I don't really know why. For me it must work with a Mac system.

Thanks so much in advance.
Christa
 
Well good to see you're doing the prudent planning and research ahead of time. I think that's one of the bigger mistakes I've seen from some folk is that they look to figure things out a little too late. And that's not specific to the HVX workflow stuff.

I think firestore, P2 store, laptop in the field, right now, are all somewhat equivalent choices for you. I only say that because it seems like people are having to discuss problems with all of them. Then others turn around and reply that they've loaded hundreds of hours of footage with 'this' or 'that' and haven't had a single issue. So basically, just be prepped to be doing some trouble shooting no matter what you choose (at least that's what I'd take from all the postings I've read here).

As for storage solutions, for the edit itself, again I think you'd be fine with nearly any brand you choose. I love maxtor drives, used them for years and never had even a single hiccup. Others I know curse the name like you wouldn't believe. Same goes with Lacies. Some friends used them and never had a complaint, others have had horror stories. I think hdd's just aren't anywhere close to being a 100% reliable, so just make sure you have a redundant system (Raid 5 seems to be the popular choice now) and that you have good backups.

I think for the PCMIA adaptor for MacBook Pros its coming but not here yet. There was some brief mention about it in a thread a few weeks back I believe. Can't recall though as I'm not a laptop person I didn't pay it too much attention.

And as for the backup/archival stuff, well I 'defeat the purpose' as you put it, so can't really comment on that one myself :).

cheers.
 
I backup all my project MFX files to LTO-2 (tape) after copying them to my workstations drives (3 dedicated, 2 internal, 1 external MEDEA scsi). I found a used (but still in warranty) Dell PowerVault 110T on eBay for $750 and have used it for a couple months without any issues. I have been able to buy the LTO-2 tapes, new, for between 20 and 25 bucks.

The P2Store is, of course, not going to have the features of a laptop. No screen, yadda yadda yadda . . . but that's not what it's designed for. I have both the P2Store with 3 four gig cards, and a laptop. I am working a (presently unfunded) doc and would not leave home without the P2Store. If I needed to capture more than what the P2Store (and three cards) are cable of I would buy an additional P2Store. This permits me to take care of transfering the files at night because I am doing this particular shoot(s) without an assistant. While I have multiple choices for capture I just feel more confident in the P2Store.

This isn't a pitch for the P2Store . . . any number of available solutions should be satisfactory to you -- it's really just a matter of your endorsing a particular workflow that you can support.
 
Here are all three workflows that worked for us.

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060211012205/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060227144825/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060308131936/index.html

In short...P2 cards, bus powered firewire drives in the field for backup, or a P2 Store, then archive onto G-Raids or internal drives that I swap out of a bare firewire case, import onto G-Raids for editing. G-Raids are good because not only are they in an aluminum case, but they are also fan cooled. And they use Hitachi drives.
 
I would say go with p2 store, BUT instead of using a mac for offloading, use a PC. PC is what Panasonic has in their factory and seems to work best. Get a pc laptop with pcmcia card slot you get to use the free viewer software and with PC version of p2 genie you get a good way to offload the store onto external drives Which probably should be fat32 especially if you want to take the stuff into FCP later down the line. That being said I have a mac laptop (which I bought for this camera) and have had some issues myself and heard of others. I have not heard of any in PC land. Imagine that PC a rock solid platform and Mac buggy! what is the world coming to?
 
dregenthal said:
I backup all my project MFX files to LTO-2 (tape) after copying them to my workstations drives (3 dedicated, 2 internal, 1 external MEDEA scsi). I found a used (but still in warranty) Dell PowerVault 110T on eBay for $750 and have used it for a couple months without any issues. I have been able to buy the LTO-2 tapes, new, for between 20 and 25 bucks.

Hi, what is the difference between LTO-2 and DLT? Is LTO-2 better? I am assuming that MFX files are the files that are captured directly by the camera. Sorry about my ignorance.

Christa
Click to expand...
 
Shane Ross said:
Here are all three workflows that worked for us.

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060211012205/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060227144825/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/iblog/Work/B787268209/C515898016/E20060308131936/index.html

In short...P2 cards, bus powered firewire drives in the field for backup, or a P2 Store, then archive onto G-Raids or internal drives that I swap out of a bare firewire case, import onto G-Raids for editing. G-Raids are good because not only are they in an aluminum case, but they are also fan cooled. And they use Hitachi drives.
Click to expand...

Thank you for all this info, everything is very helpful at this point. Are you using a PC or a Mac?
 
kstnate said:
I would say go with p2 store, BUT instead of using a mac for offloading, use a PC. PC is what Panasonic has in their factory and seems to work best. Get a pc laptop with pcmcia card slot you get to use the free viewer software and with PC version of p2 genie you get a good way to offload the store onto external drives Which probably should be fat32 especially if you want to take the stuff into FCP later down the line. That being said I have a mac laptop (which I bought for this camera) and have had some issues myself and heard of others. I have not heard of any in PC land. Imagine that PC a rock solid platform and Mac buggy! what is the world coming to?
Click to expand...

Nate, if I got a PC why would I need the P2Store, since it already has the pcmcia slot. Is there some advantage in having the P2Store? How hard is it to transfer the files from a PC laptop to a Mac when using FCP? BTW, I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of buying a "PC"
 
I have been spending the day reading posts on the p2 store and the firestore 100. I think you are right Varicamlife, people seem to be split down the middle about p2store vs firestore. To me this must mean that there are problems with both. I guess that I have to remember that this really is the leading edge of this kind of technology. That said, maybe I should try going the firestore route. It is cheaper after all. Does anyone know of the return policy on the firestore?
 
I like the p2 store for dumping cards in the field. I am unhappy with several elements of the firestore (although I confess I have never used it) Firstly I believe it does not support 24pn (native) format wthe most fuel efficient verson of HD the camera does, so you are forced to use a more gig/min format. Secondly I thought the whole idea of a p2 card is to get a sensitive hard drive off of the camera (where rough handling could cause errors) and lastly, a seperate power source and extra weight onboard.
my two biggest problems with P2 store are 60gig is really just a bit too small. even 80gig would be nicer. But so far I have never shot beyond my capacity (if I bring 1 p2 store and 3 8 gig cards I can shoot 84 gigs of info, which in 24pn is 200 minutes or 3 hours 20 min. which is good for me. Also downloading the p2 store can be awkward since it partitions itself for each card. p2 genie for mac or pc fixes this problem. But there seem to be a few problems on the mac platform. at this point I would use mac platform but check my work to make sure everything made it over. The PC world seems to run a little smoother in this regard, and I would be less paranoid in vigilantly making sure everything went over. The mac I have has a PC slot but I still prefer p2 store in the field, much less fiddley. if you get a p2 store you could in theory use a computer w/out a pc slot as the p2 store works as a card reader as well.
 
I recommend 1TB drives. Keep one on premises, and store a clone off premises. In the year 2006-07, you don't want to get trapped in tape backup/archiving. Those days are over for many reasons: Disk storage (unlike tape) is portable, disk storage is below 50 cents/GB, tape transfer takes much longer than disk transfer, you can't edit off a tape, and a year from now you likely won't be able to buy a machine to play the tape format you commit to today.
If you will be editing off the drives you're about to purchase, get SATA-II instead of FireWire. The only reason to go for 500GB instead of 1TB is the time you save in cloning. It takes a long time to copy 900GB either way.
 
So far I have decided to get the camera, extra batteries, 2 1TB G-Raid drives by G-Tech (4.5 mice at Macworld) and the new macbookpro. They are going to lend me the firestore for 1 week so I can decide whether to go with those, which are cheaper or get the P2 Store and some cards. I would like to have borrowed the P2 Store as well, but the sold their demo model because they are in high demand. Someone we know just bought the camera with the firestore and loves it, so we will see.

I still haven't figured out how I will archive stuff, apparently DLT's won't work with Mac, unless I have a very old one that has a SCSI port. Does anyone know if you can take the footage you shot and delete parts that you don't want anymore? Obviously, with tape you couldn't do that with the original, but since it is digital, I am imagining that you can.

Thanks for all of your help so far.
 
christa@hg80media.com said:
Does anyone know if you can take the footage you shot and delete parts that you don't want anymore? Obviously, with tape you couldn't do that with the original, but since it is digital, I am imagining that you can.
Click to expand...

You are correct. DLT is indeed too old.

Your last question is unclear. You can't be asking whether you can "delete parts" of what is on tape, because you acknowledge, "Obviously, with tape you couldn't do that". Therefore, you must be asking whether you can "delete parts" from the P2 card. Of course you can.
If, instead, you are asking whether you can "delete parts" from a disk drive, the answer is the same: "Of course you can."

I would love to hear your answer in 25 words or less, "I have decided to use tape, because __________."
 
Christa- As Hatchmo basically said above, of course you can delete from the hard drive--with Panasonic's P2Viewer software it's a cake walk (my experience is PC based). Of course you can also do the (delete clips) in camera as well.

LTO-2 is not new technology either (and many are now using LTO-3), but the new stuff is backwards compatable (LTO-3 drives read & write to LTO-2 tapes). LTO technology is in wide use and in no danger of going away any time soon.

It's a storage medium, period. You'll not edit from or with it like you can on a drive. Yeah, hard drives are getting cheaper . . . so are the 200/400 LTO-2 tapes I am buying to archive my original files, about $20 each. I bought my drive used on eBay for $750. If you are shooting a lot you are going to have to face long term bulk storage eventually. I have almost 3 terabytes of drive(s) in use before me, but I still archive all original and all work product to tape. Tape vs. Disc storage? Both have advantages and disadvantages. I'm not convinced that Blu-Ray or HD-DVD are going to be the "the holy grail" either . . . but that's just me. At the moment tape is a better option than 25 gig (or 50 gig) discs that have little or no track record to speak of.
 
hatchmo said:
You are correct. DLT is indeed too old.

Your last question is unclear. You can't be asking whether you can "delete parts" of what is on tape, because you acknowledge, "Obviously, with tape you couldn't do that". Therefore, you must be asking whether you can "delete parts" from the P2 card. Of course you can.
If, instead, you are asking whether you can "delete parts" from a disk drive, the answer is the same: "Of course you can."

I would love to hear your answer in 25 words or less, "I have decided to use tape, because __________."
Click to expand...


Sorry to be so unclear. When I have digitized tape, whatever I have digitized is the main clip, I cannot delete parts of that clip, even if I make subclips, unless I consolidate the clips and then I lose the original timecode.

When I say I want to archive my footage, I mean I want to archive the original raw footage, not just the final edited footage, just in case I ever want to change things or even sell it as stock footage. Because storage of digital media is still fairly expensive, I was thinking that if I could get rid of anything that was useless (as a shot of my foot, or inside the camera bag :) ), and save space and money!

Another reason, why I wanted to archive stuff on DLT or LTO, is because what if the drive became corrupted? At least with tape there would be more than one tape. I don't really care how long it takes to transfer stuff, and if something new comes along that allows me to archive cheaply, I can transfer it then. I tend to agree with drengenthal on archiving stuff for the long haul. While the project is being edited, I will definately have my footage on 2 drives in 2 different places, just in case.
 
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