Off to Asia for month...

F

fishcough

Member
Hi all, I've posted a few questions about this project and you all have been great.

We're going to be filming all around China for about four weeks. I'd imagine I'll be getting a couple of hours of footage a day.

I've purchased a Canon XF100 as the primary camera and we're using a DSLR and Zoom H1 for low light/back up. I'm also bringing a 13inch MBP 2.4GHz 4GB with FCE 4. We will ultimately be cutting an assembly in express to give to our editor to create a finished piece in FCP 6.
I'm pretty satisfied with the equipment (though I'd love to hear any additional thoughts), but I continue to struggle with how to back up in the field for a month. We're not going to be able to schedule any reshoots...

I think it is essential to back up in two places, so I think I'm looking at one of two options:
1. Purchase a whole bunch of CF cards (the camera records to CF). When a CF card is full, copy the footage to the MBP and then move to a 1tb external drive. Don't reuse the CF card. Giving me the footage on the CF and as a folder on an external drive. This option could get expensive, but I have one shot at this.

2. Shoot to CF. At night, copy the footage to MBP and copy to an external drive. Then, copy to another external drive. Keep the drives in two different places. I figure 1TB drive should be able to hold 60-70 hours of HD footage. Reuse the CF cards. This is cheaper, I could pack on drive in my camera bag and one in my backpack, but doesn't feel as secure for some reason. Any suggestions on a good, rugged external drive?

In either case, I'd just be copying the footage and would worry about getting it formated for FC when I returned. Not planning to do any editing in the field.

Sorry for the long post, and I appreciate any further guidance.
Thanks.
 
Hey fishcough: what are you guys shooting in China? I ask because I live in Beijing and am in the middle of shooting a feature doc here myself, in addition to some news shorts stuff.

Anyway, I'd recommend just getting as many backup drives as you need to feel safe. Buy a couple high quality CF cards (test and format them a bunch of times before you get to china to be sure they all work) and then just back up your footage on the MBP and at least one external for data redundancy purposes. Usually, if I have time, I also do a quick run-through of the footage on both drives to be sure it's OK.

If you're really paranoid and worried about damage, you could always go for external SD drives. They're MUCH less likely to break in transit because there aren't moving parts in them. But, of course, they cost a fortune compared to regular HDs.

My $0.02: get a hard equipment case and buy a few external hard drives. Keep them there all the time unless you're copying footage to them. Even with just the MBP and one drive, your chances of catastrophic failure are relatively low, but every drive you add makes it even less likely (though of course it also increases the time you need to dump footage). Copy the files from the CF card to each drive so that if there's some random error during the write-to-disk process on one drive it doesn't affect the files on your other drives.

A question: are you worried about the police at all? You should know that things are VERY politically sensitive here right now. If your topic is sensitive at all, you may want to have contingency plans and ways of hiding/protecting your footage from intentional (rather than acceidental) deletion. I have some thoughts on that too, but I'll save em unless you actually need them.
 
Yikes, sorry for the delay! I think I just PMed you back, but there doesn't appear to be anything in my sent mail box? So let me know if you didn't get it and I will just post it here instead, there's nothing too secret.
 
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