Offloading multiple times to same HD in field

V

VideMedia

Well-known member
So Im going on a week long shoot. I have no idea how long I will be filming each day and the conditions are going to be basically 8 hours on a boat.

Ive been researching the best way to do it.

Im going to be shooting with 2 32gig p2 cards maybe an extra 16gig.

Ive already explained to the guys that Im going to need offload time between shoots every couple hours.

So my plan is too have a couple of the rugged hardrives I see people using and have a powersource. And just offload each 1 hour set of footage to the hardrive.

Is there going to be anything wrong or bad with offloading multiple times to the same drive? Also whats the probability of complicatons with footage afterwards. We are going to be shooting from helicopters and other one time deals. So I cant risk loosing any footage.

Does anyone have some tips?
 
I would suggest that you copy all the offloaded data to a second drive as a backup. Hard drive space is so cheap these days so all my P2 data is backed up across at least 2 drives. You can't just rely on one drive as they do go down, believe me, it happens.

Are you using software of are you using the camera as a host to offload to the drives?

Weenie
 
I would be very worried if all my data was on just the one drive. The drive could be stolen, lost, damaged, or just develop a fault and then the data is lost, for good. I have had a couple of drives fail (it is very rare) and it's not a pleasant experience trying to recover the data (success is very very rare) and having to work out what to do next.

It would be worth considering offloading via a computer. I use a Mac, yes, expensive I know but you could have a look at Barry's threads on cheap PC laptops with slots for the cards. This is a great option as you can download whilst still filming as this method doesn't tie up the camera. Using P2CMS software you can view the footage without having an NLE installed and the MXF data can then still be imported into any NLE.

Downloading using the camera works great but it takes ages, much longer than using the slot on the computer. I have been on shoots where I thought I would be Ok downloading using the camera but it took up too much of the day and the client wasn't best pleased.

Get yourself a cheap PC laptop and P2CMS (free) from Panasonic.

Weenie
 
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Another vote for the 2nd HDD. Also, you might want to consider a water proof case like a pellican for your HDDs. I can only imagine the amount of water that is just waiting to get into your drives - and if you happen to shoot spectacular footage of a sinking boat, you can quickly put the P2 cards into the pellican before taking a swim.


Jason
 
Thanks for the help guys.

I think that the best option at this point is try to some how buy more p2 cards lol.

Maybe ill look into buying an older macbook with the cardslot
 
I am a Mac man through and through but I would advise against going for the old G4 Macbook.

Yes, it's a Mac and yes it has the cardslot but it is old. It will have no warranty and it could be on it's last legs, there's simply no way of knowing.

A brand new PC laptop with a slot will probably cost you less than a second hand G4 Macbook but it will come with a warranty, be faster and will have a bigger internal hard drive. This means that you will only need to have one extra hard drive out on location. Download to the laptop's internal drive and backup to the external drive. Once back at base, offload the material from the computer to another drive.

The folders you offload will have all the relevant subfolders containing the MXF files which you can then import into FCP using Log-and-Transfer as if you were offloading from the P2 card.

Believe me, I would prefer to have a Mac out on location with me but in this instance it is a more reliable and cost effective solution to get a cheap PC laptop.

Weenie
 
Deaniweenie said:
I am a Mac man through and through but I would advise against going for the old G4 Macbook.

Yes, it's a Mac and yes it has the cardslot but it is old. It will have no warranty and it could be on it's last legs, there's simply no way of knowing.

A brand new PC laptop with a slot will probably cost you less than a second hand G4 Macbook but it will come with a warranty, be faster and will have a bigger internal hard drive. This means that you will only need to have one extra hard drive out on location. Download to the laptop's internal drive and backup to the external drive. Once back at base, offload the material from the computer to another drive.

The folders you offload will have all the relevant subfolders containing the MXF files which you can then import into FCP using Log-and-Transfer as if you were offloading from the P2 card.

Believe me, I would prefer to have a Mac out on location with me but in this instance it is a more reliable and cost effective solution to get a cheap PC laptop.

Weenie
Click to expand...

I 2nd that emotion. I've been Mac since the early 90s (first AVID then FCP) but Barry Green's heretical article on using a PC laptop completely turned around my thinking on in-the-field, safe, fast off-loading of P2 cards.

The short version of Barry's article:
"In our quest to find the cheapest reliable/ usable/workable P2 card reader, we were continually amazed at how comparatively effortless the P2 workflow was with a Windows laptop, vs. the minor hassles encountered with the Mac workflow. And if there was an inexpensive, $500 reader available, how revolutionary that would be.

And then we put two and two together. The answer was staring us in the face. The Windows laptop.

Okay, I know half the Mac users probably just left the room when I typed that..."

So inspired by this article and his recommendation of Lenovo laptops, I immediately checked out the Lenovo web site and noticed that the T-400 had replaced the older T61 or R-61. Realizing that I had to do something fast as my next shoot was in 2 days and I wasn't planning on renting a P2 Store this time, I checked out my local Craigslist and found someone selling a 1/2 year old used T-400. After verifying it had a PCMCIA slot, I bought it for $650 (the memory had been upgraded to 3 GB from 2 and the owner had installed XP Pro, replacing the installed Vista Home Basic - at least I'm halfway familiar with XP, so all in all, it seemed like a good deal.

I DL the P2 drivers and P2 Viewer from the Panny website, and with a little experimenting, created a workflow I felt pretty confident with. The P2 Viewer software allowed me to show my client things we had just shot, full-screen on the laptop, and had a P2 Injester menu selection that made off-loading the entire contents of the card onto the internal HD pretty painless. I wanted to create a separate copy of the P2 Contents on a 2nd HD before I wiped the card so I grabbed a 160 GB USB2.0 HD I wasn't using and formatted it in FAT32 and successfully used it to backup the files from the internal HD in the laptop as well as used it to transfer everything to my G5 when I got home.

BTW, everything about this workflow turned out great during the 4 days of shooting. And I only had 2 8GB cards to work with, so this off-load scheme had to be flawless - and it was.

The ext USB HD I used for this shoot wasn't bus powered and I had considered buying one pronto but Barry had mentioned the UltraBay dock and after a little checking, I plan on using it for my next shoot. My T400 came with a CD Combo drive installed but it can be quickly pulled out and a HD inserted in it's place using an adapter that Lenovo sells on their web site for $49. There are very good deals as of this posting on 2.5" SATA HD that fit into this adapter - Best Buy was selling a 500 GB this weekend for $119 (US). So, with the addition of upgrading the boot HD to 500 GB as well, I'll have close to 1 TB of storage on two separate HD in a self-contained box with no wires hanging out (although I should probably upgrade the battery cell count as, although the T400 will run full power even on battery power for video viewing if you set it that way, it does use a bit of juice.)

But if I were on a boat, or a helicopter, I might be tempted to also DL to a bus-powered ext drive as well, stored separately just in case the laptop slides off the nylon seat, into the drink. The convenience of a completely self-contained off-load station also makes it easy to create the worst-case scenario, if you lose it. I plan to keep the laptop in the same Pelican case as I'm planning to use with the 170 I'm buying next week. Everything in one box, everything floats. I too shoot underwater or on the water on occasion.

I'll either use my existing USB drive, or a new bus-powered one for transfers to my G5 when I'm home, or try out the gigabit connection technique Barry mentions in his article.

I did DL P2CMS as well, but the Viewer did everything I needed, so I never used it for the shoot. One note of caution: I didn't get Viewer (or the P2 Format Station app) to properly format a P2 card once I had off-loaded its contents - it rendered the card unreadable by the camera - but I restored the functionality of the P2 just by formatting it within the camera itself. I've read that someone else also recommended only formatting the card internally in the camera. It actually worked out well as I always flipped the P2 to write-protect before I took it out of the camera and off-loaded it using the laptop, and only when I had my two copies, put it back in the camera, flipped the write protect off and then formatted it.
 
hmmm pc labtops are alot cheaper on craigslist anyway and all are much more update then the older g4s

thanks guys
 
actually I found a very good condition powerbook g4 with upgraded ram 2gigs of ram 1.67 processor the lastest model for only 400 bucks

Then there is a company selling a harddrive that replaces the cd drive so u can have 2 inteneral harddrives. I defiantly am going to do this. for 280 bucks u can get a 500gig 7200 rpm harddrive. so right there I have 2 harddrives to ingest and backup too
 
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VideMedia said:
actually I found a very good condition powerbook g4 with upgraded ram 2gigs of ram 1.67 processor the lastest model for only 400 bucks

Then there is a company selling a harddrive that replaces the cd drive so u can have 2 inteneral harddrives. I defiantly am going to do this. for 280 bucks u can get a 500gig 7200 rpm harddrive. so right there I have 2 harddrives to ingest and backup too
Click to expand...

One note, perhaps not relevant. My first attempt at creating a laptop based offload-station was to put a new HD in a 5 year old HP I had - it had 2 PCMCIA slots so I thought this was going to be great. I did note that Panny had recommendations for processor speed and so on in order to be able to play back certain formats using P2 Viewer, but they only talked about various HD formats so I thought this older 1.87 Ghz Athalon XT would at least play SD files.

I was so wrong - they would at least show up as thumbnails, and made valiant attempts to play clips a little bit, but certainly nowhere near close enough to be able to verify a clips integrity and bad enough that if I showed it to a client, I would be fired on the spot. What really put the issue to rest was the transfer speed out of the HP onto an external USB 2.0 HD - it was an abysmal 7min/GB.

So I mention all this because, although I've never owned a Powerbook G4 and really don't remember the workflows/recommended software/transfer speeds that have been suggested on other threads, make sure that if you want to playback clips using your offload station as well as offload, the computer has to meet certain minimum requirements depending on what software you're using and what format you've been shooting - DV, DVCPRO HD, etc. If all you want is to copy from the P2 cards to the two internal HD, I would think (I have no experience with PB G4 but used to edit on a G4 AVID) the PB G4 would be OK - much faster than using the camera as a P2 reader running in host mode through FW.
 
Ive read several places on here of members using the g4 for offloading and viewing. Someone also talked about being able to do simple edits i believe with dvchd pro
 
VideMedia said:
Ive read several places on here of members using the g4 for offloading and viewing. Someone also talked about being able to do simple edits i believe with dvchd pro
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've also read many references to PB G4's being used. Sounds like a plan then.
 
The Powerbook G4 workflow is great and I have been working with a client today using their Powerbook to offload some DV footage and some 720pn footage without a hitch. It really works well. Today, out on location I have also been using Final Cut Pro on the G4 which is fantastic but I wonder how long Apple will continue to support the G4 with FCP. Both my clients Powerbooks are showing the years and on one of them the cardslot has collapsed, is unusable and is uneconomical to repair.

I have worked for that client for years and we both were very dissapointed that as we started to use P2, Apple decided to remove the cardslot from their Powerbook range.

In the end you make your own choices. If you feel comfortable getting a used G4 then do so. They are reliable. The only reason my clients Powerbooks are showing their age is because they have been worked very hard over the years and always performed well out on location. We have been able to do location edits using all the formats from the HVX. The G4 is a little sluggish with DVC ProHD 1080 (PAL) but is usable. Today the 720pn (PAL) footage ran with no problems at all.

I will soon be getting a new 17" Powerbook and a Duel card adapter for ofloading while out and about.

The reason I suggested a PC over the G4 is merely because of age, warranty and cost. It's not often I recommend the PC platform to anyone, (I do know the pros and cons of both platforms but prefer the Mac) but in this instance I just wouldn't go for the older technology of the G4.

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here but felt I had to add more to what I had said earlier.

Weenie.
 
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