Solid State vs. Tape

A

asafb

Active member
Shooting solid state, in my opinion, is EXCELLENT for a day or two of shooting. But honestly, if you're recording a full 7 days, it is very dangerous - if you loose your footage or if you accidentally make a mistake in the copying process you are ----- ! I always feel secure when I have the physical tapes near my side :) Anybody know if there's a way to create a backup WHILE recording with teh EX1's card system?
 
you can easily record from card to card in the 2 slots during any break in the action. you can buy a convergent design box and record to cf cards via the SDI spigot.

most people do a backup to hard drive(s) during breaks.

certainly no need to go 7 days without creating backups in any condition or situation
 
xort said:
most people do a backup to hard drive(s) during breaks.

certainly no need to go 7 days without creating backups in any condition or situation
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I have enough media to shoot through a day, and do backups at the end of everyday. You have to start thinking like a pro still shooter. They haven't used film in years, and I am sure that there pictures are just as important as our video.

You just have to create a work flow and stick with it.
 
dpryke said:
I have enough media to shoot through a day, and do backups at the end of everyday. You have to start thinking like a pro still shooter. They haven't used film in years, and I am sure that there pictures are just as important as our video.

You just have to create a work flow and stick with it.
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Was that addressed to me? I have enough cards to shoot for about 3 to 5 days without downloading. But in general, I see a lot of people wanting to load their material to hard drives as soon as it is pracitcal. Of course these people are using expensive cards with other cameras and can't afford to buy 10 hours of recording media.
 
xort, you can relax, nothing was meant by it.

You mentioned doing backups at breaks, I was just saying that I do them at the end of the day.
 
I agree with what's been said....

Shoot throughout the day. Then archive to hard drive (preferably 2 hard drives). I use a MacBookPro and a 500GB Western Digital hard drive for archiving.

I'm sure the original poster is going to complain that all these cards and hard drives cost too much when compared to tape. That's true at first, but the convenience and video quality (and flexibility) FAR out weighs the negatives in my opinion. I like that I can shoot HDV, 720p, 1080p, 1080i, overcrank, undercrank, time lapse, still-frame animation....all with the same camera.
 
and do we really need to mention how cheap SDHC media such as the Transcend 16GB cards are? About the only media cheaper per minute is DV/HDV tape, so if you are willing to pay good money to shoot to and archive tape you can do the same with SDHC...
 
The negatives (cost, mainly) far outweigh the benefits of MiniDV shooting.

One word: dropouts.

Anyone who has shot with MiniDV has had that ugly thing creep up during that all-important shot. I was sick of a little piece of dirt/grime/metal particle ruining my footage. I think MiniDV was one of the worst ideas to come from the camera manufacturers. GREAT image quality and audio compared to S/VHSG or Hi8 before it but crappy color sampling (4:1:1...wtf?), dropouts, eaten tape, and did I mention dropouts/headclogs?

HDV...while it was a pretty amazing technological feat I was only willing to risk one project on the format. 15 potential frames lost per dropout...no thanks. And compressed/mp3 quality audio tracks?

When the HVX200 hit the market I was thrilled. Except for the short recording times, expense, low resolution LCD and soft picture. When the EX1 came out, all of my complaints were fixed. See ya dropouts, hello reusable media. I've always saved my captured media to hard drives anyway. Tapeless dropped an extra step out of my workflow.

While it's still expensive the cost of things continue to go down. And good lord man this is pristine HD footage we're talking about! Technology is amazing and relatively inexpensive for the quality we are getting nowadays. The 1 TB hard drives I bought for my first round of EX1 shoots are $100 less than what they cost back in August.

By the way, do you go seven days of shooting without charging batteries? Think of offloading media as the same type of workflow item. It's just something you gotta do and will get used to.
 
adamr316 said:
By the way, do you go seven days of shooting without charging batteries? Think of offloading media as the same type of workflow item. It's just something you gotta do and will get used to.
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I bring an inverter or a Honda generator when working in the field to run battery chargers, computer and a RAID to back up camera files.

On a recent trip I didn't really need the generator but brought it along anyway. It hadn't run in months and I figured I'd run it at the beach just to put some time on it. But after 50 cranks it just refused to start. I was headed home anyway, so I packed it up.

When I got home I decided to give it another try -- it fired up on the first crank.

Figures. Runs when I don't need it.

So if you do decide to use a generator, run it every month just to make sure it's good to go all the time. Engines can be funny that way.
 
OK I have been shooting since 1973 and with film we never worried about backing up footage. Well through many tape formats 2", 1" type A B & C, 3/4", Beta, BetaSP, DV and so forth backups weren't too important. Sure there were issues with head clogs, dirt and dropouts but I have stuck to always using new tape for original shooting and that eleminates a lot of the issues. OK I have been shooting tapeless for almost 3 years and have delveloped a decent workflow for me. With the HVX200 I had to save out to a drive almost every break, not enough cards, and dupe the work at the end of the day to another drive. With the EX-1 I did that until I got the firmware update and SD cards now I have enough media for a couple of days shooting. If I have a really long shoot coming I would just buy more SD cards and use them like film, at least until the end of the job. I am going to get a Nexto DI unit to back every days work to another drive. I could drag the laptop along but it seems like a lot more gear to drag with that I could do without.

The SD cards are really rugged and I have washed several by accident but they still work with no issues. I have done the same with some of my CF cards as well but I wouldn't recommend it.

What yo have to do is to develop a work flow for working with this media and stick to it, always! Otherwise you will have very unpredictable results. It's the same with your gear, develop a routine and always double check so you don't forget something like battery chargers, cables and filters. It's always something small!

I love tapeless shooting and I don't want to go back, Ever! But I sometimes do and it hurts.

Viva la SDHC!
 
An ideal way of ofloading the data from your KxS/SxS/MxM adapter is using a Lenovo S10 netbook. It has an express card/34 slot.
Another option is to use an external Harddrive with any notebook.
If there is one, you should take one with a esata port and use the external Harddisk box from the link below.
http://www.axpertec.com/Product-HDD-Dock-Combo.asp
 
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