XDCAM vs DVCPROHD

HDD's simply are more prone to failure then tape, and more destructive at that.
A minor error in either soft/hard/or firmware can mean everything is lost for ever, it is inherent to the complex technology that is a HDD.

I love HDD's for their price/capacity/performance ratio, but in archival situations, the failing of drives can be rather arbitrary.

on the matter of DVD-R, DVD-R have to be handled very carefully. It is a highly fragile medium, with a unreliable lifespan that can be anything from a hudred years to barely a month, even with top media like Verbatim.

handle with care.
 
NBCshooter said:
Every HDD I've ever owned had a catastrophic mechanical failure within 3-5 years.
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This is EXACTLY the same for me, and it's why I will never trust my important archived footage to one. I don't even give the Cineporter or Firestore attention... I'm just not going to be using HDD in the field. Especially since we have a solid-state solution that circumvents all of the likely problems that using a hard drive would present. I know they're built well (and for the price they ought to be), but it's just not a risk I'm personally willing to take.

I realize that the running time of P2 is currently what drives most people away from it, and compared to HDV tape, that's somewhat understandable. But I've been doing a lot of shooting on film, and even though this subject has been beaten to death several times over, 4 minutes of running time on one card (the least amount you'll ever be able to use it for) is more than enough for most all narrative shooting needs. It takes at least that long to unload/reload a mag, and now we have the ability to review takes instantly, check for inconsistencies right away, blah blah blah... The system just MAKES SENSE for a lot of people.

XDCam looks interesting, and my guess is that because it is Sony, it's going to get a lion's share of the market for upper end production. But it's certainly not without its flaws, and for me anyway, it comes down to this: there's a solid state solution available, and to use anything else at this point in time would just be silly. It's going to be the safest and most reliable solution, and when you're talking about recording media, those are my two biggest concerns.

AshG said:
I dont think consumer DVD-R is viable long term... plus... you are looking at it taking 10-15 minutes to back up 10 minutes of footage? There goes the time you saved by going tapeless.
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Well, what are you considering long term? It's already been pointed out several times that Blu-Ray will be available soon (probably before most of us get our hands on the camera, at the rate Panny is shipping), and by then, you'll have your "longer-term" viable answer. DVD is just an interim solution that happens to work great because right now it mirrors the size of the cards perfectly. Dual layer discs are also finally coming way down in price, which lessens the number of discs you'd have to use.

I'm well aware that the archiving "step" of using P2 is about 1:1 as well as far as time is concerned, but the huge difference is that it is moved to the back of your workflow and not the front. I shot a documentary in July that I acquired over 60 hours of footage for; capturing all of that in realtime took days. Obviously, you can't even get started editing until it has all been loaded to your system. That's a huge drawback. Then, once you get a dropout or a dropped frame, you have to abort the process and recapture the tape from the beginning to preserve single clip files and avoid breaks in timecode. The process of capturing is just arduous and wasteful. The other thing to note is that if while you're capturing footage, you'd be ill-advised to use your computer for anything else (or you run the risk of dropping frames), while by comparison, burning a DVD is much less processor intensive and you aren't "locked out" of your system while you do it. It's a background process that lets me stay productive while it's running as opposed to capturing tape would. In that sense, it's transparent, and makes the time it takes essentially irrelevant. In literal terms, yes, the total time it takes to "backup" P2 is probably comparative to capturing video. But in terms of efficiency, productivity, and getting your client the material as soon as possible, there is no comparison. There's a reason that everyone who's shot with P2 has said they will never go back to tape again.

parallax said:
On the matter of DVD-R, DVD-R have to be handled very carefully. It is a highly fragile medium.
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Depending on what you're comparing it to, you are right. That's why I would never want to use optical disc in the field. However, if you're burning a fresh disc in a controlled environment and immidiately putting it in its case for archival, it should last a very long time. If you leave it sitting out, face up, where the dog plays... well, you're right, it probably won't make it to 100 years. But comparitive to the problems I've had with hard drives over the years, optical discs just hold up much better. That's why I think XDCAM has a leg up over P2 in the archival factor of this whole process (it's essentially Blu-Ray, after all). Unfortunately, I don't trust the actual acuisition of the data to an optical system in the field. If you want the most robust and reliable solution, you capture to solid state and archive to optical disc. There's only one camera out of all of the ones that are being discussed right now that does this.
 
That's not entirely accurate. Some discs, even handled and stored carefully, can just one day be defective. Even the A-brand discs are susceptible to corrosion.

Hell, i've had discs fail on me after one year, even when it was burned at a proper speed, and put away for archival.
 
*shrugs*

I'm just speaking from my own experience, I guess. I've yet to have a single CD or DVD fail on me that was properly taken care of, ever.

Pretty much every hard drive I've ever owned has died on me within a span of five years - some in as little as two.

Make whatever choice works for you. Point is, you have choices.
 
Haakon said:
Unfortunately, I don't trust the actual acuisition of the data to an optical system in the field. If you want the most robust and reliable solution, you capture to solid state and archive to optical disc. There's only one camera out of all of the ones that are being discussed right now that does this.
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But XDCam is well proven in ENG work, there has been nowhere near enough P2 shooting done to determine it's real world reliability, just because there's no moving parts doesn't mean it can't go wrong or be corrupted, there are stories emerging of faulty cards causing problems already

I think time will probably prove it to be very reliable, but until it's more widely used then we won't really know.

Record time is it's biggest issue for Documentary makers and people that shoot live events, when there's reasonably priced 32GB cards, then it will get wider acceptance.
 
For me mpeg2 (GOP) is a ditribution format - a final format. I would never by a camera running mpeg2 - you can't even edit it without change it's format! No, mjpeg IS better - I want 25 (PAL) FULL pics a second. GOP is poo poo - framedrop can be a second of material lost.
 
If you wanted to alter your workflow on tape to match that of P2, it would all be a wash, with tape in the end, actually SAVING time. Lets say you are shooting 30 minute tapes. At the tape change, hand the tape to an assistant who loads the tape onto a HDD thru a deck. There you go, all your footage on the HDD, WITH an archival back-up and all in real time.

The difference with P2 is that it is FORCING this workflow...


ash =o)
 
AshG said:
If you wanted to alter your workflow on tape to match that of P2, it would all be a wash, with tape in the end, actually SAVING time.
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That's nonsense; capturing tape is done in realtime, offloading of P2 cards is faster (and will continue to improve as bandwidth capabilities continue to increase).
 
Just got to play with the 350 at the Sundance film center. Nice camera, especially like the flip out LCD. Variable frame rates is very good. F9 prizim, dosen't come with a lens, there's a nice NLE feeder deck for about 10K. All in all a good system would cost $50K not a bad price if the performance holds up wich it seems it would. Gonna have tthe o wait for the Varicam 2 and compare. Band Pro in Burbank will be renting it as well as the Zeiss digiprimes.
 
Haakon said:
That's nonsense; capturing tape is done in realtime, offloading of P2 cards is faster (and will continue to improve as bandwidth capabilities continue to increase).
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Nonsense? Look at my example... It takes under a minute to log an in and out point and let the tape run in REAL time to the HDD. At the end of 30 minutes, swap tapes in the camera and load the new one... In theory you could even do this alone, just as with P2. The reason the tape method saves time is that you dont have to back-up to archival media on the back end... what about that is nonsense? You WOULD need an addition deck/camera.

P2 doesnt make a lot of sense to me... I mean, why not just fo straight to HDD anyway? By writing over the P2 you have already lost your data protection.



ash =o)
 
AshG said:
Nonsense? Look at my example... It takes under a minute to log an in and out point and let the tape run in REAL time to the HDD. At the end of 30 minutes, swap tapes in the camera and load the new one... In theory you could even do this alone, just as with P2. The reason the tape method saves time is that you dont have to back-up to archival media on the back end... what about that is nonsense? You WOULD need an addition deck/camera.

P2 doesnt make a lot of sense to me... I mean, why not just fo straight to HDD anyway? By writing over the P2 you have already lost your data protection.
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Now you need to know your in/out of everything, in every tape, and wait for your tape to be full before swaping. Every time you open tape door there is dust and other elements that can go in and screw your day. Want tape eject, wait it back in. And in the end, to take your tape and put it into a tape deck, but the tape had a grain of sand on it, and drop to the head and you hit play and put your time in there and all you know is you kill your content while reading it. I mean Murphy's is always close by. It might never happen, but it for the time it will happen that you need something else.

I would never trust miniDV or any tape solution as a SAFE backup. I consider it as a temporary Camera to PC storage if nothing else is available, but youppie P2 is here now.

You can use it as a backup, but for me, Tape is not something that I rely on. It a very sensible medium that is affected by nearly everything arround it.

And as for work flow, you can have 2 camera and take P2 out and bring to another location QUICKY and put into another cam and watch it on a Monitor.

Anyway I dont know why I keep trying to help see the P2 advantage, or the TAPE disadvantages... Most of them are just trying to mind themself since that can't buy it in the first place, or they bought another camera and trying to justify to themself that they did the right choices.

Well for me HDV didnt sound interesting, mpeg2 GOB codec is not attractive. DVCPRO HD is something that make more sence to me, frame independant. P2 as a medium also make sence, since anyway Tape option are too expensive for the DVCPRO HD codec rate, tape system would cost more than the camera. And P2 give limitless expendibility, so in 5 year from now, my HVX200 will beable to handle new P2 devices. So if you can't see it I am sorry, but just please stop whining about P2 and no HDV. Get a home grade HD camera at 1000$. Someone said Sanyo made a nice HDV HD camera for 850$.
 
I´m with you Haakon... solid state is much much safe than optical.

Then i expect some 3/2 inch chips at HD XDCAM´s... but they goes for
1/2... thats what i hate about MEDICRECY (did i spell ok Haakon?) on
all those brands... that´s why i think PANASONIC is just the King, they
take riskes... go fast go hard... I LIKE PANA

PANA FOR PRESINDENT

lol

Fer


Haakon said:
For me, it comes down to this:

P2 = solid state memory = no moving parts

That alone makes any P2 system far superior to me than any hard drive/optical disc/tape transport system that is going to wear down, be susceptible to dust and shock, temperature changes, and most importantly, repeated use. P2 certainly isn't perfect... we'd all like bigger capacities and a flexible form factor that can be better future proofed for upcoming hardware platforms, but given the option between solid state and anything else, and for me there's no question.

XDCAM looks cool, but it's definitely not the format for me.
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NBCshooter said:
That's a pretty bold statement considering the facts. Inside Edition has been shooting with PDW530 XDCAMs for over a year now without a single "burn failure" in the field.
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Ouch! :embarasse

I made an uniformed opinion based on my experience with consumer grade cd burners.... which has nothing to do with XDCAM tech.

Thanks for some straight facts, NBCshooter.
 
Sorry, stabwound. I was actually very surprised since we had two recording errors on some early PDW530s we had on loan from Sony a while back. But every time I see the Inside Edition camera guy I always ask him if they've had any problems. So, for over a year I've been asking him the same question over and over again, and it's always the same answer--no problems!
 
AshG said:
P2 doesnt make a lot of sense to me... I mean, why not just fo straight to HDD anyway?
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Well, some people will, through use of a FireStore or CinePorter. To me, those are not very appealing solutions; you might as well be shooting tape. But I'm sure they will work for some people - the power to choose is what this camera is all about.

Going straight to hard drive through a firewire cable via a laptop means running the risk of dropped frames. That, too, is not a risk I'm willing to take; especially if you're shooting a scene that you only have the finances to run through once. P2 is what gives you complete reassurance that when you shoot, you aren't running the risk of dropouts or dropped frames or some cable coming loose. P2 is robust; what you do with the data after that is entirely up to you. I prefer optical disc for archiving, some prefer hard drives. What P2 guarantees is that you'll get your material without problem the first time. Like I said earlier, it moves the extra time of archiving to the backend of your workflow and takes it away from the front. For most people, that is a huge advantage that they will not want to give away once they get used to it.

If you don't like P2, no one's forcing you to use it. But I still maintain that it is the best feature the camera offers.
 
Haakon said:
Well, some people will, through use of a FireStore or CinePorter. To me, those are not very appealing solutions; you might as well be shooting tape. But I'm sure they will work for some people - the power to choose is what this camera is all about.
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Damn, it like reading myself... without my bad english spelling.

Atless I am not alone understanding moving part fragility
 
NBCshooter said:
Sorry, stabwound. I was actually very surprised since we had two recording errors on some early PDW530s we had on loan from Sony a while back. But every time I see the Inside Edition camera guy I always ask him if they've had any problems. So, for over a year I've been asking him the same question over and over again, and it's always the same answer--no problems!
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A collection of New Zealand freelancers moved to XDCAM back in October 2004 and TVNZ switched in mid 2005. I would say NZ would have the worlds largest XD user base for population size.

The only known problem was the camera locking up if the eject door caught or was hindered by a rain jacket or cover. This was resolved with a camera firmware update.

If you lined up a PDW530 and a DVW709 you would be hard pressed to pick the difference between the cameras. Smart operators who get the workflow have a huge advantage over tape operators.

Sony were due to release a wifi unit that docks with the camera to allow live capture of the proxy data via laptop.

I also believe the other competing network who use p2 for news, archive back to XD disc.
 
I have to say, after learning everything I can about the XDCAM cameras and workflow over the last few days, it seems to be smarter than anything else I can think of. This coming from who has been harboring ill will towards Sony for years since they couldn't give me a 24p camera in any format for lower end work.

If the XDCAM HD cameras take off (and I think they will like wildfire), I'm seriously considering moving up to the 330 from my HD100.

As I understand it, the 18mbit and 35mbit modes on XDCAM HD are VBR. Does anybody either know or know where I can find out if those modes allow for spikes above 35? If so, how much? I could imagine that if it allowed for spikes to, say 50mbit, then it will prove to be much higher quality than HDV.
 
Nate,

I would think that ability will be very unlikely. A common trick with the PDW530 is shoot IMX at a lower bit rate than 50 to extend the discs record time. You can extend out from 45min at 50Mbps to 55min at 40Mbps with neglible effect on pq.


The discs are expensive so this is done to maximise record time.

In an interesting exercise in branding Sony will tag these cameras with the CineAlta logo.

How well these cameras do will depend on what is offered up in HD 1/2" glass and at what price point. The wide angle for the HD101 is twice the price of the camera here. Combine the two and you could buy a DSR450 with a professional (not broadcast) lens and battery kit for the same money.
 
Power to choose? I assure you Panny would love everyone to use P2, if not, they would have launched with a Firewire drive themselves.

ash =o)
 
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