Tape Vs Solid State Vs Hardrive as Acquisition Formats

Recent developments in video technology have seen an emergence of alternative acquisition formats from the major manufacturer's - aside from the revolution that is RED.

I am curious to know what peoples feelings are about these new options.

I for one find great comfort in knowing that I have a tape archive that consists of the various master tapes from my various expeditions and projects. It is reassuring to know that even if my system crashes or my drives die the vision is a least stored in a hard ( albeit tape ) form that is retrievable.

The ability to put a new tape in the camera and be good to go for another hour of shooting is a very convenient system for field operation although I must admit that I am drawn to the convenience of a file based based system and the more immediate workflow that it offers.

What are the fears or hopes of others for these new formats ?

I'm a bit nervous to be honest. I noticed only last week that my old external hard drive had been corrupted somehow and all my cuts and edits from the last few years up to this spring (when I changed over to FCS and Mac) have gone to that great data storage device in the sky. I still have the tapes though, which means I can still use that footage as and when requiried even though I'd have to hunt it down from my tape collection which may take some time admittedly.

With new formats the problem is always going to be finding a good way to permanently store them somewhere safe. I've been told that tapes can eventually corrupt, although I've never had any experience of that myself (yet!).

Cheers, Simon

Being a techno phobe I've got no idea about safely storing solid state media, perhaps super Drew can help out.. But it can't be that bad otherwise we wouldn't be heading in this direction...

I've heard of a someone who spilt coffee on a box of tapes ruining lots of footage...Nothings perfectly safe...

Dive safe

DeanB

Well - what were they doing with a spillable drink in that environment. Sounds like a just desert to me.

Tape / Media / drive storage needs to be in a sterile type environment.

Nah, it was in a jeep travelling back from a bit of filming..Long story..Not me though...I'm not that stoopid

Dive safe

DeanB

From the perspective of the hobbyist the theory of

Hi guys,

Being in line for a RED I am obviously looking into the different options for footage storage etc. At the moment it seems that the best shooting option is to shoot on CF cards and then download to a HDD at a later time. Whilst this may be a bit limited at this very moment due to the restricted size of CF card memory this will in time change. I think already there are 16GB cards emerging. Some folks on other RED related forums I visit seem to think we will see 32GB CF cards developed by the end of the year and 64GB capacity cards by the first quarter of next year. Good news too for new DSLR purchasers.

All storage options have their own required environments. Some people prefer tapes, other HDD's. Remember that both have their failings too. Tape over time can deteriorate as can hard drives fail. Vibrations are a hard drives worst enemy so whilst I have heard of people storing HDD's in a low temp environment in a fridge on low settings I'd hate to think about those constant motor vibrations and what they may do to the HDD in the long run.

For archiving I have my master tape and a copy on HDD. If either one fails I replace it from the other. If both fail I start looking around for a paddle.......

Cheers,

Mark.

Mr Mooney

That's why they have RAID 1, 5, 10 and NAS systems, for redundancy. It's easy to have TB arrays nowadays, esp with the 1TB drives (although they seem to have a higher failure rate). Soon BD or HD-DVD will been able to keep the data on discs.

Tape transport systems have a shorter working life due to all the moving parts and dropouts should be a thing of the past with solid state media. Tape media is very resilient and can take a lot. But they have a shelflife of 25 years according to some manufacturers, but you still have to wind them every year to maintain tension etc.

Solid state media also fails. I don't know the statistics to compare tape to memory cards.

For field operations, you definitely need HDD for backup, unless you have a big budget to buy 20 memory cards at $800. HDD have 3G accelerometers (if you buy the right drive enclosure) to prevent damage to the data disc in case of falls. And they are transported by air and boat to destinations. So barring a fatal drop from too high that breaks loose parts, it's also relatively resilient but obviously nothing like solid state cards and tape.

Having lived with the P2 system for a while, the workflow and convenience of memory cards can't be faulted. Then you also have features like cache recording of seconds BEFORE you hit the record button so you don't miss as much if you don't want to keep recording to catch whatever it is.

Tape is also limited in bandwidth and thus the quality of the HDV format doesn't quite match memory card systems.

Obviously it's exciting times but workflows will have to change.

Exciting times indeed.

I'm sure as with everything else the cost of cards will come down as they become more available. What were the P2 cards at when they first came out, for the 8GB compared to their price now? Its all relative. As an example I have 150 hours of footage on HDV tapes all shot since getting the cam last November. I buy my tapes at a cost of U.S$10.95 each which relates to $1,642.50 for the tapes holding that stock. I don't re-use tapes. Seeing as this is backed up on HDD, archived it essentially becomes 'dead money'. Personally I'd like to take that cash and buy the highest denomination of CF cards to shoot with when my new cam is ready. May not buy much at that time but a transport medium which can be re-used is a better deal IMHO. OK so there is no master, just make two copies, to hold on to but like I said it all evens itself out in the long run. Its just a work flow moving onward. In ten years it will be the norm......oops, did someone mention holographic storage?

I guess the fact that everything does have a shelf life keeps people who live from camera work in business. Old stock needs to be renewed and updated as newer formats are developed.

Cheers,

Mark.

This really is the question that has been running through my head for the last couple of weeks. My mind is torn between getting a tape camera such as the XH A1 or the V1 or whether to wait for the Ex series Sony...

I obviously realise the big price difference but the quality of the Sony lens / Chip size / Feature set looks awesome.

When shooting close to home or on short trips the solid state solution would be great, the only time that I am hesitant is on longer trips to remote places. It's a pain having to take laptop plus drives with all the other stuff that we take.

I think that Dean and Mark are on the money and the fact that the cost of the cards will come down in price and much more widespread by the time the camera is realised they will seam a much more viable option. I'm sure that we may all look at this in two years time and laugh (or maybe not!)

A quick tech question: What is the dowload data transfer rate for the cards?

Jon

It comes down to the data rate of the HD codec you are working with. The cards themselves transfer contained information at up to 66MB/s which is obviously well within the codec guidelines for HDV. P2 cards on the other hand for the Panasonic allow for much greater transfer rates due to the DVCAMPROHD Codec running at around 100MB/s transfer rates (Drew, correct me if I am wrong).

This all points the way toward a non Firewire environment. Gone will be the days of real time capture, yehawww, one hour of footage transfered in much less than an hour will be a godsend!

By the time all of this happens, maybe sooner than you think, cards will be more available and the technology will also be advancing. This conversation will be outdated, and so will our cameras!! hahaha.

Cheers,

Mark.

It comes down to the data rate of the HD codec you are working with. The cards themselves transfer contained information at up to 66MB/s which is obviously well within the codec guidelines for HDV. P2 cards on the other hand for the Panasonic allow for much greater transfer rates due to the DVCAMPROHD Codec running at around 100MB/s transfer rates (Drew, correct me if I am wrong).

 

This all points the way toward a non Firewire environment. Gone will be the days of real time capture, yehawww, one hour of footage transfered in much less than an hour will be a godsend!

 

By the time all of this happens, maybe sooner than you think, cards will be more available and the technology will also be advancing. This conversation will be outdated, and so will our cameras!! hahaha.

 

Cheers,

Mark.

According to the Sony site:

"Uses PCI Express interface and achieves an extremely high "read" speed of 800 Mb/s*"

They says it is more than the p2 card's speed.

P2 is definitely slower 640mbps vs 800mbps. Still you have to look at the ingesting drive as well and not just the speed of the media. A 2.5" laptop drive can run maybe 30MB/s or 240mbps. To maximize transfer to the media's potential, you need a RAID 0 array.

Gyula, 800MB/s is probably 20 drives striped. It's bits not bytes

And all media will get cheaper but by the time they do, we'd need new cameras. Look at the progress of CF cards, which will always be able to double capacity at 1.5 years interval at the same price. 3 years ago I paid $280 for an Extreme 4GB card... now I can get a Extreme IV 16GB card at the same price. But CF cards are used in about 70% of all digital cameras, SD is only now catching up with the smaller cameras.

So if you are going to make that initial investment of 20 S/S cards at $800, it'll be worth $50 (if that) in 4 years. A 1TB hdd is now $300+, in 4 years it'll be 3TB at $300. The mathematics is pretty clear on initial investment and ROI.

But if you are considering all this, you already know the math.

Don't know if this is of interest to others, but it works for me:

I have a Sony SR1 which records to an internal 30GB HD and I like the camera. It worked great with my Ikelite housing, although I've only used it underwater on one trip so far - but will be going again next January.

I didn't like the idea of carrying my notebook computer along just for video use (even though I have a very small Panasonic R4), so I bought a Thecus (www.Thecus.com) Model N1050 portable hard drive housing, that has 480 mbps USB 2 transfer capability, online for about $30. The unit contains software to download so is more than just a USB-connected hard drive; it's sold as a camera offload system and works well in that role. It takes any notebook type 2.5" IDE hard drive formatted as FAT, and the whole shebang isn't much larger than the drive itself - fits in your skinny shirt pocket. I think 2.5" drives are available in up to 250 GB capacity now. I put a 120GB drive in mine (about $80 as I remember). I could put 4 total loads from my camera's 30GB drive on it and still fill the camera's hard disk one more time before I'd have to start putting stuff somewhere else. That's 37.5 hours of HD and 65 hours of SD - more than I'll ever shoot. With a 250 GB drive you could almost double all those numbers. Of course you can dump cards to it as well as HDD data.

The Thecus is powered by a USB power cable or with an AA battery pack (comes with one), but I bought a small AC power supply connector from Bixnet, item ACDC-5V, 5V AC/DC Power Adapter - DAF (http://laptopupgrade.stores.yahoo.net/5vacpowaddaf.html), for $9.95 - and that's what I've used on the road.

Another Edit: Forgot to mention that to format a HDD in FAT for larger than 32 GB, use the "FAT32FORMAT" utility: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/download/fat32format.zip

I think we have to define the media format first:

HDV = 25mbps = approx 5mins/GB

XDCAM HD 35mbps = approx 3mins/GB

XDCAM HD 50mbps = approx 2.5mins/GB

AVC Intra 50mbps = same

DVCPRO HD 100mbps = approx 1min/GB

Remember also that as the MPEG4 codecs come in, the processing power needed to work with them will increase exponentially.

Remember also that as the MPEG4 codecs come in, the processing power needed to work with them will increase exponentially.

and most likely quadcore CPU's will trickle down to consumer laptops/ desktops...

"I think we have to define the media format first..."

I was referring, of course, to the AVCHD format the SR1 records so far as HD goes, and whatever it's using when it records in SD mode. Anyone interested can divide the drive size by the GB or mbps they need to figure the amount/time.

**Interesting Industry Snippet **

A List director / producer Stephen Sodeburgh is currently shooting a short film with RED One entitled 'Guerilla'. On an insurance issue the insurers of the movie stipulated that he would have to shoot to CF as opposed to Hard Drive due to the susceptibility of potential footage loss when shooting directly to HDD.

OK, so we're (maybe) not gonna be shooting for Hollywood anytime soon but there's food for thought!

Cheers,

Mark.

When CDs first came out the word was that they had a shelf life of 10 years. Well, we all know that isn't true though I remember the old laser discs and they would often degrade beyond watchability. The bottom line is that the question is not whether a hard drive will fail but when. I have personally never had one go but would hate to think of my archiving externals dropping dead and then having to go back through all my old tapes log and capturing again and then putting them all in their individual species folders. The only assurance we have to back up the back ups. Having each 85% full external duplicated into another external. Of course, this does cost money and only Dean, Mark and Wagsy are true cousins of Donald Trump.

The 32 gig P2 cards were announced last month and they should be out sometime this fall but the same thing applies. One will need backup cards for the back ups. Interesting comment about the insurance company thing tho Mark.

Steve B)

I always back up anything critical to 2 storage devices, whether hard drive or other disc or even some old tapes. Seems we're stuck with that kind of 2-level requirement no matter what kind of technology is involved. For really crucial things I make a third copy and store it offsite.