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EX3 Memory Size and Transfer times
I’m shooting around 180 hrs on an EX3 in HD
I was just wondering if anyone had an idea about;
1. How much memory per hour of footage this will this take up?
2. How long this footage will take to transfer and digitize at the end of my shoot?
Average estimations are all I’m after..
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Dashley
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4 Replies
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[David Ashley] “1. How much memory per hour of footage this will this take up?”
Approximately 15 Gbytes per hour. If you have 180 hours to shoot you’ll need approx. 2.7 – 3 Terrabytes of storage depending on what shooting mode you’re using.
[David Ashley] “2. How long this footage will take to transfer and digitize at the end of my shoot? “
The fastest way would be to use a Macbook Pro with an Express 34 slot. Insert the SxS Pro memory card into the slot and transfer to an external FW 800 hard drive. An hour of footage can be transferred in 5.5 – 6 minutes. BTW, you’re already shooting digital so you don’t have to “digitize” anything when transferring (my pet peeve).
Keep in mind that this 5 and a half to six minutes transfer time is from personal experience but is just to drag and drop the BPAV folder from a SxS Pro card to an attached hard drive. To do this transfer properly you should use Sony’s Clip Browser to do the transfer with CRC checking enabled. This will extend the time it takes to copy. This time estimate also does not take into consideration the time to import the clips from a copied BPAV folder and re-wrap the clips into something you can edit with in your particular NLE. This will also increase your transfer times.
Good luck on your project.
– Don
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Thanks for the Feedback.
I will still have to log and transfer all my assets.
So if we say 10 minutes per hour of footage, I’m looking at a day and half of transfer.
Any idea how much that will be in memory size, 2TB?
Thanks again for the help Don.
Dashley
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Technically speaking, it’s how much hard drive, not how much memory. You need to bear in mind that you’re going to need room for the raw camera files in their respective BPAV folders, plus room for the exported clips (MXF or MOV). I’d agree with Don’s ballpark number of 15Gb/hour.
Cf
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David,
Just to expand on Clint’s point about storage: you’re going to need 2.7 – 3 Tbytes in the form of portable hard drives available “on-location” in order to transfer 180 hours of media from your SxS Pro cards so you can continue using them for shooting. Depending on how much time you’ll have to offload the cards you may want to consider hiring a card wrangler for this. If you’re not sure how to keep all these copied BPAV folders separate on your storage drives let it be known now before you start shooting so we can give you a “heads up.” With this much footage to be archived organization is absolutely essential to avoid big problems later on.
Back in the edit bay you’ll need the same amount of storage available to transfer all your clips from the BPAV folders into a format suitable for your particular NLE. Your estimate of 10 minutes per hour is a reasonable estimate. If you’re thinking that this will be tedious and time consuming you’re probably right to a certain extent. But consider the fact that if you were still using tape the same 180 hours would be taking 7 and a half days of non-stop transfer.
Hope this helps in making your shoot pre-planning somewhat easier.
– Don
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