archiving P2 cards

[Adam Smith]

[DevilDodo] “Also, I’ve just realised that I had “+R” in my original post… My pricing was actually based on “-R”… not sure if that makes any difference…?”

No idea about longevity, but I heard and been directed to a few articles that suggest +R is a better format, burning faster and with fewer errors. Haven’t experienced it, but it was interesting enough info to make me wish I could switch over. Too bad none of our (older) Macs at work will read a +R disc…

—
Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Gerret Warner]

Thanks to all, especially Devil & Arthur. Quantum and Blue Ray seem the best P2 archiving solution, though I’m still concerned that Blu Ray could be the next Betamax. On the other hand, who cares if HD-DVD wins the big battle, so long as Blu Ray remains for data storage.

Anyone else know about the dependability of DL DVDs. I’ve got a lot of time invested in backing up MXF files to them, and am hopeful they’re secure.

I wonder, Arthur, if the Quantum solution is worth the high expense?

Thanks again.

[Matt Gerard]

I guess no one has ventured to ask, How long do we WANT to archive this stuff?

I am now using a device from weibetech, its a trayless SATA drivebay for Hard drives. I buy 300 Gig Seagate SATA drives for about $64 each, and slip one into the drive bay,( no trays, really nice) and archive my whole project as it sits on my xraid. If I need to acess somethign from that project, I just slip the drive in again, copy what I need off the drive and take it out again. Fast, no special unaccessable formats (retrospect) and. I keep them in anti static bags, and stored well. The only problem I’ve had with drives are LaCie’s, don’t get me started on those.

Been working well so far, and with our deadlines, we can’t wait to unarchive stuff off Tape, heck who has time to spend 4 hours burning projects to DVD’s? I surely don’t. Plus I hate having to unarchive the whole project just to get a couple of files.

My .02

Matt the P2 Rat

[Shane Ross]

[mattjgerard] “I guess no one has ventured to ask, How long do we WANT to archive this stuff?”

10, 20….30 years? A while. I have stuff I shot back in 1987 that I keep around…and transferred to DVCAM from 3/4″ Umatic. I found a use for it.

Hard drives…3-4 years tops for archival. Drive types and connections change so fast. SCSI, IDE, SATA…in a span of what, 10 years?

Also, how long will DVDs last? Blu_ray? No one knows? I do know that a few of my early CD burns are failing…but that was early technology. Blu_ray is early technology too…

Tape backup is the OLD Reliable…

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Matt Gerard]

Yes drive connections do change, and that is why I still have a syquest EZ135 drive sitting in my drawer!!1

For 90% of our clients, we will backup their show to a selects reel, to tape. Our biggest client, this works great for. they aren’t interested in keeping the OK shots, they just want to archive the best of the best. After the show is done, we make a selects reel to Tape(usually DVCPRO50), we archive thier show to a HD, sit it on the shelf. I have asked around the industry, and no one know the shelf life of a HD, just sitting there. I don’t know why, but I feel more comfortable with a HD than with DVD’s or CD’s. Maybe I have just had so many of them go bad on me.

The neverending debate, will, I fear, never end. But, its good to hear pros/cons and other’s ideas. My boss is a real fanatic about ease of use, and convienence. About the only way i could get him to use packet tape BU’s is to get an auto loader library system. But he just dropped 60G’s on a HPX2000 setup, so that might have to wait until next year….

Matt

[Steve Sherrick]

Budget and time are a factor here. Here is my list of factors for archiving.

1. Reliability – How safe is this precious data? How long will it last?

2. Read/Write times – If I’m doing the archiving on set, what is the speed at which I can perform these archives? In a post environment, you may be able to setup stations for doing this that do not have time stringent limitations.

3. Cost – What’s the price that I have to pay to get the reliability and speed I need.

4. Client expectations/willingness to pay for it

I have to weigh all of these things carefully, and determine the best price/performance for the given situation. For me, I’ll be backing up P2 and Redcode Raw files so I am looking at robust tools. Losing even a single take is unacceptable. Tape backup is tried and true. Hard drives are not all equal, and same goes with optical media. Brand does matter, but even then how much trust do you put into it?

Somebody has to pay for the expenses involved with archiving because it takes time and materials and both cost money. Can we be expected to backup to several media formats indefinitely? In my opinion, the client has to help out with these costs and they have to determine how long they expect us to archive their projects.

Here is what I intend to do on future projects.

1. Once the aquisition format is determined (for this example let’s use P2), we determine how many P2 cards will be needed on set, usually determined by how many the production can afford. Or if they are using a Firestore, how many will fit into the budget.

2. Determine how much footage on average will be aquired in a given day. For this example, let’s say the client is shooting in 720P 24N and the camera package incudes two 8GB P2 cards for a total of about 40 minutes of footage. It is estimated that about 3 hours of footage will be aquired that day. So about nine P2 cards will be used during the course of the day. So at a minimum, you will need to be archiving seven P2 cards on set, with the other 2 potentially being backed up later.

3. How will we back up those P2 cards? In this case, the content is aquired on a P2, then at some point that P2 is brought over to the backup station and needs to get archived before it is needed again. Once it is properly archived, it needs to be formatted. There is the rub. Once that card is formatted and new material is shot, we can’t get it back, so whatever we just archived has to in fact be a replica of what was on that card. So what do you put your faith in? Hard drive? DVD? Tape (DLT, LTO)?

That is why a bulletproof setup has to be in place. Even if we had ten P2 cards on set and we could bring them back into post and back them up in several places, eventually those P2 cards go back out the door and get formatted again. There will be no chance to compare the data later on if a question comes up about the integrity of the backup. This is the challenge to file based aquisition. With the Red cameras, there is talk of treating the compact flash media just like you would a film reel or a tape. It gets put on the shelf as a master. At $200 for an 8GB CF card, that’s a pretty expensive master, but could be justified in some situations (feature film). But at $899 for a P2 card, it’s just cost prohibitive.

So when it comes time to archive this project for the client, what are we keeping on the shelf? Let’s assume we have decided to backup the P2 cards to a SDLT600a. The client shot 200GB of material and we archived that to a single SDLT tape which has a capacity of 300GB. That tape then get’s put on the shelf as our production master. The material had been transferred over to Firewire800 drives for editing, and in this case FCP wrapped the files in a Quicktime blanket, creating new files. Through the course of the project, new files are imported such as audio, graphics, music, etc. Now we have a finished piece, and we output to a DVCProHD master for shelf and delivery. What now to do with the material sitting on the drives. Our 200GB of material has blossomed to 280gb of material with all the additional content. We could backup once again to the SDLT which could fit this onto a single tape. Not a bad solution. We could fit it onto a bare hard drive using the weibtech or other similar technologies. Also, a pretty good option. Perhaps we don’t want to add the quicktimes to the backup because we already have the original MXF files backed up to tape. You still have 80gb left to backup. Maybe Blue Ray is the answer.

Okay, once that is all worked out, now who is paying for the backup? Who is paying to have it sit on a shelf taking up space? You already have the original files, and the final tape master. You’re covered in that regard. Okay, the client is talking about coming back in a few months to revisit this edit and repurpose it. It will be much easier to just restore the project from hard drive or disc backup. But again, is there a price to be paid here?

There are a lot of things that need to be thought through with file based aquisition. As I mentioned earlier, you have to weigh price/performance. For those clients that want to pay fees for having everything archived and stored on a shelf, there is revenue potential there. But storing files on several formats indefinitely for no charge, seems like bad business. Not saying anyone is doing this, but I’m sure it’s the type of thing that crosses our minds. We want to be absolutely certain that these files are safe, so we go above and beyond to do so in some situations. But as we can see, this is where the time we saved from having to digitize footage can be quickly lost if we are not smart. I am still researching all of the current archive solutions to see what will work best in my situation and I encourage everyone else to do the same. It’s critical that we have the right kind of tools in place. Otherwise, we may be wishing we could go back to the old days. I see the future as bright, but sometimes it’s like the wild, wild west and you just have to get all of your facts lined up so that you make smart purchasing decisions.

Steve

[Kit Lammers]

I realize that this thread is old, but I wanted to add what we are planning to do:

We were saving our footage to DVDs but that is not the best way to do it and a cataloging nightmare!

So we have purchased a Quantum LTO-3 Tabletop Drive, we didn’t want to have to maintain a large amount of on-line media and I didn’t want to worry about it crashing. The tapes hold about 400GB or 800GB compressed and are about $50 each – not too bad.

Now we also purchased the Network Tape Gateway system to add a keyword search and proxy to our archive. I actually have not recieved it yet, but I recommend you take a look at: https://www.pictron.com/products_ntg.html

Since we are a smaller station without a large budget this still cost us around $17K, but will save us money when we are not looking through hundreds of old DVDs and reshooting footage.

Best of luck!

[Kit Lammers]

The Pictron Software did not work out and I was not happy with the performance. So I have decided to go with an Apple Xserv and a Vtrak 12TB Raid with Final Cut Server to manager the media. We will still backup to the LTO3 tape.

[Craig Swanson]

Can you expand on why you didn’t like the performance of the Pictron software? I’m torn between that and Mac Clip Library by Imagine Products.

Craig

Macbook Pro 17
10.6.2
2.6 ghz
4 gigs ram
GeForce 8600 GT 512 mb
HD One 8 drive Raid 5
QT 7.6.3 / QT 10.0
FCP 7