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Clients & tapeless video retention
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Without getting into format wars P2 vs XDCAM, any tapeless workflow has advantages over Disc based recording as well as bringing long term storage problems along with it.
We are a P2 house and here is our workflow:
-All content is ingested in to a RAID 10 drive, eliminating the risk of disk failure.
-Content is created with Metadata in advance so it is simply placed in pre-selected slots for storage with no need to log.
-The content is also backed up to a raid 1 drive for long term storage with independent control interface.
-The Raid 1 drives are archived to VXA tape back ups for deep archive along with all project files.
-If the client does not wish to retain or archive the content the drives and VXA tapes are wiped.
3 years and we have not lost a single frame of footage.
Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com -
We are facing this issue pretty hard as well. Had a Seagate go down and did a data recovery that cost about $700. Got about 25% of it back.
So now we have backups of our backups. Point of clarification, if you have a backup hard drive and you delete the footage from your computer you now do not have a backup anymore! You only have a single copy of the data (on the “backup” drive). The only way to have a backup is to copy the data to another disc etc. Two copies of data is having a backup!
Honestly I am hoping for a solid state storage solution. Would love to have SD cards in, say, the 1 terabyte range for under $50…a person can dream.
800 gigs on an LTO huh? Hate to adopt a new format only to have a big tech breakthru a month later. Even 100 gig XDCAM discs aren’t close to being large enough.
We have not started charging clients for backing up data…yet.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
We’re about to embark on the P2 tapeless work flow ourselves and have decided to use blueray to burn the video onto a DVD as data files for archiving. At 50GB, we should be able to get most footage onto a single disk. Not sure if we should also put in some sort of tape back-up as well.
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[Rich Rubasch] “Would love to have SD cards in, say, the 1 terabyte range for under $50”
1TB will take a while, but it will come. Just five years ago 16GB of flash memory was huge – not so today.
[Rich Rubasch] “800 gigs on an LTO huh? Hate to adopt a new format only to have a big tech breakthru a month later.”
LTO is now 4th generation (LTO-4) and LTO drives are backwards compatible two generations. Our LTO-4 drive will read LTO-3 and LTO-2 tapes. I wouldn’t consider LTO a passing fad with concern for a big tech breakthru.
But that’s an interesting comment. There is always concern that what I buy today will be old technology tomorrow when the latest thing comes out. After much research, we settled on deep archiving with data tape – similar to Emre above.
Whatever commitment (or lack there of) you make for backing up data (even copies of copies on HDD) is a decision. There isn’t an industry wide Best Practice for this process. But there are some good suggestions in this thread.
As far as the original question – do we have a contract for long-term storage? No. We just archive every project and include a line item on the bill.
Avid and FCP Preditor
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Anything worth doing at all, is worth doing well.
– Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield -
John,
We have a Rimage P2 archiving solution (60K) to Blu-Ray and we do not use it.
I would recommend a tape based system with a raid 1 back up.
Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com -
Emre,
Thanks for your suggestion about the tape. Would you let me know the details of what tape system you’re using?
Cheers.
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We use a system by VXA,
https://www.tandbergdata.com/us/en/products/search-result/?action=2&product=7&ref=166
It has been adequately problem free but in hind sight we might have gone for LTO, cost was an issue and this was cheaper.
Each edit bay has a RAID 1 drive (G-Safe by Gtech) that is used to archive content (1.5 TB).
The VXA is a multi tape drive that holds 10 tapes (1.6 TB)
Every night the footage is automatically backed up. Once the drive is full we assign new RAID 1 drive and the old one gets transfer to a holding spot. It is NEVER turned off just monitored with its external display. The VXA tapes are swapped out and the old tapes are archived.
Note: We are extremely displeased with G-TECH, 12 failures in 10 months, zero customer support. But thats another thread…
Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com -
Navarro –
Ah yes, the elephant in the room, the pig in the garden, the P2 tapeless workflow …
AS has been stated on this forum tape is much more reliable than any disk backup. But instead of Data tape I might suggest a novel approach – video tape. It’s cheap, small, easy to store, comes with this thing called time code that enables you to recapture at a moments notice.
I don’t know the long term prospects for XDcam in terms of storage – does it flake, degrade or scratch – but I do know that in the past few weeks I’ve been digitizing show masters for a series I did on PBS 10 year ago from BetaSP – a few dropouts here and there – but nothing crashed and nothing was lost and you’ll still be able to find a BetaSP machine 10 years from now if you have to.
The one major tapeless project I had I backed up to DVCPRO HD tape when I was done. If someone wants to recut it 5 years from now, short of a fire, it’ll still be there.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
Tape is much more reliable than any disk backup.
Both have advantages and disadvantages, with a 6000 tape library we are very quickly moving to get rid of them all. The space used to house them will be turned into edit bays to generate money. Big cost savings there.
But instead of Data tape I might suggest a novel approach – video tape.
Video tape cannot store project files, different formats require decks. DV, BETASP, DIGIBETA, MPEG IMX,DVCPROHD, HDCAM, HDCAMSR, HDV…etc Thats a lot of money to buy or rent.
a few dropouts here and there
Digital back-ups are lossless and no drop outs. There is also no time wasted digitizing, plug and play.The one major tapeless project I had I backed up to DVCPRO HD tape when I was done. If someone wants to recut it 5 years from now, short of a fire, it’ll still be there.
Our content will there even if there is fire with offsite storage and 3rd party cloud computing. When you commit your tapeless content to tape you also loose all the metadata, clip based editing/re-linking and option of MXF aware database search.
I just wanted to point out its not just black and white when comparing both workflows. There are things I miss about tape but at this point in our growth it seems so far away.
I still have Beta and DV decks available for the occasional client that has tape but that number has diminished greatly. (less than %10 of our projects are tape based.)
Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com -
Emre –
Your firm is obviously on a much larger plane than mine, but still a few observations
with a 6000 tape library we are very quickly moving to get rid of them all. The space used to house them will be turned into edit bays to generate money. Big cost savings there.
Yet later on you talk about the safety and wonders of off-site cyber storage. I work in NYC where the cost of office space is at a premium and I store my tapes in an off-site warehouse where costs are minimal especially with the size of digital tapes.
Video tape cannot store project files …
Obviously not, but project files are tiny in comparison to media, perfect for digital off-site storage.
When you commit your tapeless content to tape you also loose all the metadata, clip based editing/re-linking and option of MXF aware database search.
If you create master files of your clips, that you later lay off to video tape, and edit with these master clips, you will have total re-linking capabilities. It is true as you pointed out that you will also lose all the MetaData.
different formats require decks.
DV, BETASP, DIGIBETA, MPEG IMX,DVCPROHD, HDCAM, HDCAMSR, HDV…etc Thats a lot of money to buy or rent.All too true, but I’m assuming your talking about a facility that already owns a good number of those decks and is now having to deal with tapeless workflows. If your a start-up and if your clients are not bringing you tape then you don’t need all those decks for backup, just get a Panasonic HD 1400 for HD and an SD93 for SD, around 24K combined, and your all set.
In my original post I was just trying to suggest that archival storage is the unspoken spectre of tapeless acquisitiion. I know the future will be tapeless but I think that for the present, especially if your a small company, the rush to tapeless may be foolish.
When the time comes that remote digital archival storage becomes a finacial reality on a tight budget, then I’ll be all for it.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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