How are you folks backing up the footage?

[Dean Sensui]

Lars…

That’s a tough question right now. For the sort of projects I’m working on, I would need about 20 to 25 4.2-gigabyte disks per show. Trying to figure out which disk contains particular clip or group of clips would be tricky. It could be a time-consuming task to reload a backup, too.

The option I’m looking at right now is backing up to a mirrored removable RAID. But the cost isn’t cheap, about on par with what I would spend if I saved it to tape — but with a lot more flexibility than tape. Putting it on Hitachi 250 GB SATA drives is about 50 cents per minute. The costs double to about a dollar a minute with a backup (via removable mirrored RAID).

It would be nice to save the MXF source files to Blu Ray disks. But another concern is how long those things will last and how robust they might be. I’ve already had a couple of good-quality, carefully stored DVD’s go bad. Even had a commercially produced CD go bad, and that CD was seldom handled and carefully stored.

Regarding backups to multiple disks, check out Retrospect. I think it’s designed to help do just that.

Dean Sensui — http://www.HawaiiGoesFishing.com

[Shane Ross]

I have backed up all my P2 footage onto internal 250GB hard drives that I just connect to an open firewire case. Currently all the footage resides on 4 of them that are sitting on a shelf until Blu-Ray comes out or something better. Each drove cost $90, so it was a very cheap way to do this. My boss used a 1TB G-RAID, but that cost $1100.

I like my $360 backup better.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Lars Wikstrom]

Interesting. So you are choosing Hard drives for your back ups. I guess in one way I am lucky since I rarely work on large scale scale productions. Most of my work are 30 second spots and I am trying to shoot everything in the 8 minutes (4 gig P2) in DVCPRO50. That way one job will be one disc.

Blue-Ray sounds really nice but I think I will wait to see how well it works. I installed a dual layer DVD burner in my laptop but those discs are more expensive then the 1 layer DVD.

Shooting lots of projects and backing them up to hard drive can be expensive like you guys had mentioned. It would be nice if someone created a portable self contained P2 to DVD burner in the future like the P2 store.

Thanks for the info. It’s nice to hear how other people are storing their stuff in the real world like I am.

-Lars

[Dean Sensui]

Lars…

I’m about to start working on a number of 30-second spots and making archive backups on DVD disks sounds like a good idea, especially considering costs of storage. And making multiple copies, even on TDK media, is still cheaper than a hard drive. With a 30-second spot there’s a lot less unused material to consider saving.

For a 30-second spot I’d probably media manage the project and then save the project and media on DVD’s for long-term storage. In reality, those projects have fairly short life spans and probably won’t be accessed after a year or two.

The cost of blu-ray is rather high. At the moment it’s on par with hard drives, I believe.

But for projects such as our fishing show (if we start producing it in HD) and for other similar projects, I’ll store them on multiple hard drives until some other storage medium comes along. These projects tend to have a lot longer lifespans and we also end up re-using material fairly frequently. So quick access is important.

And the other problem is whether or not to keep all the outtakes or just save the material known to be good, as well as material used within any given program. Our shooting ratio right now is almost 60:1. Hoping to get that down somewhat by not having to roll camera for extended periods of time in hopes of actually getting a hook-up on camera. With the record-ahead feature we can wait until the actual strike and hit the “record” button, and still capture a few seconds of time prior to the actual strike.

Dean Sensui — http://www.HawaiiGoesFishing.com

[Lars Wikstrom]

60:1 ratio, wow thats alot. I have not shot a project in HD yet just played around with it. My DVCAM lasted 5 years and I am expecting the HVX-200 to last the same amount of time. In 5 years I expect to be doing more HD projects which is why this camera was a good choise. Buying a camera I expect it to return 100 times what I paid for it. I can say that the $2500 I spent on the DVCAM made $250K over 5 years. I can see your problem doing HD and Backing up to DVD, 4 minutes per disc would be a pain in the A*S to want to backup at a 60:1, ouch!

The way I am processing work flow right now is to pop the P2 card in my laptop. I then created a FCP project I reuse called “P2 Importer”. I transfer in the footage with the goofy names and save. I then access the Capture Scratch / P2 Importer folder and rename all of the clips and toss out the bad ones. Then create a new project “Bob’s Car Parts 30 sec. Spot” and drag the files out of that P2 importer folder and into a footage foler I created in the new project and re import them into the new project with it’s new names.

That is the easiest way I have found so far to keep control of everything. As for media managing things that is the way I use to do it since everything lived on tape. Now I tend to back it all up since the clients like to re visit things every no and then. That is why I have be come more strick with what shots and how many takes I get of things.

-Lars

[Dean Sensui]

“Buying a camera I expect it to return 100 times what I paid for it.”

Hey here’s an idea — get a more expensive camera and make a killing! 🙂

If only it worked that way.

Our 60:1 shooting ratio is very high. We do a lot of multiple camera shooting and some of it’s just plain redundant, so that would need to change. Better planning and coordination in real time would help.

I’m still getting familiar with this workflow so it’ll be a while before I commit to any particular procedure. But I do know that whatever it is it will involve at least one or more backups. A backup file is like an ejection seat on a jet. It’s rarely used but when you finally do need it, it’s a lifesaver!

Dean Sensui — http://www.HawaiiGoesFishing.com

[Douglas Villalba]

My new workflow includes a new Western Digital 250GB per job. I am even offering customers the drive with the original material in it. I’ve had problems with DVDs going bad in less than a year so I had to find a different solution.

Douglas Villalba
https://www.dvtvproductions.com
dvillalba@dvtvproductions.com

[Deleted User]

It not uncommon for rarely-used hard drives — for example, un-powered HDDs sitting on a shelf — to go dead. Over the years I’ve seen it happen several times with a variety of HDD models/brands.

Of course, a real “backup” plan includes not just one copy of a file, but at least two copies of the file, each on different media (two tapes, or two hard drives, and so forth).

Further, one of these backups should be kept off-site to protect against relatively common events such as fire, theft, flood, and so forth.

Ironically, _tape_ is a very good backup medium, and usually more reliable than HDDs. Industry-standard tape backup systems are available from a variety of vendors, including Exabyte and others:
https://www.exabyte.com/selector/index.cfm

All the best,

– Peter

[Lars Wikstrom]

I though about tape backup and making 2 copies just in case. But I don’t want to spend 50% of a projects time backing them up. I have considered for large jobs an extra cost for another hard drive that the client would pay for and keep for future updates.

At the Panasonic booth I talked to a guy about Blue-Ray Re Writables which are coming out. I think that would be the best way to do it if you buy a drive when they come out. If a disc screws up, re write it. I think they mentioned about $45 per disc which boils down to a $1 a gig give or take.

-Lars