I’d like to discuss the SPX800 P2 camera

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Chris,

If you look at the one example of $168 to archive 15 hours of DVCPROHD and you find that outrageous, you have not looked at tape cost. DVCPRO HD tape will cost you $50 an hour.

But frankly while we mention it in the white pape that is hanging on the HVX200 resources page, it by far is my least favorite. My most favorite at this point in time is DLT/LTV tape storage solutions, data Storage tape. The cheaper they are the slower, but you can get a Dell for about $2250 and a about $50 for 200gigs. This will give you slightly faster than real time on HD and about 2X on DVCPRO50. The most expensive one is the Quantum and is truly a favorite as it alos is MXF aware, which means it saves the MXF data up front so it is searchable and you can go to a specific time code on that DLT and just ingest that clip. This one has a pricier beginning around the $10,000 mark, but the individual data cost is comparable with the Dell system. Me, I could justify this many times over with the time savings of not having to reload the entire tape to use just a couple of clips. But don’t let my words persuade you here, look at data storage for the IT industry, they have losts of solutions, and frankly if the IT industry has been supporting businesses for years with solutions, let’s take advantage of that. Still the QUantum has been designed byt a Data company for the video industry.

There are some future products that also look intriguing, like the Holographic Blue Laser. This should be out this year, I thought last year but no. Looks strong for this year. InPhase Technologies would be a place to look for this one.

Then this summer there is the Blue-ray, which on a dual layer could get you about 50GB. So you just have to think about how much and the overall scheme of your archive. I mean you really want to think about how am I going to keep this ogranized. People think differently but for me I would look at how I have organized my computer for a lead on how to organize my video library, as I can find virtually anything fairly quickly on my computer.

So think about it, solutions are there. Investigate, storing data is much cheaper than storing tape, at least on a DVCPRO HD level.

Hope this helps,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Gary Adcock]

[Chris Baldwin] “It seems to be the nail in the coffin. I even understand the high cost of P2 acquisition media. But until archiving becomes as cheap as tape or cheaper, I don’t get what we’re even talking about all this for.
I mean Jan, Gary anybody! How do we archive? I’m even talking about working in DVCPRO50 SD still at this point. “

want to add to Jan’s comments on archiving

this is part of a new world philosophy and people are going to have to start thinking about archiving everything. I understand that everyone is looking for the “holy grail’ on this, but the reality is that every person needs to examine all of the options available –NOT just because they are thinking about the P2 workflow . ALL of our digital assets need to be archived and maintained.

When is the last time you backed up your email or the phone list in your cell? Is that data any more or less important that the video you plan on shooting? No – just larger. Jan is correct about Blu Ray DVD’s – but I also have a dual layer 9 gig burner in my new mac. -so things are looking up on the archive DVD based archive front. but do not forget that all of us have at our disposal a simple and affordable backup available already.
It is called a hard drive. I purchase seagate 250 gig IDE drives for about $125. I use a weibe-tech forensic dock to attach it to my computer via FW and back up to it. Stick it back in the Static bag and Label the contents on the OUTSIDE of the box and put it back on the shelf.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[David Garcia]

On the archiving front,

I’m hearing that DVD-Rs actually have a pretty limited lifespan. I’ve been hearing that they’ll last about 5 years tops. Apperently the dye in the disc eats itself or something. I haven’t been using them 5 years so I don’t know.

Will Blu-Rays be suceptible to degredation aswell?

I guess DLT sounds good.

David Garcia
Halflife* Digital
Albuquerque, NM

david garcia
Halflife* Digital
albuquerque, nm

[Toke]

[JeremyG] “Out of After Effects, we can render out any codec we want, but when the footage is digitized @DV50, we see a lot more lossiness in the video portions of our rendered projects. The loss is lessened when we digitize the footage in uncompressed.”

First I think using word “digitize” isn’t right when you are capturing already digital data from tape.
This raises a question: why there is “lossiness” differences between these two dataflows:
1) dvcpro50 -> decompress -> sdi -> after effects -> uncompressed
2) dvcpro50 -> firewire -> decompress -> after effects -> uncompressed
?
Data is digital all the way, so which stage calculates an error?
Lossiness will appear if you export and import footage from/to AE multiple times with dvcpro codec, but if you keep the material uncompressed after first import, where does the change come from?
Wrong color spaces & color space conversions?

[JeremyG] “We couldn’t figure out a way to archive our footage without spending a bunch of money on some sort of redundant RAID system that would eventually get all filled up.”

Ever heard about Ultrium 3 (LTO)?
400 gigabytes to one tape and 80(!)mega_bytes_ per second tranfer rate.
Very archivable and reliable if data is verified after copying.
And a lot cheaper per GB than dvcpro(hd) tape.

[Chris Baldwin]

Jeremey,

Thanks for the Ultrium 3 (LTO) sugestion. Is this what you were talking about?

https://www.ultriumlto.com/

It seems that even in “native” transfer mode it still has a 2:1 compression.
“data transfer rates of 68-136 MB/ second (2:1 compression)” So is that native or not? Also, at 68MB/sec, it then transfers 1gig in ?

So it requires an operating CPU and we’re using FCPHD on a Mac. How would we set that up if we wanted to use a Mac?

Lastly…And this is a question simply about P2’a MXF archiving capability. Do all these solutions archive the whole set of MXF Metadata?

Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com

[Chris Baldwin]

Jeremey,

What Lens are you using? I’d like to get a good telephoto lens with doubler for talking heads and broll and I’m looking for a good wide angle as well.

I may or may not have a big budget for my lenses. If not then I was looking at the Fujinon 20×8.6 BERM. What are your recomendations?

Thanks

Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com

[Toke]

[Chris Baldwin] “Thanks for the Ultrium 3 (LTO) sugestion. Is this what you were talking about?
” target=”_blank”>https://www.ultriumlto.com/”

Try this:
https://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/tapestorage/ultriumdrives.html

[Chris Baldwin] “So it requires an operating CPU and we’re using FCPHD on a Mac. How would we set that up if we wanted to use a Mac?”

Buy a scsi card and attach the tape drive to that.
Use any handy back-up software like Bru.

[Chris Baldwin] “Lastly…And this is a question simply about P2’a MXF archiving capability. Do all these solutions archive the whole set of MXF Metadata?”

If you archive the original raw data from p2 cards, then you have identical data compared to what camera has recorded. It’s just copying digital data in file format. No more videostreams and loosing any metadata. (Like recording date & time with dv/cam/pro.)
So far converting mxf to qt for editing with cfp does loose all metadata, but this might change when fcp6 comes.

[Toke]

[toke lahti] “https://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/tapestorage/ultriumdrives.html”

And the datarate is 80MB/s _uncompressed_ with Ultrium 3.

[Chris Baldwin]

toke,

Existing FCP needs to convert the MXF file to QT for editing in FCP but it doesn’t erase the metadata right? the original mxf file is still on your computer?

And the thought that FCP6 would support native MXF editing with Metadata imported into FCP as clip properties…

When will we know about this? NAB? Again another hiccup in the full P2 workflow. Then again I’m learning about all of this one step at a time. It be great to have an actual training DVD on all the workflows possible across P2 solution, archive solution, and across editing platform. If Panasonic is trying to evolve the industry here I think the training should come from them and the information should all be standardized that comes out. Currently it feels like there are islands of expertise out there and forums like this or seminars to some degree are the only way of connecting the dots and bringing the whole industry up to speed at the same time.

Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hey Toke. Without turning into a big ole mathematical & technical shootout here, I just use my eyes. When the footage is imported over firewire into dv50 and then effected in AFter Effects, the footage tends to look a little more lossy than if I ‘import’ as you say or ‘digitize’ or ‘capture’ or (whatever term you want to use), than if I would bring in the footage uncompressed from the beginning. Also, I know that bringing it in dv50 over firewire is supposed to be a 1:1 transfer of all the digital information, but somehow when bringing it in over SDI the details are are little more smooth. There are less jaggies and the video looks a little smoother. I’m not talking a huge significant amount, but enough to see in my very discerning eyes. Add to that rendering out multiple iterations out of After Effects, I need to keep the video looking a s good as possible. i don’t know where the ‘errors’ occur, I just deal with them and know that i have kept the highest and best quality that I possibly could along the way. If I were doing a complete cuts only piece, dv50 would be fine, but I never do a cuts only piece.

Color space and color space conversion from fcp to AE and back is a totally separate issue.

No, I have not seen the Ultrium 3, but I’ll keep it in mind when and if we go tapeless. Don’t forget, we aren’t buying DVCPRO HD tape, we are buying regular old DVCPRO tape (AJ-P66MP) The medium size Panasonic DVCPRO tape with a yellow lid. We get approx. 33 minutes per tape shooting dv50.