Need advice purchasing storage units for HD work

[Shane Ross]

CalDigit S2VR HD. On Intels it is solid. Some minor issues on PPC macs…so if you are using an INTEL MAC, this is a good solution. Also the HD PRo if you have extra $$.

Other options…just ot give you other options…are the 500P from Sonnet and Burly Boxes from MacGuru.com.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Pieco]

So Shane,
Am I just naive in thinking that XServe is the way to go? It seems pricey, but most people or companies that I deal with sware on those drives. I’m just ignorant on the subject, but will check out your recommendations. Thanks again for your time.

[Shane Ross]

XServe RAIDs are good for SHARED storage…if you want more than one machine to have access to them. But then you not only have to buy the XSERVE, but then XSAN as well.

eSATA and PCIexpress raids are as good, as fast if not FASTER, and far cheaper than fibrechannel solutions like the XSERVE. But thus far they are single station solutions. Which is fine if you are only editing with one edit station.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[John Foley]

It sounds like your HD is really panasonic HD. That is a big difference from uncompressed HD.

The Fiberchannel RAID solution is costly and limited in cost per megabyte vs the SATA RAID’s available.

It really depends on the sustained speed you need to edit. For true uncompressed HD that is better than 200 MB/sec. For DVCPRO HD, that is 10 MB/sec and capable of transfer over Firewire.

With those requirements a good SATA RAID is workable at a huge cost savings.

Please visit http://www.thefinalcutstore.com for all your Final Cut needs.

[Shane Ross]

FinalOne is right…DVCPRO HD really only requires a firewire drive to edit. Single drive FW400 is pushing it, but FW800 two drive raid is fine. But I prefer to stay away from firewire and lean towards eSATA as it is faster and can get you more streams of video…at about the same cost. I use the CalDigit S2VR Duo for DVCPRO HD and that does fine. You can use that. You’ll get better performance out of a 5 drive raid like the S2VR HD, which is why I recommended it.

XSERVE is way overkill for DVCPRO HD. Requirements for that are really low….it is a compressed format of HD.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Pieco]

good point. I have’nt learned the skill of simultaneous multi-edit bay editing. I called Cal Digit and John walked me through their products. They sound great.

Thanks again for your help.

[Pieco]

Panasonic if ingested via Firewire, can be handled through firewire, which is what we do. But for some stuff, we might need to up-res it to full HD. We do get HD-CAM requests from time to time. it still seems that the Xserve is not a necessity unless you need to network multiple stations.

[Rick Garnica]

Hey there all,

Just reading the post and came across where FinalOne mentioned “Panasonic HD” and “uncompressed HD.”

What is the difference? I thought HD was HD. And, if such is not the case, then how many instances of HD are there? One for each manufacturer?

Could any of you recommened a book and/or website that might have such information?

Thanks,
Rick

[Pieco]

Thanks Shane,
I am finally seeing the light and you are the second to recommend the S2VR Duo.

Thanks for you time.

[Shane Ross]

[WizardPoet] “Just reading the post and came across where FinalOne mentioned “Panasonic HD” and “uncompressed HD.”

What is the difference?”

DVCPRO HD is compressed HD. It is capturable via firewire. Uncompressed HD is a setting in FCP to capture various formats of HD.

[WizardPoet] “I thought HD was HD. And, if such is not the case, then how many instances of HD are there? One for each manufacturer?”

OH HO HO! Boy are you mistaken. How many formats? More than you have fingers and toes. HDV, DVCPRO HD, XDCAM, HDCAM, HDCAM SR, D5, AVCHD…then there’s 1080p, 1080i, 720p…then there’s the frame rates, 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 59.94, 60. You can have HDCAM 1080p 23.98, or HDCAM 1080i 59.94, or HDCAM 1080i 29.97…then similar for D5, HDCAM SR. XDCAM has like 4 or 5 different data rates. HDV has 720p and 1080i…DVCPRO HD has 23.98 and 59.94…even 1080i.

And I haven’t even touched the 2K film formats like Viper and Genesis.

Oh…then here comes RED and the ability to shoot 4k and downconvert it to many different formats of HD using REDCODE.

There is NO standard for HD. It has to be the most confusing format out there.

[WizardPoet] “Could any of you recommened a book and/or website that might have such information?”

http://www.hdforindies.com would be a good place to start. Read the FAQ.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net