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on set p2 backup…
When backing up p2 footage on set what is a decent cost effective external hard drive set up for backing up files/data. Is it possible to use a couple 1tb 7200 standard hard drives simply as storage devices? I don’t want to capture the data to the storage array that we will be editing/ generating effects with. These may be silly questions but I am new to video and p2 in particular. Basically what I need to know is can I use any high capacity/ high speed drive to backup p2 files and then transfer that data later to a Raid configuration for post? And what sort of data transfer rates can I expect when dumping p2 footage onto external drives? Is it easier to log/ capture into FCP on set or simply save the files directly from the p2 cards to the external drives?
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20 Replies
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One great solution is the new RAID 1 Firewire drives. This way you are writing everything twice.
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I totally agree with Michael. Single enclosure, mirrored drive…that way you always have two copies of the original footage. I never recommend only having the transcoded FCP files and dumping the original P2 wrapper.
As far as time goes, when I fill a 32GB card and dump to a FW800 drive with the MBP, it seems to do about 2X speed. About 16mins for 32 mins of footage.
HPX-2000 w/AVC board
P2 Mobile with AVC board
MBP 10.5 -
Ditto to the Raid 1 solution. My rule is that the data should be in two places before the P2 card is re-formatted. Just two days ago one drive started giving us trouble on import to FCP. We copied the data from the back up drive and we were good to go.
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[brandan dennehy] “Is it possible to use a couple 1tb 7200 standard hard drives simply as storage devices?”
Yes. If I’m shooting for myself, I use 2 LaCie 500GB FW800 drives (1 copy onto each drive).
If I’m shooting for a client, I use their drive as the primary and then back up to one of mine as a safety. That’s actually saved them on one or two occasions.
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Am I mistaken, or can’t you dump the P2 data straight from the camera to an external enclosure (as long as it has it’s own power supply)? Is there any benefit to transferring to the external via a computer versus the cam?
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Jeremey @ DI -
Yes, you can offload the files directly from the camera via firewire. The downside is that your camera is down for that duration.
What I do is remove one of the cards from the camera when it’s full. I then pop it into my Mac PowerBook G4 (using the PCMCIA slot – though you could just as easily use a Dual Adapter with a newer MacBook Pro) and transfer the footage to a firewire drive while I shoot out the second card. The process then repeats.
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The new Shotput P2 edition from Imagine Products (best 50 bucks you’ll spend on P2 software) will allow you to choose up to three separate destinations to copy your footage to. It will also do a bunch more things for you as well. I just used it on my first shoot and I like it a lot.
Jeremy
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That’s great to know. I’m still making one copy, confirming the exact amount of bytes match, and then making a second copy. It’d be nice to “automate” things a little better.
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It has 2 different types of verificaton as well. It’s really nice.
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We use a G-Tech RAID 1 and every evening we back that up to another drive which later becomes the show archive. While traveling, the drives are caried by different people in different cases.
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.4, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD w 192 Digital, SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neuman U87s, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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