P2 720P to Tape for SD project

[Rich Rubasch]

I might be unique, but we do projects for other production companies….we are sort of a boutique with special skills. We plug into many different workflows. Hands down I’d rather have a tape than ANY hard drive. I think shooters and production guys are the ones saying “tape is going to be dead” like a broken record. Post guys and gals want a tape.

I have received 720 P footage (which is way less resolution than 1080i) because the shooters only had two 16 gig cards and 1080i “takes up too much space on the cards”. The rest of the project was 1080i on tape from a HDX900.

“Tape is cheap” seems to apply these days over those cards that no one seems to have enough of.

Then, when we get a hard drive from a client with P2 footage, it is usually one of those super cheap USB only deals that have the slowest transfer times ever! Now it’s the post house’s responsibility to transfer that footage all day. Now if I had Firewire 800 drives that’s another thing…

Dan suggested that the P2 card means “instant ingest for editing”..,in my 17 years of experience there is no such thing in this industry as “instant”. Please do not tell your clients on the shoot that this new fangled camera you’re lugging around makes the post process “instant”. We will be upset when you hand us your $89 USB drive with 250 gigs of P2 card footage and the client expects “instant” gratification.

We are still editing an awful lot of SD around these parts. I like both ProRes and DVCPro50 for our SD projects. I prefer a tape to digitize from. I only take what I want, at the resolution I want. If I have a 1080i project and I have 720P tapes, I can let the deck or the KONA card do the conversion to the right format. Doing it on the FCP timeline or in compressor is much less “instant”.

Many people suggest hard drives for back up. Great. But I will guarantee that after you have about a dozen or so hard drives on the shelf you will be back wondering if there is a better way than to keep buying up these hard drives…and how do you catalog all those drives? And should you start charging the client for those drives? A $30 tape is understandable, but now you want to charge me for a $200 hard drive? That might fail? How many posts do you read about failed hard drives? How many for a failed tape? ANY?

I’m feeling like an old fogey writing this, but I trust tape, it is versatile for SD or HD projects and it is cheap.

And please don’t EVER call the P2 workflow “instant”…honestly, it’s just not.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[David Roth weiss]

Rich,

I think if I were as concerned as you I’d probably figure a way to archive files on Blu Ray disks. Recording to tape as you described sure seems like an enormous waste of time.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Rich Rubasch]

Might seem so at first glance, but what do we do when we get 720p 23.98 clips form a P2 camera and we have to use it in a 29.97 SD project? Sure would be handy to have that tape for digitizing.

Sure is a pain in the butt to try and convert all those files with compressor etc.

The BluRay option only gives me the same files, with no easy way to get them to 29.97 SD.

Remember, I am not shooting them, and this footage might be used in different projects at different resolutions. I agree it would be great if I called all the shots, from shoot to post. Then I might choose to work at 23.98 720P throughout. Just isn’t the case.

Also, once on tape, I can upload entire parts of the footage into a single clip, instead of managing a bin full of short clips.

Another thing the tape provides….an easy way to get a window timecode dub on DVD…a simple tape to DVD recorder dub and I can have a window dub for the producer. How do you get one of those off your BluRay backup?

I want someone to convince me that shoveling all these files around on hard drives is better than tape…or provides as many solutions. Panasonic seems to have convinced a lot of people out there…I am not one of them…yet.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Rich Rubasch] “Might seem so at first glance, but what do we do when we get 720p 23.98 clips form a P2 camera and we have to use it in a 29.97 SD project? Sure would be handy to have that tape for digitizing.”

I would say wait until the time comes that you need to do that. Then if you really need 20 clips for later, throw them all on a single time line and send them out to tape. Or a file and then import the file as the flavor du jour.

If you post your question in the P2 forum you might get a more lively reaction to th e question about going to P2. But for starters, when you start the import process, from the minute that you get the first clip in the bin you can start editing. You don’t have to wait for the batch capture to finish. This is a huge time saver.

All the best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Itamar Kool]

I just ordered a Tandberg VXA tape drive to archive all my P2 material and also everything else (like masters)

Kool En De Anderen
MAC Pro 8 core/Kona LHe/Apple FCS 2/Adobe PPCS3/Huge fibrechannel
http://www.koolendeanderen.nl

[Nate Stephens]

Rich,

Are you editing with a G4 that has USB 1 not USB 2 ports.. USB 1 ports are way slow.. And you still would want to transfer the USB drive to your raid array to get any speed at all. I don’t think firewire is fast enough either unless your have a striped raid.

And you definitely need to sit down with your shooters and say, “hey guys , How about saving some money, your money” It is called a preproduction meeting.. to get everybody on the same page…

I have been shooting Betacam Sp since it was invented and still do, but the political spot we shot last month on HVX200 via Hard drive was just great NO TAPE, …. 1080i and the edit was done before I knew it… It is real close to the day where all spot deliveries will be FTP also, No tape….

As Jan (Queen of P2) suggests check out the HVX-HPX P2 Panny forum.. Heck live there… Even Sony is going tapeless…