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paranoia setting in?
I have been an outsider here casually reading posts and now finding people reporting card failures, loss of data and even mistakenly deleting data.
Some people may see this as a big no-no for the emerging ‘tapeless format’ that will eventually be the only format available (or whatever the future brings).
I personally have never had a problem with any of my Sandisks, Transcends or SxS but I am sure my turn will come.
But lets not forget the past. People could also lose a tape (especially a miniDV tape!), damage it, accidentally record over it etc. If you were in the habit in the field of ‘playing back the last take’ and forgetting to cue the tape up you were most likely to record over a portion of the ‘gun take’ and then there was NO way of recovery!
At least with the ‘tapeless format’ you don’t have to worry about cuing it up before buttoning on.
I remember not so long ago a cameraman friend of mine had just shot an hour on his Z1 and changed tape. He put the full tape in his top pocket and while shooting, lent down to get under a gangway and the tape slipped out of his pocket and into a puddle of water. He asked me to try and recover it but it was a mess. I recently did a shoot with my Ex1 and had a full SDHC 16g card in my top pocket when it started to rain big time. I got drenched and the camera had a wet weather cover but the SDHC card got more than a good washing. It was still all good and I am sure would have survived in a puddle of water.
So whether using tape or memory to record on there are risks involved, you just have to be mindful of the format and take appropriate measures. Did people make digital clones of their tapes after a days shooting?
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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5 Replies
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I don’t know that I’d call it paranoia…at least not for everyone.
I’m not flipping out or vowing to never use a piece of media again or anything like that. I thought it was a funny coincidence that someone had just posted about a SanDisk Ultra 2 Class 4 tanking on the second format and voila…I had one.
I think we’ll find that many of these failures are not as devastating as they seem now when we get a bit more experienced with handling these various media and file types…
I’d agree that tapes were rarely backed up and were certainly not indestructible. I think the difference is that the damage to videotape was rarely subtle or of mysterious origin…sometimes data media failure feels unpredictable and random.
I still remember our first $3,500.00 CD-R burner and the feeling of playing the lottery as you burn coaster after coaster…this too shall pass.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Last week I found my Kingston USB drive in the bottom of my washing machine while changing loads. Not a bit of data loss. I’d never try that with a videotape.
We shot DV before going tapeless. What a nightmare…dropouts galore! I can’t imagine HDV. It seems that as soon as the manufacturers changed their tape formulation for HDV, we started getting plagued by dropouts. No amount of head cleanings protects us for long. The JVC decks we have in several stations are a sure culprit, but even long-dependable Sony DVCAM decks have had issues playing back tapes now. If we use an older DV tape (we reuse footage often) and a recent one in the same machine, we can expect issues.
Cf
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It’s only paranoia if it’s unfounded 🙂
Most of what I’m shooting these days for clients is SQ – 1920×1080. After the shoot, I routinely dump the cards to 3 hard drives (2 of mine, one of the client’s), then do a firewire dub from EX-1 to HDV tape on a Sony GV-HD700. It doesn’t pass the TC but at least I have a backup on the shelf. It has saved me twice. Soon I’ll archive the files to Blu-Ray disc, 8 bucks per 25GB. Cheap.
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[ronn kilby] “Most of what I’m shooting these days for clients is SQ – 1920×1080”
SP…is 1440×1080, 25 Mbits/s. HDV would qualify as a clone in that case.
[ronn kilby] “It doesn’t pass the TC but at least I have a backup on the shelf. It has saved me twice.”
…are you saying that making the HDV backup has saved you? After 3 clones? harddrives aren’t bulletproof, but all three failing?
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Tim – in both cases I only had one copy of the folders – in one case the drive was trashed (Drobo!), while in the other case the folder was accidentally deleted, leaving me only the HDV tape. That was before I started making 3 copies. Definitely operator error.
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