Recording to FS-100 and archiving

[Gary Adcock]

[Randolph] “I am looking for a safe , in the field archiving solution. I believe I can connect a SATA 2 RAID to my PowerBook using the new SeriTek/2ENSM2 from FirmTek, which is supposed to ship this coming week. It is a dual hard drive enclosure bundled with an eSATA to PCMCIA adapter. I have 2 500GB SATA II Seagate drives to put in the enclosure.”

building your own array and “safe field archiving” in the same paragraph do not instill anything but fear into me.

Do not plan a system based on any product that is not shipping when you are in the planning stages. Being on the front end of the tech curve when you are alone on location is not a very good idea. – If the cards are too expensive for your budget fine. But “safe” and “build your own” are writ with strife and danger.
Buy a name drive and pay for that with support and a guarantee.
SATA on PCA cards is still too new to be trusted unless you are a true gear head.
FW is around and proven for this usage and a lot less hassle.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL
gary@studio37.com

[Noah Kadner]

Gotta agree with Gary- this is definitely workable but may be a bit risky to your footage. I would suggest instead either renting two more P2 cards or buying enough so that you have 2 or 3 8GB cards. Then get the P2 store. It’s solid, offers push button simple operation you can do as a one-man band as need be and you could go all day with one.

I think it’s an important consideration when budgeting for this camera to look beyond just the body. If you’re doing long form shooting especially, you’ve got a substantial budget above and beyond the camera to consider.

Noah

[Lawrence Marshall]

I think the pivotal “risk” in this scenario, if it is indeed a risk, is the FS-100, a new product. I think the *concept* of recording to hard drives is sound. I just finished a project recording directly to SATA drives connected to a 17″ Powerbook (using a SATA PCMCIA card) and the HVX 200. I recorded directly to FCP, 16;9 24P using the standard DV codec to one SATA drive, and upon completion of the shoot cloned to a seond SATA drive (using a two-drive Firmtek enclosure). We shot during the day, and did a rough edit in the evening. No problems at all.

That’s bleeding-edge enough for me for now. Looking forward to hearing how new adapters of the FS-100 are faring.

Larry M.

[Edward Randolph]

Thanks for the voice of reason. I am jumping in a little deep, but I’m already off the bridge and in the air with the HVX-200 purchase.
I do not have to start shooting until June and thought I could work out the bugs (if any) by then.
I had intended to buy either the Canon or JVC HDV cameras until I went to NAB and spent about 5 hours hands on with the HVX-200. I have a DVX-100 so I’m familiar with the layout.
With the Canon or JVC I could have just recorded to tape and not had this problem, but I just don’t like the idea of compressing to MPEG2 and calling it HD.
I have never liked P2 cards. Two 8GB cards giving 16 minutes of recording for approx. $2600 is ridiculous. If I did want to spend that, have you ever tried to shoot a documentary interview and stop every 16 minutes.
I woud never have bought a P2 camera,no matter how good the footage until I saw it working with the FS-100. I thought, “great, now I can get the HD output with a longer record time.”
I know it’s new, but FireStore has been out for a while and this is just a new version (I hope!).
The SATA to PCMCIA is just a stopgap until I get my new Mac Book Pro, OF course then I need the SATA to Express 34 card; also a new technology.
I know firewire is good. I have been using FW 400 external on my PowerBook to capture footage in the field, but before, I’ve had the DV tape for archiving. I was assuming I needed the added speed of SATA for HD footage.
I’ll look into alternatives and test everything before I take it on the road. Maybe if I bleed, I can post the results and help the next poor sucker.

[Edward Randolph]

Hey, Do you guys own stock in P2 cards and P2 Stores?
P2 cards are $50 a day to rent x2 is $100 a day and I’ll be shooting for a couple of months. That’s about $6000.
I could buy 4 8GB P2 cards for that and have 32 minutes of continuous shooting if I had the camera locked down on the tripod and fast hands.
Shooting on the move B-roll with a shoulder mount, I’d need a clever monkey on my back.
On the other hand, for the same money, I can buy three FS-100s and have 5 hours of shooting (swapping every 100 minutes) without downloading. Or, I can buy one FS-100 and two 1TB RAIDS (storing 16 hours mirrored) and have $2000 left for traveling money.

About the P2 Store:That’s 60GB capacity and will hold 60 minutes of HVX-200 footage. If that’s all I shot in a day, I’m not working hard enough.
One interview is usually 45 to 60 minutes for me and more if I find a “live” one. 4 or 5 hours of interviews and B-roll is a good day for me. I don’t always get it, but I want to be able to.
I also don’t like the fact that the P2 Store has a little LED telling me my footage is 100% copied and safe so I can now destroy it by erasing the P2 Card. Can you check through the camera to see it’s really there before you erase the card?

Sorry for the rant. Did I say P2 cards are too expensive? I DO love the camera though. Maybe the price will come down and the capacity go up in a year or so. 64GB P2 cards for around $1000 each and I would be buying.

[Edward Randolph]

Larry,
Thanks for the real world feed back. It sounds like the SATA drives and the FirmTek products are working for you. The only difference is I would be getting the new SATA to PCMCIA Card and enclosure bundle they’re offering (SeriTek/2ENSM2). I like this solution for in home or office interviews, but I will also be touring Government facilities and need more mobility, hence the FS-100 decision. I hope it works as well in my hands as at NAB 🙂
I was going to RAID 1 the 2 SATA drives throught the MAC disc utility so I have mirrored backup of everything I copy from the FS-100.
Turn-key RAIDS cost about twice as much as what I’m attempting.
I’ll jump for joy and post if it works.

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Randolph,

I think that much of what you want to do can be done with P2 cards, a P2 Store and the Firestore. If I was to leave something out, it would be the P2 store. I think you are getting hung up on the intial cost and not looking at the long term cost. Every time they are used the price goes down. Many of the folks here are using the camera in the 720P/24PN mode and thus making the 8 GB card last for 20 minutes.

I think for the interviews, you could record those onto the new MACBook as it has the 7200RPM drives, or through put to a HDD and have the interview go as long as you like. I am not trying to talk you out of the Firestore, heck I sell the Firestore, but I love the whole concept behind the P2 cards. I love the whole flexibility and ease with the memory recording.

But there is no need to rant about the cost of the cards, in the long haul, they are not that expensive.

Best,

Jan

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

[Shane Ross]

I don’t own stock, but we do own two cameras. And while the initial investement seems mighty steep, bear in mind that you aren’t buying tapes…scads and scads of tapes. Tape stock is no longer a cost on your shoot, so the cost of these cards gets spread out from production to production and soon pay themselves off.

I tout the cards because they work and they work well. Have a continuous interview? With two cards in the camera you can pull one when it fills up and the other one starts recording and copy the information off. It won’t take that long (1min per gig average) and then you put it back in the camera….while it is shooting…and when the second card is full, it will switch back to the first one.

It is just a workflow that you have to get down and get used to.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Dean Sensui]

I can’t vouch for the Express 34 version of Seritek’s card, but I have been using Firmtek’s hot-swappable RAID system in my G5 for the last couple of years. With a two-drive RAID and several other striped pairs of drives available, I have more than 3 TB of storage. Hadn’t had any problems yet.

The drives get swapped perhaps once or twice every few days, depending on what projects I’m working on (each client gets their own RAID drives). So it’s not like the drives get swapped a lot. But they’ll insert and lock w/o a problem.

I read a review of one hot-swappable system which noted you had to be careful about inserting the drive into the housing; that it was possible to mis-align the pins in the backplane. I’ve never had that issue with the Firmtek system. The alignment is perfect every single time.

Dean Sensui — http://www.HawaiiGoesFishing.com

[Edward Randolph]

Hi Jan and thanks for your input.
I am really pleased that you are here representing Panasonic and keeping and eye on what your product end users have to say.
The first time I heard of P2, I was thrilled and eagerly expectant to have a tapeless video future. It is THE way to deal with digital media. I still think so, but, I totally disagree with Panasonic’s policy concerning P2 card pricing. I know there are development costs that have to be passed on, but right now I can buy 2GB SD cards for around $70. Times 4 that’s $280 for 8GB and an 8GB P2 is $1400. That’s an awful lot of development passed to the consumer. I would hope that Panasonic can buy memory a lot cheaper than I can. I would think you could sell 8GB P2 cards for $700 and make a profit. I think you would sell a lot more cameras and cards if the cards were less expensive. Although that’s probably a foolish thing to say since I had to get on a waiting list to buy one. LOL.
I love the camera. You gave us filmmakers a lot to play with. I appreciate it. Now stop telling me how cost effective these overpriced cards are “in the long run.” 3 or 4 years from now, I’ll be buying your even better camera and using it’s new groundbreaking storage technology.
Thanks again and no animosity. This IS where I can voice my opinion. Right?