What is the best way to archive?

[Eric Hansen]

i use the Quantum SuperDLT SDLT600a, which is gigabit ethernet and MXF-aware. the tapes are 300GB, and i can access the tapes from any computer, Mac or PC, from a web browser on my local network. its convenient and cheap for video storage (compared to HDCAM and DVCPRO HD tape decks) and can of course store data too, but is only one of many alternatives. the deck was about $5k and the tapes are $75 each for 300gb with a 30 year shelf life. you can get server-level hard drives that are guaranteed for 5 years, but i wouldnt store stuff on a sitting hard drive for more than 2 or 3.

i researched this for a few months before dropping in on the SDLT technology – i had about 4TB (and growing fast) of external drives spread all over the office and i needed to go with a more permanent solution. for you, i would suggest waiting it out. theres a lot of cool archive technologies coming out soon such as Quantum’s LTO-based MXF-aware tape drives (which are $7k for the deck and about $45 for 400gb tape), and 300GB Holographic discs ($18k for the deck, initially), which Panasonic has gotten behind and called the official P2 archive solution. this will become popular and much cheaper in the coming years.

for now, i would suggest storing your footage on bare hard drives (always at least 2 in case one goes down) which is what most people on this forum do, then after 2 years, transfer all that footage to a new medium. by then, there might be a better solution to fit your needs. remember that hard drives are not designed for archive, but make sense for short-term storage as they are getting so damn cheap. i’ve seen bare 500gb drives for $80!…

i should also say that i suggest hard drives over Blu-Ray because of the 50GB limit. we use SDLT to store our online projects which very often will have final timelines well over 100GB in size. its been very nice to store our HD projects at a quality and resolution thats higher than HDCAM, but on a data tape thats easily brought back online if needed. the Blu-Ray disc wouldnt be able to do this, but if you dont anticipate having files bigger than 50GB, Blu-Ray might work for you.

hope that helps.

4 Dual 2.7 G5s, OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 5.1.4, Xsan storage
Xsan: Xserve 2.0, 3GB RAM, 2 Xserve RAIDs, Sanbox 5200
MacBook Pro: OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 6.0.1

[Tom Brooks]

Eric,
Thank you for this excellent post. It really puts things in a very useful perspective.
-Tom

[Eric Hansen]

i should also add that we use Autocat 3.0.8 (Mac shareware) to catalog our archive. all it does is turn an entire directory into aliases and preserves the folder structure and icons. i catalog the files and folders before i transfer them to SDLT. i then put the catalog on our server, one for each SDLT tape. this now makes our SDLT tapes searchable through Finder. if you go with hard drives or Blu-Ray or whatever, definitely go with a locally searchable catalog such as this. it has made looking for offline files infinitely easier than loading every single individual tape. i have tried other catalogers that make their own database and need a program to search that database. since Autocat just makes aliases, its searchable by any networked Mac’s Finder, no special program needed. lifesaver! a 300GB tape will make a catalog of aliases no more than 10MB in size.

e

4 Dual 2.7 G5s, OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 5.1.4, Kona LH, Xsan storage
Xsan: Xserve 2.0 G5, 3GB RAM, 2 7TB Xserve RAIDs, Sanbox 5200
Quantum SDLT600A
Sony HDW-M2000/10 HDCAM deck
MacBook Pro: OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 6.0.1

[Randy Burleson]

This looks like the future….

https://www.inphase-technologies.com/products/media.asp?subn=3_2

But I think I will go with Hard Drives until they can bring the
price Down and the storage capacity and transfer rates up
on these puppies.

$18,000 for the Drive and $180 for 300GB Media!

50 Year shelf life.

[Don Hampton]

I am very new to the P2 world and just starting shooting with my hvx200 and hpx500. I am just starting my first edit sessions with the new footage. I’ve been doing everything in SD for the past ten plus years. Anyway, for long term storage, should we archive the raw files or quicktime files (FCP) or both?

Don Hampton
DH Productions LLC
FCP, HVX200, HPX500

[Shane Ross]

The RAW files. They are your source tapes. And this way, you ensure that they work on all supported editing systems, Avid, Edius, Premiere, Vegas. If you archive ONLY the Quicktimes, any system without FCP installed can’t even see the picture if you opened it. Proprietary codec and all.

Keep the originals.

[Don Hampton]

So say in a year or two I need to open up an old project with a newer version of FCP, will it ask to reconnect the QT files or the raw files.

Also, for clip management should we rename the clip or just use the Log Notes? I wish the numbers were in a sequential order rather the random numbers/letters.

Don Hampton
DH Productions LLC
FCP, HVX200, HPX500

[Eric Hansen]

definitely save both the Raw files and the Quicktime files. FCP will ask for the Quicktime files on a reconnect. also, if you changed any shots, you’ll want to save them too. for example, on our last edit (we’re still on FCP 5.1.4) we converted all the 720p shots to 1080i60 so they could be dropped into our DVCPRO HD 1080i60 timeline without rendering. editors hate rendering! so we saved all those too. so we used about 4 times more space that with the MXF files alone, but it will make any future reconnects easier.

as far as logging names, we have traditionally used a convention where the name of the project, the shooting format, the shooting trip, tape number and shot number all contribute to the file/clip name. for example, LFhdvCORSICA01-22, means project “Lost and Found”, HDV format, trip to Corsica, tape number 1, shot number 22. to modify this for P2, we switch out HDV for P2, then save the MXF file name (0001EY.MXF) to the “Angle” part of the log and transfer, since we never used that column before. we fill the Log Note column with notes about the shot, so if you do that too, i would recommend saving the MXF file name to a different space.

hope that helps

e

5 Dual 2.7 G5s, 8GB RAM, OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 5.1.4, Kona LH, Xsan storage
Xsan: Xserve 2.0 G5, 3GB RAM, 2 7TB Xserve RAIDs, Sanbox 5200
Quantum SDLT600A
Sony HDW-M2000/10 HDCAM deck
MacBook Pro: 2.33, 2GB RAM, OSx 10.4.10, Final Cut 6.0.1