I would never recommend bringing a DLT to the set. I suggested it as the most reliable “archiving” media, to put everything on once the project is done. I’d never do an archive of anything on a set, that’s just silly.
I have seen a couple of flash drives fail. I work outdoors a lot, in a lot of bad southeast Louisiana weather, shooting a lot from boats. Moisture distroys a flashdrive faster than an alligator on a nutria. Case cracks, its distroyed. Lots of ways to distroy a flashdrive. I like them way better than DVD. DVDs are just too pron to physical damage for my tastes.
My point is that a DLT tape, you can smash it against a brick wall (then put the tape in a new case), let it set in water all day, run it through airport x-ray machines all day, and it’ll still be as reliable as ever. Again, my only point is that it is the most reliable archive media, not the only archive media. And comparied to DVD and flash, its also the most GB for your buck.
But again, not the only choice out there, just my choice, based on years of professional IT experience. I’ve seen RAIDs fail that were supposed to be bullet proof, everything fails at some point. But I’ve seen DLT tapes go through building fires and come out fine, when the DVD backups melted long before the still in tact DLT tapes in a closet. Just my personal choice.
– Apple Certified Trainer
– Tutorials at http://www.bbalser.com
– South Louisiana FCP Users Group
– NOVAC Digital Filmmakers Institute
– Event DV magazine