[Tony]

I think he may have been confused with GV’s Infinity 2/3″ non tape camcorder.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

David,

The only other way to get around this is to do the copying on location in the field and set up an assembly line workflow.

Too major issues- The additional cost to hire an IT literate person to be solely responsible for the xfer’s. You don’t want to hire a warm body fourteen year old PA who thinks he understand the importance of the digital files. After all he did figured out how to play an Xbox in under a hour.

2)The additional gear to bring to the shooting location (laptop,external hard drives, P2 reader, or even a desktop PC if you really want fast xfer and storage.

3)The physical area assigned to do the copying. You will not want to be doing this in a dusty, hot, humid area (ie on the beach, by the roadside of a dusty country road) if indeed you value your P2 original masters and the resulting copies on the hard drives. (see my posting below regarding the cause of Hard drive failures and the root of the problem being enviromental use and storage of the drives.)

3) The time to transfer, confirm the data is ok and release back the P2 cards to the shooting crew.

What this all boils down to is 1) the camera is cheap but the workflow will add more time, manpower and gear. So each producer has to do the math to see if the savings, risks and gains are all worth it on the backend when all is said and done.

The workflow described might be manageable when the camera is used for B-roll shots but it could get quite tricky if the camera is the principal camera shooting non stop 10-14 hrs a day.

My personal solution to all this is to wait it out and see how a clear workflow is established or hold out for the Grass Valley Infinity system.

The number of hoops you subject yourself too with any new format is subject to your pain threshold and age. It seems the younger you are the more accepting you will be. I imagine alot of this has to do with the amount of income, risk and much adventure you are capable of.

The older and wiser alot of us “old timer’s” are the less forgiving we are as our livelihood depends on a solid history and future of success. I am much more accepting of any new format once the back end workflow, cost, and interchange is all worked out and in place for good.

Tony Salgado

My motto- “If you can’t edit it…. then don’t shoot it”.

[Tony]

John,

Well said.

Ain’t it the truth.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

No I don’t think that is what she meant.

Think of it as any normal copying of data from hard drive to hard drive.

1) Record media onto P2 card lets call this card “Mini Me”

2) Create a folder on a master hard drive which you will copy to.
The master hard drive in this case will be called “Big Moma” with a folder named “Mini Me BK1” . The master hard drive can be an internal or external hard drive.

For future reference I will refer to the master hard drive/folder combo as
“Big Moma/Mini Me BK 1”.

3) Copy “Mini me” to “Mini Me BK1” folder on Big Moma Hard drive.

3) Confirm files are ok on Big Moma hard drive drive in either in FCP or in finder.

If you feel confident all is ok then – Return P2 Mini Me card to camera for shooting at this stage or wait until after step 4

4) Copy folder “Mini Me BK1” to second HD called “Lil Moma” with a folder on it called “Mini Me BK2”

The second hard drive could be a firewire, usb or whatever storage device you choose but to save time I recommend using USB 2 or Firewire for all hard drive to hard drive transfers.

Any additional copies will originate from “Big Moma/Mini Me BK1”.

The advantage of called each folder by the original P2 card name and backup number is you can track back to discover where any problems might have occurred during the different stages of copying the media (ie the P2 card itself, Big Moma or Lil Moma hard drives).
In addition you will be able to compare the files for reference.

Another suggestion would be to start naming the P2 card by a numbering sequence similar to what we use when shooting tape except adding the number of passes a card has been subjected to on a given day in order to keep track of what order the footage was shot.

“Card 1-01″ meaning P2 card #1 pass number one
” Card 1-02″ would mean Card #1 pass #2.

If shooting multiple cameras add the letters A,B,C,D …. to the name. Two possible scenarios would be

A/Card 1-01 meaning – camera A, card one, pass one
B/Card 1-01 meaning – camera B, card one, pass one

or

Card 1A-01 meaning- Card one, Camera A, pass one
Card 1B-01 meaning- Card one, Camera B, pass one

If we go one step additional to save time in the field create all the Card name folders in advance within a master folder called by the client or project name.

For example

Big Moma hard drive contains

1-Master folder called “HVX Test BK1”
2-Within this folder are all the subfolders for the cards
Card 01-01
Card 01-02
Card 01-03
Card 01-04
etc, etc

Add a letter if using multiple cameras.

Copy from the original P2 card to each specific folder each time a new pass is completed.

At the end tape copy the entire folder called HVX Test BK1 to secondary hard drives but be sure to rename the additional copies as “HVX Test BK2” to keep track of each successive copy.

The beauty of this system is you can have all the folders made up in advance and simply rename the master folder on a per project basis.,

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

John,

Honestly I don’t think two cards would be the most ideal scenario if someone is using the HVX 200 as the primary camera for longer records on a daily basis. Unless of course the shooter adopts a film shooting mentality and “rations” the amount of record time he or she shoots.

Maybe in addition to a solid post workflow clients need to adopt a different stragedy for the amount of recording time one intends to put onto a P2 card. For example if time is of the essense to speed up the dump to hard drives than instead of filling up the card 100% one would record 50-75% of the card capacity thereby reducing the amount of data to be copied.
This is similar to a practice I have had to use in the past when I have a limited number of batteries and must account for the recharge time factor.

Even if you had a faster transfer system have you accounted for a 2nd backup in the event the first hard drive is damaged, corrupted or worst lost etc etc.

An established workflow for digital photography is to make multiple backups of the files onto various hard drives or other storage device before blowing away the original files and/or media.

I personally have adopted a policy when dealing with important media on hard drives to back up multiple times as a precautionary practice to reduce the chance of losing precious data but more importantly a solid relationship with a “trusted client”

I spoke to a major hard drive manufacturer tech support employee yesterday regarding what is the number one cause of failure for hard drives. He said quite simply “environmental issues” which can be items such as “shock” due to repeated movement from location to location, exposure to the elements heat and cold, constant physical abuse. Given all these issues it does not seem logical to expect that a single xfer would provide 110% confidence for me. Keep in mind I am not talking about the actual media itself from the HVX-200 but the actual possible problems with external or internal hard drives themselves.

One last note I was also told a quick rule of thumb regarding the lifespan of hard drives is as follows: External hard drive 3 years, internal hard drive 3-5 years again both subject to change based on the environmental working and storage conditions.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Thanks Jesse,

That was the info I was seeking.

I assume that it should not matter if a card is formatted in one camera and is used in another as in the case of any storage medium when used on multiple computers.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Check if your RT tab is set to unlimited or safe RT.

If set to unlimited check if playback quality is set to dynamic,high or low.

The quality of the image will change on the fly in FCP 5 when RT extreme is set to dynamic.

If you don’t like this then either switch to safe rt and render your clips and/or timeline to view full res.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Well that depends on what real time effects either offers.

If you want the CPU to take on the load and give you as many unlimited effect previews then set it to FCP.

If BMD can handle the effect in real time then set it to BMD. However the problem occurs when you have the wrong setting and have unlimited effects on.

Check it out and you will see what I mean.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Yes I have seen that and it has to do with whether or not FCP or BMD is handling the effects and if unlimited RT is activated.

Check under system setting in FCP to see who is handling effects.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

That is standard now as the service depots need to charge a minimum fee to cover among things the overhead, dozens of employees and engineers, lease etc etc.

You should try to find an independent video engineer or service engineer who charges by the hour. You could also go to a major rental facility and ask if they do outside service work.

FYI not all the work is done by Sony internally as they send overflow work to outside contractors.

Tony Salgado