Hi there,
I've been asking questions about hard-drive set-ups for editing on the Avid forum, but now I think I should ask here, because I'm starting to get the sense that it's as much about WHAT I'll be editing (EX-1 35Mbps) as what I'll be editing it WITH (Avid Media Composer, on a Mac... now a MacBook Pro, by the way, but a year from now I hope to get a Mac Pro).
Until I got the new EX, I'd been fine with external fw drives, but now I think I should consider a RAID 5 set-up that's more dependable, and faster.
I've divided my options into two categories: software-RAID units, and hardware-RAID units. People have been advising me regarding the differences, but I need the help of people on this forum, because a lot of Avid editors edit in SD, where software-RAID might be all they need; the thing is, I don't know if it'll do for EX-1 footage.
Would people who edit with EX-1 footage kindly advise me?
Here are my options in the software-RAID units:
- the Fusion 500p enclosure by sonnet technology. About $600; add your own SATA drives (and in my case, with a MacBook Pro, add the Express Card):
http://store1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=219&osCsid=b4ea8a5cccef45e05b91811a668f4ad0
- the Firmtek 5PM... also very highly regarded by some Avid editors. From the one review I read, the Firmtek is quiet, compared to some other options. This might sound trivial, but I think it's an important issue.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/5pm
- the G-Tech G-Speed eS drive. Looks gorgeous, and has a good name.

Only option I've found for hardware-RAID:
- the about-to-be-released Caldigit HDOne:
http://www.caldigit.com/HDOne/
which promises 20Gbps, and can be RAIDED in various ways (including my preferred RAID-5)... sounds fantastic. But it is $2,300 for the 2.5 TB model, which is expensive.
Anyway, I'd love some advice from people who've been editing with EX1 footage.
Thanks, malcolm

As I shoot docs in the desert I have moved to be totally mobile if required. I have a Sager core 2 17" laptop with a SIIG eSATA dual RAID express card going to two Western Digital 1T MyBooks. THE DRIVES, WIRE AND EXPRESS CARD ABOUT $560 FROM B&H.

I carry a Xantec power-pack supported by a 12v deep cycle battery from Costco that charge from the truck. It works great and even in the deepest desert I run out of wine before I run out of power or storage space.

Mike

Here are my options in the software-RAID units:
- the Fusion 500p enclosure by sonnet technology. About $600; add your own SATA drives (and in my case, with a MacBook Pro, add the Express Card):
http://store1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=219&osCsid=b4ea8a5cccef45e05b91811a668f4ad0



Malcolm, I use Sonnet's Fusion 500P with my MacPro 3.2 Octo, Leopard 10.5.2 software RAID and FCP Studio 2.0. I've used Sonnet RAID products for the last 8 years, the Fusion 500P for the last 2 years. One thing you might want to be concerned about is noise levels and heat management of the RAID unit. I choose the Fusion 500P because it is quite and provides lots of air flow to keep the hard drives cool. Sonnet has excellent engineering, reliability and they provide top notch support.

The Fusion 500P has performed flawlessly for me, running continuously for weeks at a time, with uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 video all the way up to 1920x1080/60i, i.e. data rates on the order of 158 MB/s. The caution with SATA drives is that they reduce data transfer speed as they become full. However, the EX-1 video data rates are no where near the maximum capabilities of a Fusion 500P RAID.

By the way, I tried to respond to your PM over the weekend but my reply bounced back saying: Unknown address error 550-'No such recipient'

Regards!

Good Post Malcom. I'm in the same boat with a Mac Powerbook and international travel while editing.

Been hearing good things about the Sonnet stuff but for me a big box full of hard drives that weighs 30lbs is....... going to get expensive and combersome during travel.

Anyone with a decent solution to:

Storage while shooting..... while cutting..... while being transplanted to various countries???

Barry:
Where in Canada did you get your Sonnet?

Malcolm I just finished your posts in the avid forum and needless to say I'm very interested to see where you go on this.

The new Firmtek SeriTek/5PM with the Samsung Spinpoint 1TB drives seems like a very good option...

Personally I go with HW RAID whenever possible, especially with higher levels like 3,5, and 6. Software means that every time you access the disk the processor gets pulled away to encode/decode which negates a lot of the speed you get. CalDigit makes fantastic RAID systems, I'm actually looking at the same one for on-set capture with much higher end systems. The data rate on XDCAM EX at 35mbps is only 4.4 MBps, not a big strain on an array that can handle 20gb/s, or 2.5 GB/s. I currently use a Ciprico U320RX 10 disk RAID 30 (2x 5 disk RAID 3 striped into a RAID 0) over dual channel U320 SCSI and sustains over 400 MB/s according to the Black Magic speed test. With that I can work with uncompressed 16 bit 2k image sequences, which require 307MB/s for consistent playback. I can't speak to the noise and other physical attributes, but it would be able to keep up with just about anything you could need in the coming years.

-Sean

The data rate on XDCAM EX at 35mbps is only 4.4 MBps, not a big strain on an array that can handle 20GB/s.

Where did you get that figure? I mean of course the array that can handle 20 GB/s. It is quite a contrast to the effective transfer rate of only 400 MB/s. That is a factor 50 difference.

OOPS! Should be 20 gb/s or 2.5 GB/s, I'll fix it now. Thanks for noticing that, I must have gotten carried away with the shift key.

-Sean

Dulce RAID is excellent and you can get all the help you need from a DVinfo.net sponsor http://www.zotzdigital.com/. They are dialed in and will get you into a great product for a great price.

I have a 4TB Dulce Raid with 8 500GB drives and it has been flawless now for 8 months of hard use.

Personally I go with HW RAID whenever possible, especially with higher levels like 3,5, and 6. Software means that every time you access the disk the processor gets pulled away to encode/decode which negates a lot of the speed you get. CalDigit makes fantastic RAID systems, I'm actually looking at the same one for on-set capture with much higher end systems
-Sean

Hi Sean,
I agree that this Caldigit unit is fantastic, and I understand from these posts that hardware RAID is much much better, but the cost! The Caldigit HDOne starts off as quite an expense (enclosure + 2TB worth of drives is $2,300), and then you have to buy their hd modules when you want to expand, and a 1T Caldigit module is $699.

With all the other options, like the Firmtek and the Sonnet and the G-Tech (with all of these, the basic driveless enclosure is about $600), you can buy standard SATA drives... now maybe Caldigit is more selective about its choice of SATA drives, and maybe there's something better about them, I don't know. But the new Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB drive, for example (that runs cooler because its got just three platters and comes with a three-year guarantee, I think) is just $219 on Newegg.

So... I hear what you're saying, and I know there are very good arguments for hardware RAID, and if I had lots of money, I'd buy one right now. But because I'm short of cash, I'm wavering. I'll spend it if someone tells me they had a software-RAID system that they had to put aside once they started editing with XDCAM EX 35mbps footage... and that they are really happy to have gone to a hardware-RAID system, despite the cost.

On the other hand, if I'm told that people are happily using software-RAID systems, or I should say, if they're happily using such a system in RAID-5 configuration (Barry seems to have put in a vote for a software-RAID set-up, but Barry, is that RAID-5?), then I think I'll try to go with the cheaper set-up.

Thanks so much for all the observations and advice.
Cheers, Malcolm

Barry:
Where in Canada did you get your Sonnet?


Jonathan, I purchased from Sonnet's Web store with FedEX delivery. It arrives on my door step 2-3 days after the order is processed and assuming the items are in stock.

Barry, is that RAID-5?

Malcom, Apple's software RAID is either RAID-0 (i.e. stripped) to achieve those high performance data rates or RAID-1 (i.e. mirrored) for protecting against disk errors. You can also configure variations of this, say two sets of stripped drives concatenated in a mirror configuration to achieve a balance of speed and data integrity.

Here is the thing. If one needs to concatenate, say 10 drives as mentioned above or more than say 5 drives, then yes by all means you will need RAID-5. Also to achieve those high data transfer rates and high reliability at those rates you have two more considerations to make. One is that reputable RAID manufacturers insist that you use the Enterprise version (read more expensive model) of the hard drive which has specialized firmware to manage among other things high speed RAID command queing. Second the enterprise drives are designed for demanding environments, both in usage and in physical treatment. Hence, the reason for RAID manufactures supplying the drives with the case--at a higher cost.

You may also have observed that RAID manufacturers worth their salt, provide a dedicated PCI-e hardware card with specialized features to work with their RAID drive enclosure and not necessarily an e-SATA interface. Again the reason for this is to achieve those ultra high data transfer rates (i.e. say higher than 200 MB/s). Apple provides such a dedicated PCI-e RAID card for their MacPro (early 2008) to work with those expensive SAS drives or high performance SATA RAID's. You will find these configurations in studios with large editing suites and multiple computers accessing the RAID server(s).

I am looking forward to working with the EX-3 SDI 4:2:2 at 24p, my Fusion 500P and Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme SDI interface to FCP Studio 2.0. Based upon discussions with the Blackmagic and Sonnet support staff, this should be viable and a reliable configuration to suit my needs.

The bottom line for me is that EX-1/3 data rates at 35 MB/s do not warrant a hardware RAID and FCP will support enough video streams for my editing purposes without the high data rates from very large RAID servers. Then again, I am not familiar with AVID and so it's requirements may indeed warrant a more sophisticated RAID. Clearly, if you plan on transcoding to work with a lot of uncompressed video streams then that's another story.

At this time, folks are also waiting for a viable portable SDI converter before they can try to interface the EX-1/3 SDI port to their Laptop computers, but again they will be very expensive. There is a thread in these forums to get up to speed on the portable SDI arena.

Most of the brand name Raid set ups are out of my price range, until I get a very deep pocketed client (I am an independent doc maker). However, I did put together a 3Tb Raid system that works for $800!
I bought a generic 4 drive hot-swop eSata enclosure with a PCI-x card for $300 and I installed 4 x Seagate 7200 750Gig drives at $129 ea.
At first I realized my PCI-x card was Non-raid, and so the suppliers, then sent me a Raid5 card.
It is not superfast, but I overcame any problems by using ProRes HQ set up and so far after 3 weeks of heavy useage, it is working very well.

Sorry if this sound nieve.....

This just occured to me:

Can I edit uncompressed full res from the EX1 on a new Macbook Pro with one of these external sata raid set-ups like Fibertek/ Sonnet OR will I need to compress it (Pro res?) to work with it.

Thanks Barry.

Can you take a quick shot at my question about editing uncompressed?

Jonathan, the short answer is no. There is no way to capture uncompressed HD-SDI into a Macbook pro, at least not a feasible one (maybe a magma box with a black magic decklink pro card...but I don't know if the interface can keep up). What you CAN do, and I did this last week, use an AJA io box to capture into prores. It is miles above XDCAM, and for most purposes all that you need. All is takes to keep up with that is a decent eSata 2 disk RAID-0, like a g-tech or silversata.

Hi Jonathan,
I asked a question along these lines on an Avid editing forum, and I kind of inferred from the response that it might not be a good idea ("that's crazy. Use one of those HD codecs to bring your file sizes and data rates down while you're editing, then bump up your picture-locked cut to the best resolution your drives/system can handle")
Let me know what you think.
Malcolm

The price is definitely higher for a system like caldigit, dulce, ciprico, etc. but there is a huge difference. The only question is if you really need it. If you don't ever plan to capture uncompressed 422 or 444, or work with 2k files, then a software raid or an eSata raid card is all you really need, and in fact a single eSATA drive can keep up with XDCAM easily in my experience. If you want to capture uncompressed 422 via HD-SDI, you will need to sustain 200MB/s, and you'll need something better than eSATA to sustain that, along with better drives. Many large RAID arrays will use 15k rpm SAS drives which in addition to being much faster have a secondary controller board, in case one fails. One of the many reasons they are 4-5 times the price of a 7200 rpm SATA drive.

-Sean

If you don't ever plan to capture uncompressed 422 or 444, or work with 2k files, then a software raid or an eSata raid card is all you really need
-Sean

Thanks, Sean, this is exactly what I needed to hear (and perhaps what people have been trying to tell me). Now the only thing I need to know is... why do people edit uncompressed? And is there any likelihood that I'll ever need to?

I'm just getting going in this business - - just doing half-hour long projects, mostly for DVD... so it would seem to me it's very unlikely I'd kick myself, five months from now, for not being able to edit uncompressed. It's very unlikely that National Geographic is going to come calling. In other words, and please stop me if I'm jumping to conclusions, even though I can now shoot very high quality footage, I will probably never need to, or want to, edit it uncompressed.
If that's the case, it resolves my conundrum about eSATA editing. I'll go with Firmtek or G-Tech or Sonnet. Then I just have to figure out how best to RAID it.
Cheers, Malcolm

...even though I can now shoot very high quality footage, I will probably never need to, or want to, edit it uncompressed.
If that's the case, it resolves my conundrum about eSATA editing. I'll go with Firmtek or G-Tech or Sonnet. Then I just have to figure out how best to RAID it.
Cheers, Malcolm

Uncompressed workflows are more important when you're doing an online with film scans or material that was actually shot in an uncompressed format (or close to it). Compression is something to be used wisely, and makes shooting high def practical in most cases. You're not going to decompress the signal by shooting in XDCAM and cutting uncompressed, but if you are doing effects, etc. it's worth transcoding to something like prores 422 (roughly 50 MB/s). My recommendation would be something in a 4 disk RAID 5 over eSATA for your purposes right now.

-Sean

"even though I can now shoot very high quality footage, I will probably never need to, or want to, edit it uncompressed.
If that's the case, it resolves my conundrum about eSATA editing. I'll go with Firmtek or G-Tech or Sonnet. Then I just have to figure out how best to RAID it."

Same same Malcolm.

My feeling is that almost nobody edits uncompressed except the "big guys".

So now.....

What is the process?

1) Ingest SXS cards?

2) Back them up to another drive in the enclosure?

3) Render native files to something like Apple Pro Res?

4) Throw the files on the Final Cut time line and start cutting?

Almost there Malcolm :) Which enclosure and drives are you leaning towards?

Right-on Sean :)

"you're not going to decompress the signal by shooting in XDCAM and cutting uncompressed, but if you are doing effects, etc. it's worth transcoding to something like prores 422 (roughly 50 MB/s)."

What???

A simple question here:

Can I ingest and start cutting the EX1 footage AS IT IS from the cards on my new Macbook and SATA drives with out compressing it with ProRes first.

Any thoughts on the best 5TB enclosure and drives to go with?

Hi again...
I thought I'd share a bit of new info with Sean (and it very much pertains to you Jonathan)... a technical help guy at one of the eSATA hd places wrote back to me this morning, on the subject of RAID. He says:

"I find that using 4-bays as a striped RAID set (RAID 0) and the 5th bay for off-line backup disks works well.
You should know that RAID 5 may be recoverable in the case of a hard disk failure but it cannot protect you from directory errors or a user error. An off-line backup is required for any important data NO matter what RAID type you use. In addition, rebuilding a RAID 5 with large hard drives can take a day or more. Sometimes recovering with a new RAID 0 is actually
faster with a backup than waiting for a RAID 5 to rebuild"

What do you think? I guess with this RAID 0 set-up, if you back up to theat fifth drive once a day, the most you can lose is one day's work, right? Or however long it takes, if you lose all your media, to... what, re-copy it from the back-up drive that I guess all EX-1 users have to make when they come back from a shoot (I'm trying to figure out a workflow too, J.), and re-connect it to our timeline.

Is this correct?
thanks,
Malcolm
Malcolm

Now your 5th bay has to be 4 times the size of the others to be able to back up a full array. RAID 5 isn't a foolproof backup system, but it's great to work from. Can I ask which place this was?

-Sean

Sounds like you are on a good roll Malcolm. Hang in there....
Your "thinking out loud approach is most helpful and thanks for including me on this :)

I'm not sure.... but now I'm thinking.... for what I'll be doing (international doc.... gotta keep it small and compact) I be able to get away with a smaller enclosure than the 5TB.

1) Come back from a shoot and offload the cards to a drive....
2) Plug in a second drive and back up the 1st drive....
3) Take out the second drive and keep it in an thick plastic pouch with silica packet (for humidity control).
5) Eat a mango.... and smile
4) Start cutting.

I'll try to work through this now for the first time:

This is for a 2 bay enclosure....

Pop 2 fresh drives into both bays. Start offloading the cards to both drives. Eject drive 2 and store it.
Start cutting on drive one.

Keep shooting, offloading, backing up, cutting until you fill the first drive and it's backup then....

Start over with 2 new drives.

I now see that one runs into a snag when you need to be cutting from more than 2 drives (ie.2 TB) at the same time. I see a bigger enclosure would be necessary. I wonder if I could get away with a 3 or 4 bay?

All of this is coming from the idea that I would not need a stripped raid because I would be using Apple ProRes to compress the native EX1 files into something that is possible to cut with.... Something I think I understand most of the world does to deal with these massive file sizes. (Sorry Malcolm I know your not using Mac.)

Nobody has answered my question of whether or not it's even possible to edit native EX1 footage on a new Macbook Pro or if one would even want to attempt this? Maybe it is possible with the striped raid array. (Still awaiting delivery on my new one so I don't know yet).

It's tough to be a one man band and it sure would be cool if a edit pro could chime in here and nail all this down in a concise well-worded/ constructed way instead of all the hit and miss.

Any thoughts?

Nobody has answered my question of whether or not it's even possible to edit native EX1 footage on a new Macbook Pro or if one would even want to attempt this? Maybe it is possible with the striped raid array. (Still awaiting delivery on my new one so I don't know yet).

Jonathan,

I have been editing footage from my EX1 on my Macbook Pro. I bought both of them in December. I use Final Cut Pro. I don't know if the footage is considered "native" or not since Final Cut needs to put a quicktime wrapper on the MXF files to edit them. I think that you saw my Yosemite piece. That was edited on my Macbook Pro in about 45 minutes while sitting in a Starbucks. You can edit on a Macbook Pro. It works great if you have portable FW 800 drives.

Daniel Weber

Right on Daniel.

So why would I want SATA drives? In case a drive fails during editing? To get faster speeds/ throughput if I was doing multiple timelines?

By native footage I mean full res 1920 x 1280 35Mbs

Do you compress your footage in Prores so you can edit it???

Thanks for your help on this :)

then you can edit native!!!

It works well.

You might want to look at a small bus powered firewire unit that uses FW 800 and has 2 drives raided. I think the G-Tech makes one of these. I think you can also "roll your own" if you look online for enclosures. Make sure that you get ones that use the notebook size SATA drives.

Daniel Weber

Do you compress your footage in Prores so you can edit it???

Nope. I edited it native. The ProRes codec takes up more bandwidth on the drives than native XDCAM HD files.

Daniel Weber

"Nope. I edited it native. The ProRes codec takes up more bandwidth on the drives than native XDCAM HD files."

More bandwidth?

You mean more space?

What are we talking about?

Prores requires greater bus/ throughput speeds?

Man this could take forever if we don't use the right terms. Myself included ;)

Nobody has answered my question of whether or not it's even possible to edit native EX1 footage on a new Macbook Pro or if one would even want to attempt this? Maybe it is possible with the striped raid array. (Still awaiting delivery on my new one so I don't know yet).

It's tough to be a one man band and it sure would be cool if a edit pro could chime in here and nail all this down in a concise well-worded/ constructed way instead of all the hit and miss.

Any thoughts?


Jonathan, I'm not sure that I clearly understand your configuration or workflow, but I'll try to explain from my experience using a MacPro with FCP 6.0.3 and my RAID which I setup differently depending on the type video format that I edit with.

First FCP principle. Do not use your boot drive to store and edit video clips/footage. Not on a MacPro and definitely not on a MacBook Pro even if it has a 7200rpm drive. As I mentioned above, SATA drives slow down as they fill up. A SATA drive transfer rate is cut in half when near full. The boot drive needs to run the OS (i.e. Leopard) and the FCP application. Rendering sequences also plays in this, if you setup FCP to store its cache files on the boot drive, which is OK to do, but does add more load to the boot drive.

Second, based upon my experience with FCP ProRes(HQ) video sequences. Two drives stripped (i.e. RAID-0) together are fast enough to edit at least three streams without dropped frames. I usually edit in FCP with timeline viewing set to full quality i.e. RT editing disabled. So for your setup, use a two port e-SATA card with your MacBook Pro and strip two drives together. I'm confident it will work fine for you with ProRes(HQ) sequences.

Third principle -- if all else fails read the manual. Apple has designed FCP with RT editing capabilities, precisely so that you can edit using a laptop. Dig into the FCP manual in the sections on setting up your system for RT editing. Alternately, find a Lynda.com or ApplePro training series that covers FCP setup and RT optimization.

Fourth, I personally learn much better by using video based instruction and so I rely on ApplePro Training Series, Lynda.com, Digital Film Tree, et.el. to get up to speed and to address specific editing needs that I run into. I have one drive dedicated to video based training. I can quickly and easily use these video tutorials to find answers or to advance up the learning curve for FCP, Color, Motion, Soundtrack, DVDSP etc.. Each project seems to require something unique that demands more learning on my part. As you said, it's tough being a one band man.

This is what works for me, with eight years of using FCP studio. I'm still learning or a very slow learner. Some days, I also suffer with "sometimers" :-)) Sorry, if I have missed the point of your question or your particular needs. Just trying to help out and that is the treasure of these forums, to draw upon the collective experience, so that we can learn from each other.

sincerely, Barry

Very cool Barry and really appreciate your take on this.

I think your right about having some kind of tutorial.... I've been working on FCP3 which I bought in Bangkok years ago and only half learned in the jungles of Laos and India. Sure would have been faster to take a few courses. Now I'm heading out again and this time.... tapeless with this new heavy weight version of FCP!

"Second, based upon my experience with FCP ProRes(HQ) video sequences. Two drives stripped (i.e. RAID-0) together are fast enough to edit at least three streams without dropped frames. I usually edit in FCP with timeline viewing set to full quality i.e. RT editing disabled. So for your setup, use a two port e-SATA card with your MacBook Pro and strip two drives together. I'm confident it will work fine for you with ProRes(HQ) sequences."

Got it.... and agree. But why go with Prores when Daniel (above post) says it causes him and his system trouble? Something is missing here.

I will be shooting a doc over the next 3 years in multiple countries living out of rolling duffle bags. I need to shoot/ offload/ back-up/ edit. The film will be a feature around 90 min. Do you or anyone else envision an offload/ workflow/ edit storage solution. I'll probably end up with around 2.5 TB of material over the course of shooting and that's before backing up.

I don't mean to highjack this thread.... but I've got like no time left to nail this.... and once your in the developing world..... it's a long haul/ expensive to get your gear sorted if you didn't the first time around.

Thoughts?

Very cool Barry and really appreciate your take on this.

Got it.... and agree. But why go with Prores when Daniel (above post) says it causes him and his system trouble? Something is missing here.

Sounds like Daniel is up and running, go for it. Firewire 800 transfers top out around 50MB/s continuous which makes sense for two mirrored drives (i.e. RAID-1) but provides no benefits for two stripped drives (i.e. RAID-0) because a single STATA-II drive performs better than 50MB/s. If you have the newer/latest drive controllers in your drive array, than transfers may be higher but still will only peak to 80 MB/s dual-feed firewire theoretical." Bare Feats" provides the test reports on how real world firewire performs on your MacBook. Search a little farther and you will discover why dual-feed firewire ports are used.

From Daniel's post, apparently Firewire 800 is enough for his needs with native XDCAM-EX video. My workflow needs to be flexible and depending on the project/number of streams is more demanding than Firewire can provide, hence my choice to a eSTATA port controller and the Sonnet Fusion 500P with five bays. I will stripe from 2-5 drives to accommodate the performance needs of any given project and number of streams -- flexibility is key because SATA drive transfer speed decrease as the drive fills. I keep my working backups spread across the spare three bays in the MacPro. Off-line backups to Blu-ray 25/50 GB DVD.

ProRes has several merits over EXCAM Long GOP native to the EX. That discussion belongs in the FCP forums. Some basic training will sort out your questions or concerns on that score.

As you know the Final Cut Studio 2.0 comes with a 6+ GB DVD with video tutorials that provide a pretty good overview of the essential features in the suite. Time well spent. For the next level down, I would suggest Lynda.com's video tutorials entitled, HD Workflows for Final Cut Studio 2.0. It is very good and should provide enough knowledge, so that you can avoid the obvious got-ya's. Here you can discover the significance of ProRes(HQ) timelines. Then you can focus on refining your workflow to suit your particular needs. Again, this one is time well spent. Just a suggestion.

After that, there a least a dozen other worthy titles that go into depth and may or may not be useful to help you with this workflow. This is were I use my intuition to guide me and only dig into the details if I run into issues or need to hike up the learning curve to achieve something new. Like shooting -- editing is also a creative process, a non-linear process. Live, Learn and play to have fun, rather than frustration :-))

Now your 5th bay has to be 4 times the size of the others to be able to back up a full array. RAID 5 isn't a foolproof backup system, but it's great to work from. Can I ask which place this was?

-Sean

You're right, Sean... that does sound crazy; the advice comes from a guy (he's with FirmTek) who sounds very nice, though; I suspect I might have been quoting him out of context, or misunderstanding what he was saying. Here's what he said:

"I find that using 4-bays as a striped RAID set (RAID 0) and the 5th bay for off-line backup disks works well"

He goes on to say, re RAID 5:

"You should know that RAID 5 may be recoverable in the case of a hard disk failure but it cannot protect you from directory errors or a user error. An off-line backup is required for any important data NO matter what RAID type you use. In addition, rebuilding a RAID 5 with large hard drives can take a day or more. Sometimes recovering with a new RAID 0 is actually faster with a backup than waiting for a RAID 5 to rebuild"

What do you think?

In the meantime, Jonathan, are you any closer to having the set-up you need? You now know you don't need (or want) to edit uncompressed. Since you'll be travelling, would a four or five-bay eSATA enclosure be too big? If that's the case, are you thinking 2-bay eSATA, or Firewire 800? By the way, where in Canada do you live? Barry's got the praries covered, I'm in Ottawa...
Cheers, Malcolm

"Nope. I edited it native. The ProRes codec takes up more bandwidth on the drives than native XDCAM HD files."

More bandwidth?

You mean more space?

What are we talking about?

Prores requires greater bus/ throughput speeds?

Man this could take forever if we don't use the right terms. Myself included ;)

Sorry to be confusing!! By bandwidth, I meant data rates. I was thinking that since you will be out in the field it would be hard to carry around an external RAID enclosure. If you can, then that would be the best option. For the kind of stuff that I shoot in the field, I rely on small bus powered firewire drives. I am only transferring files and doing rough cut editing though. I come back to the office and edit on a MacPro with a FC server.

I think that you can do your doc on a Macbook Pro with the XDCAM codec. Then when you get back home, do your final edit by converting your offline to ProRes for your final output.

By editing in XDCAM in the field, you will be using up less drive space my not having to convert the files. Remember everything that you shoot will have to be converted to quicktime files by Final Cut. This will double the amount of storage you will need.

Hi Daniel,

I will have a base from which to work from (rented house/ flat) with a desk to work at. If I'm traveling (on the move) I'll have a hotel to come back to and ingest the cards and start cutting. Simple.

Question..... Why would I want to edit full 1920x1280 XDCAM footage (out in the field as you say) then bring it home to the West (to online) and compress it into Prores and loose quality in this compression? It does not make sense.

What if.... I ingested the EX1 footage,
Make an identical backup on another drive and store it,
Then go back to the 1st drive and convert the original XDCAM footage to Prores and then deleted the original XDcam footage so that I'm left with only the Prores stuff.
Then when I have a locked picture in Prores I could go back to the original Full res XDcam and do a match back.

Thoughts?

ProRes is a better codec to do your master in. It is a 4:2:2 signal which means that when you do any color correcting and FX work it will hold up better. I don't think that you need to convert to ProRes until your online, but someone with more experience than me may tell you otherwise.

I would think that editing in the native format for your offline would work better than converting to an online format before hand.

In my mind it would be better to convert to ProRes at the end instead of the beginning.

Daniel Weber

ProRes is a better codec to do your master in. It is a 4:2:2 signal which means that when you do any color correcting and FX work it will hold up better.

I have to agree with you Daniel. Moreover, ProRes(HQ) is 10-bit and does not require time consuming conforming. Other beneifits include precise placement of transitions and handling of VFX.

Right on Daniel.
Thanks :)
Good to have your eyes on this Barry. Cheers.