OK, for the standard definition guys among us who see this camera as an opportunity to switch to the higher level...

Let's take a regular guy who has been using the DVX100. Let's give him (almost) everything that he needs to use this particular camera.

OK, so he has FCP5, Decklink Pro (SD), a good CRT monitor (but also SD) and the camera, obviously. He can shoot, edit, monitor, color correct, distribute. That's more than decent for the average guy on this site (like me).

He wants to move to HD. He sells the DVX100, puts some more money on top of that and buys the HVX.

NOW, to do precisely the same things in the chain as he was able to do before, how much money does he need to spend? What other things does he needs to buy, in addition to the camera?

I am only posting this because a lot of DVX owners are hoping to make that transition, but don't realize that you need to upgrade their system in many other areas to get back to the same control level they had in the world of SD. To accurately monitor or color correct, for example. And all this means money. I am only talking about the minimum you need to be able to make that move, and I think a realistic view at that would help a lot of readers.

And to think that only the two P2 cards will add 3000-4000 to your budget.

Well, if you want to do the same things you used to do, your additional budget would be: $0.

I mean, that presumes you're planning on shooting standard-def DV, just like you used to, and you would be using the HVX instead because of its additional capabilities (such as native 16:9 mode, longer zoom range, better focus & zoom, better lens feedback, etc). It is essentially a 16:9 DVX with a miniDV tape drive, so it could serve as a direct replacement for the DVX.

If you want to take advantage of its high-def capabilities, well, that may require a little bit of additional gear. Presumably you'd want a high-def monitor, and presumably one that supports 1080 resolution. You can get that with the Dell 2405FPW for around $900.

You'll need an editing station that supports DVCPRO-HD. Right now if you're using FCP-HD or Avid Express HD, that means no additional cost because you've already got it. If you're not using one of those, you may need to upgrade. It is expected that Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro should add support, but they may not, so that's something to watch for. Canopus and Pinnacle also support DVCPRO-HD, although I don't know exactly which products or what upgrades would be necessary.

As far as editing computers, if you're using a reasonably current system, you won't have to upgrade. You may want to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest, but you should be able to get adequate performance on current computers. DVCPRO-HD is a lot easier to handle (computation-wise) than HDV is, as HDV requires decompressing groups of frames whereas DVCPRO-HD is frame-discrete. You may want to get some more hard disk storage though, as DVCPRO-HD does take up 4x as much hard-disk space as DV does.

No extra expense for a deck, because P2 cards and hard disks are directly readable by computers today. You may want a $30 PCMCIA reader device for your desktop computer, but that beats shelling out $4,000 for an HDV deck. And you won't necessarily need that either, because you can plug the camera in via firewire and read the contents of the P2 cards straight from it. Whereas that workflow was shied away from with tape-based cameras (i.e., you didn't want to put additional wear and tear on your $4,000 camera by using it as a capture deck), with the HVX/P2 situation that's a non-issue because there is *no* wear and tear when copying files off the P2 cards, whether through the camera or through a PCMCIA slot on the computer.

So that leaves recording medium. To record HD on the HVX you'll either need P2 cards or a DVCPRO-HD-capable FireStore (or comparable product) or a direct firewire connection to a laptop or desktop. If you're using a studio setup where you can direct-connect, then there's no additional cost -- you can stream high-def straight to the computer and capture it there to hard disk. If you want to use P2 cards, best to get the bundle and get two 8gb cards with the camera ($9995 MSRP for the camera and two cards, we will have to wait to see what the actual "street price" is; might be $8500 or less). If you want to use the FireStore, well, we have to wait to see what they produce before we know what that solution will cost.

If you decide to go with P2, the P2 cards can be dumped directly to USB2 external hard disks connected to the camera. Considering that there's probably 4-5 months before the camera comes out, and considering how hard drive prices keep plummeting, it's reasonable to assume that an external 300gb USB2 hard disk will cost under $150 by then. That would give you five hours of storage at about $30/hr. That's cheaper than DVCPRO-HD tape stock -- about half the price of tape, actually. And drive prices will continue to drop.

Wow.

An amazing, as detailed as always response from Mr. Barry Green! Thanks!

While this has been illuminating for me, I am sure lots of other people who are considering the same "jump" will look at this!

About continuing using a CRT monitor, would a decklink hd card help in any way? Downconvert to SD? In that case, can color correction be performed with any degree of accuracy? Especially since probably lots of HD material shot with the HVX will be mainly presented in the SD medium. At least at first.

Thanks again!

Well, that's a tricky subject.

Broadcast CRT monitors have been the standard for color correction, etc., for standard-def for decades, and the reason has always been: because the end user will be viewing their footage on a CRT. The extremely highly vast majority of installed base of SD televisions is a CRT.

But with HD, it's a whole different ballgame. There are CRT, LCD, Plasma, DLP, and soon SED screens (did I forget any?) There really isn't any one definitive standard. What will your client or end-user be watching your footage on?

As such, I believe that an SD CRT will still continue to be a necessary component of the editing suite, for projects that are to be mastered to SD (DVD, etc). But an SD monitor, and a CRT at that, will have limited applicability for HD footage.

With HD, we're supposed to be able to rely on much more consistent color reproduction/etc between screens. Digital HD should theoretically mean that any type of HD display should be able to serve for monitoring/color correction purposes.

This is the way I see, if you want have half decent work flow in normal ENG/EFP production. Prices in USD:

10K camera, basic cards, extra batteries, mic, etc.
10K additional cards
1K monitor
2K Firestore, additional hard discs. Need store footage and have it backed up on hard drives.
1K W/A conversion lens, filters, etc.
1K misc.
_____________
25K total, less cost of your SD system.

Now, you can do less efficiently for less, use offline editing, not back up footage, not buy additional cards, etc., but what I presented here is what pro would spend on minimum system.

Radek

What do you need the additional Cards for? 2 should be plently. Also this camera is 16:9 so no need for a wide angle conversion lens.

Radek,

Ahhh man, be fair. Now that's just not true. $25 grand??

The average joe indie shooter who wants to get an HVX200, will need about $10,000 (december) bucks. thats it. That gives them the camera, about 24 mins of HD recording and a nice carrying bag.

Where do you get $1,000 in misc costs and $1,000 in Wide Angle conversion lenses and $2,000 in a firestore. What do they need a firestore for if they have P2 cards?? And since when do hard drives for backup storage cost $2 grand?? *smile* Be fair Radek. They will only need about $10 to $12,000 grand invested.

And then...if they sell their DVX100a on eBay, they'll get about $2300 (december) bucks for it, so they can subtract that.

- Shannon

Agreed; $10K for "additional cards" is completely unrealistic. The two P2 cards that come with the camera are all you need; especially if you're shooting with the FireStore that's indicated on that list. In fact if you're shooting with a FireStore, you won't need the P2 cards at all, which drops the package price from the $25K figure down to about $11K or so, which is far more realistic.

I agree with Radek 100%.... I am not sure that someone would want to do bargain basement HD. 24 minutes is not even remotely close enough footage for anyone doing professional work. I would say 120 is the bare minimum.

I personally will NOT be upgrading until the price/workflow/storage/etc. all shakes out...



ash =o)

Why would you be limited to 24 minutes?

If you're talking about long-form event work such as recitals and the like, then I can understand the concern; I wouldn't want to hot-swap cards in that situation. However, just about any other form of videography where the single takes, that is, individual shot lengths, are shorter than 15 minutes or so (and that's most all other applications in videography); then I don't see how it's an issue.

Compared to your other DVCPROHD (not HDV) options, the HVX200 *is* bargain-basement HD.

Barry,

If you are still following the thread... back to the CRT monitoring option...

Yes, probably the majority of the high-def IS mastered to SD - for example, shorts shot on HD for the quality of it but ending up on digibeta (still a very good format) for festivals, etc.

My (last) questions: do you really need in this case a decklink hd card? If you do, do you need the most basic one (just to downconvert HD to SD so you could monitor it on a CRT monitor on the fly)? I think the basic one does SD as well as HD.

The work flow I got from you is: shoot HD, monitor it on a LCD screen like the Dell you mentioned. If you want to master it to SD, take the HD project to a facility to transfer it to digibeta and continue to use your decklink sd card + CRT monitor to finish the color correction maybe on digibeta.

I am trying to think what to do with my Decklink Pro SD card, keep it or upgrade the card to a HD one - especially since I am going to keep my CRT monitor, while considering buying the LCD Dell monitor in addition.

Thanks Barry!

I think $10k to $15k is a very reasonable figure to expect.

Between the camera, the media, the necessary software upgrades and any accessories you might want - this ought to get you there. I'm really thinking though, unless the P2 card capacity goes up dramatically per buck when the camera comes out, it will be a bust. People will certainly go the Fireston/hard disk route first.

Furthermore, if the holographic technologies live up to their promises... solid state memory will have a hard time trying to keep up.

-Steve

Radek, there are folks (like myself) who only want to purchase the camera without the P2 card package. The camera alone is $5995. I can purchase 4 250GB hard drives from the computer shows for $150 a piece for a total of $600 for a terrabyte. I can set them up in a RAID configuration if warranted. Being that I shoot shorts and features, I have no problem going firewire out to my Mac G5 with those 4 drives buzzing internal/external. If I have a tracking shot all I need is a PA holding the long cord to the computer. Same goes for Crane shots. The P2 cards IMHO is too expensive right now to purchase. When the price drops is when I will get in the game to purchase them. Most rental houses will rent P2 cards, which may be the route I take if I need them. I think the P2 workflow is mandatory in Steadicam shots, ENG work or run and gun doc style shooting. Even so, two 4 gig P2 card may be all you need to execute a shot.

Okay, here we go, sell the DVX100 ($2500), sell your Sony monitor (ouch), get FCP HD if you don't have it already and basically you are ready to shoot that short that will get you to Sundance. Also keep in mind that you can stream HD footage using either Windows Media 9 and 10 or the preferred Quicktime utilizing the H.264 codec. So shoot the film, edit, color correct, mixdown, stream and distribute. DONE!

My (last) questions: do you really need in this case a decklink hd card? If you do, do you need the most basic one (just to downconvert HD to SD so you could monitor it on a CRT monitor on the fly)? I think the basic one does SD as well as HD.
I use Vegas, and there's no need for a DeckLink at all, presuming you're happy with previewing at DV/firewire resolution. Vegas can on-the-fly convert any format to DV and output it via firewire, where my deck turns it into s-video or component for viewing on the CRT monitor. The camera could serve the same purpose in a budget setup.

(of course, Vegas remains a viable option only if they include DVCPRO-HD support natively).

The work flow I got from you is: shoot HD, monitor it on a LCD screen like the Dell you mentioned. If you want to master it to SD, take the HD project to a facility to transfer it to digibeta and continue to use your decklink sd card + CRT monitor to finish the color correction maybe on digibeta.
Not at all. I'd down-res in the editor and finish there; for SD I'd use DVCPRO50 to retain the 4:2:2 color. No reason to involve digibeta and all its associated costs. You could, if you wanted to, but I certainly wouldn't think it's necessary.

I guess it's all up to your editor and how you want to work. If you want to use the Decklink and take advantage of its features, there's nothing wrong with that, I just would stop short of saying that it's necessary to do so; I think someone could set up a fully functional personal post studio without needing such items. The workflow I'd see for DVD would be to finish the edit in HD, then render out a best-quality DVCPRO50 version for SD. Check it for color on a properly-calibrated CRT, and make any corrections necessary, and render to DVD from there.

Recording JUST to HD is playing with fire. HDs fail and die all the time. Solid state memory is much more, err.. solid. It is going to be a few years before there is a solid, professional workflow that includes back-up to solid-state media (new DLT format or Blueray, etc.)


ash =o)

OK, fine, if are just amateur and time is no money, you can get away with anything. How about you're pro and you do some shooting for television, they require 1080i or 720p60, you don't want record to laptop or whatever. The data rate is 100 Mbps. You need shoot for 3 hours. You don't have time to download cards, backup hard drive. That's not how pros shoot. Need cards for about 10,000 USD. If you to shoot for 8 hours, you need about 27,000 USD worth in cards.

Filter size is 82 mm, I believe. You will need at least W/A lens adapter, some filters. So 1,000 USD is no unreasonable.

Excellent wireless microphone, at least 450 USD. Excellent shotgun, at least 550 USD. Add 1,000 USD.

Offbrand Steadycam, good tripod, HMI lights. You adding another 10-20,000 USD.

Things get expensive, if time is money and you're pro.

If you shoot school project, it's different story.

Radek

Ash makes a fair point (although it's not as if tapes don't fail!) - a hard backup copy is probably going to be an essential of the system at some point, if only for archival of footage.

That, realistically, means a DVCPro-HD (or at least some kind of HD) deck.
Ouch!

However, it's a risk/reward analysis, and I think most will take it...

OK, fine, if are just amateur and time is no money, you can get away with anything. How about you're pro and you do some shooting for television, they require 1080i or 720p60, you don't want record to laptop or whatever. The data rate is 100 Mbps. You need shoot for 3 hours. You don't have time to download cards, backup hard drive. That's not how pros shoot. Need cards for about 10,000 USD. If you to shoot for 8 hours, you need about 27,000 USD worth in cards.

Filter size is 82 mm, I believe. You will need at least W/A lens adapter, some filters. So 1,000 USD is no unreasonable.

Excellent wireless microphone, at least 450 USD. Excellent shotgun, at least 550 USD. Add 1,000 USD.

Offbrand Steadycam, good tripod, HMI lights. You adding another 10-20,000 USD.

Things get expensive, if time is money and you're pro.

If you shoot school project, it's different story.

Radek

Hmm.. You're a pro and you don't have a microphone already??! Or a tripod?

82mm will still comfortably accept a 4x4" matte box, which if you're such a high end pro you'll already use.

HMI lights, Steadicam - that's what hire shops are for mate. :)
And as has been mentioned, P2 media should be readily available from same if you desperately need high volume for a gig...

Also, none of the above is in anyway specific to HD or the HVX - it's a standard in quality video (or film, for that matter) production. It's unreasonable to bundle that with the cost of the camera, imho.

BTW, plenty of very high end pros swap short run media regularly when shooting - eveyone who uses 35mm (or any kind of film), for instance. All you need is a laptop and a Lacie drive to pull the data off - no connection to camera required (or even any real closeness to the camera dept) at all. I agree it's a bit of a hassle, but not one worth spending $27k on!!

Radek,

You forgot to add the truck generator. I wouldn't upgrade to the HVX without that!

:-)

Radek, You forgot to add the truck generator. I wouldn't upgrade to the HVX without that!:-)

I'm totally sorry. Add 75,000 USD, or can rent it.

I would recommend though Sony 1080p digital cinema monitor, some 30,000 USD.

Don't forget programmable crane. They make them here in Pilsen, town where they make 2nd best Czech beer, Pilsner. The best is Budweiser, from town Budweis, not same as US Budweiser. The crane is about 1/2 million USD. Think Panavision rent it in US. Stack on good Czech beer for crew, 1,000 USD.

Radek

Radek,

With those prices over there in the Czech Republic, it's no wonder that the Americans moved their business from the Barandov Studios to Bucharest, Romania.

Radek,

With those prices over there in the Czech Republic, it's no wonder than the Americans moved their business from the Barandov Studios to Bucharest, Romania.

The largest stages are not in Barandov, only highest prices. Plenty of US productions here still. A town built in secession (art nuovo) style, Karlsbad, is now getting popular for US productions.

Radek

Wow, didn't realize that Technocrane was headquartered in Pilsen--that makes two of my all time favorite products coming from the same city! One of these days I'll have to come for a visit and sample the Pilsner Urquell right at the source...mmm...incidentally, that original Budweiser that Radek mentioned is now being sold in the US under the name Czechvar (quite reasonable at Trader Joe's). Great stuff.

Back to the boring stuff--!--I'm quite sure that regular dumping footage to the storage drives is going to be de rigeur for most types of shooting, even high end. I can't see needing more than 4 8gb cards for "film style" shooting, and that's assuming at least one is just a backup in case of failure--I'd easily see going with just 3 cards (and in the "let's risk it to save money" indie mode, 2).

So much discussion on how we're going to shoot HD, but there is a while to go before we can actually give clients an HD product. Unless you're shooting for a broadcast program, it's probably SD.

HD DVD/Blue Ray: let's hope they come together on a format soon and get it out in the next year.

KW

Well, there's a lot of discussion about being able to give clients HD delivery, too - I'm not interested in that, more so (and I know others are too) in potential decent quality film prints for shorts and features to allow theatrical distribution from indie production budgets.

That's the big sell for many, I feel...

Recording JUST to HD is playing with fire. HDs fail and die all the time. Solid state memory is much more, err.. solid. It is going to be a few years before there is a solid, professional workflow that includes back-up to solid-state media (new DLT format or Blueray, etc.)


ash =o)

everyone loves to warn about hd failure but that's like saying "everytime you boot your computer, you're playing with fire." how many of us are really shooting a one time fantastic stunt/exposion take that can't just be reproduced in another take. p2 cards will force indie directors to move on and only grab one extra take (which might be a good thing) but wouldn't it be nice if the director has the choice. with a terabyte of hd, they do. and if a hard drive fails, who cares? bring a few extra drives as backups. you're still spending a lot less than you would on p2 which by the way are not immune to failure. personally i've had more sd/cf/pcmcia cards die on me than hard drives.

p2 which by the way are not immune to failure. personally i've had more sd/cf/pcmcia cards die on me than hard drives.I've had cheap flash cards die on me too, and I've seen or heard of a higher incidence of cheap flash card failure over hard drive failure. The difference with P2 though (as well as part of the relatively high cost) is that the particular SD cards that go into a P2 array are "zero-fault" and only the best of the best. Remember P2 is not new for Panasonic... it's been in use for a little while in the professional news-gathering environment with cameras much more expensive than the HVX. This isn't exactly uncharted territory.

Whilst we're on the subject of HDD failure, it's worth mentioning that a RAID 3 or 5 array (which is relatively inexpensive these days) will guard against anything but two *simultaneous* HDD crashes - and (knock on wood) in my, what, nearly 20 years of using computers (including a degree in software engineering at UCL, for my sins!) I've NEVER known that to happen. It is probably the single safest way to store data available at the present point in time.

The downside is that unless you're happy to either archive footage in permanent external RAID arrays (which will be expensive) or simply delete all of your source footage after finalising a project (which is madness, imho) you will need to back up your footage onto some kind of format - tape is still the only viable option for that at the present point in time, so as I said earlier, I think we still need to look at tape backup for archival purposes...

Unless anyone has any other clever ideas? And don't suggest burning hundreds of DVD's, thank you very much!!! I suppose HD-DVD in data mode might be a potentially viable solution, but even then they're pretty small for raw footage.

I capture to both tape and HDD. The whole direct to disk idea was to meant improve workflow by not having to digitize prior to edit. Goody. But archival of raw material onto tape is a must, as HDDs do fail. Even so, a hiccup in the system during capture can cause lockups and missed media that will have to be recovered from the tape.

I agree that tapes and decks are still a requirement for professional work. I also backup support files and edit files (non-video files) to DVD. Should I have to reopen or repurpose an old project (and I get a few), it's easy to rebuild to the array by copy and capture.

Bottom line, I'm not sold on the HVX, it's just not proper for long form work. Unless the original poster is shooting indie style, then 8mins of stuff is sufficient for takes. Still, you have to bother with swapping out cards and copying the media to a HDD. Nuts. Just record to a 120min tape and HDD simulatenously then.

I agree entirely Peter, but that's the problem with the HVX - unless you're shooting DVCPro (i.e. DV) you can't capture simultaneously to tape and so it becomes something that needs to be done after the fact...

As much as I do agree with a lot of the statements here, tape is by no means the perfect format either. Tapes can break, get wrinkled, have drop outs, only last up to 10 years and they start to go bad. If you play them to much you can also have problems with them. A deck can jam and chew the crap out of your tape. Tapes can get dirty add suffer from extreme heat or cold. I know these problems are not very common but neither is daily hard drive failure. Most hard drives fail because they are being used over and over and over again with lots of jumping around and stress not to mention damage from heat. For backing up raw footage and storing the hard drive in a safe place it should last for many years since it will not get beat up. Most of us have never seen hard drives like this because how many of us record to a hard drive once and store it in a safe?

I know some people have issues with the way the HVX does HD but it sure beats our other options in terms of quality.(in theory)

If you do not like P2 and HVX200 then here's a thought, Don't buy one! Go out and buy a "superior" HDV camera and shoot on all the tape you want. Leave us foolish morons to use the HVX200 and suffer.

If the HVX200 did record HD to tape the cost of the camera would have been at least double. Then the same people complaining would have been on here moaning about how it is a stupid camera for costing too much and how nobody on a McDonalds budget will be able to buy one.

Panasonic found a way to give us high quality(in theory) HD for the same price as HDV.(I'm talking camera not media)

If you really want to shoot a 3 hour snooze fest with DVCPro HD maybe you should look into a Varicam or the new 1080i camera. Another option would be to buy the HVX200 and a PVCPro HD deck. That would still be cheaper than the Varicam but then you would have your tape. But wait a DVCpro HD deck is expensive. Exactly! If the deck costs that much imagine how much more the HVX200 would have costed with a DVCPro HD deck built on.

Would you rather have the HVX200 with P2 and cost $6,000.00 or have it with a deck and cost $20,000.00? Even a lot of pros would never be able to afford the HVX200 if it cost that much. Now we actually do have the option of shooting DVCpro50 or DVCPro HD for a fairly low cost. Yes there are limitations but then again we are not buying a $70,000.00 Varicam. What do you expect for 1/10 the cost?

Finally just because there isn't the best backup solution right now today does not mean that at some point in the near future there will be. We have a good 5 months until the camera actually comes out. At first mainly the high end pros will be buying it. A few months after that is when the budget people will start thinking about the camera. That will bring us close to NAB again and maybe many options for storing video.

Neither is daily hard drive failure? How many hard drive failures does it take to ruin a project? I'll tell you: ONE. If you don't have a tape to back it up with, then your done. Finito. Expalin that to your client/boss/whatever how tapeless is the be all to end all when "that" happens.

If a tape get's eaten, you don't lose the whole damn show, just the small fraction at the jam point, (crack the case, splice and dub to a fresh one).

Botton line, I trust neither tape nor tapeless alone, so I use both. Guess it's the mechanical engineer in me, I've learned about the importance of redundant systems in a world ruled by murphys law.

This is getting off topic. My pitch is that the folks should also consider a redundant method, to recognize the advantage of both tape (for archive and backup) and tapeless for quick to edit. I don't need the HVX to get that.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean really, if you don't think this camera is any good, don't buy it. I personally have had a few HDs die, but really, how often does that happen when you treat your drives well? Also, even if you run both tape and HD, there is a possibility both will break. There's never a way to be truly sure nothing will break. Having a backup system is good, but let's think about it this way, the Firestore will be your capture device, P2 as a backup, you've got 24 minutes left just in case the HD dies. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but I can't see what's so wrong with it other than for live situations where it'd be easy to use a laptop.

Radek, most pros either shoot on HDs or Tape. Not both. Why should this be any different? Why does he suddenly need to record to 2 formats? If the shooter's that paranoid he should just use a laptop.

I guess I just can't see what's so inconvinient about it that people need to complain.

Neither is daily hard drive failure? How many hard drive failures does it take to ruin a project? I'll tell you: ONE. If you don't have a tape to back it up with, then your done. Finito. Expalin that to your client/boss/whatever how tapeless is the be all to end all when "that" happens.

It should be noted however, that unless you take your HDDs with you to your next MRI appointment, even a screwed up HDD usually has recoverable data on it... and for that matter, as cheap as HDDs are you can always RAID a few of them together anyway... (which was mentioned previously).

I think we all can agree... upgrading is subjective. Some people may just want the new toy, nothing more. Fair enough...

As far as media failure? Anything can fail but external HDs are by far the most likely to fail, especially when subjected to the elements in the field. The difference in the direct to hard drive work flow is that you lose EVERYTHING. When you have a bad tape you lose 20 - 60 minutes. Is the data recoverable? In some cases yes but it is SLOW and EXTREMELY expensive.

I dont think we will know for some time about the hard drive reliability in this application. You are pushing constant MASSIVE data in an uncontrolled environment.

If you are doing a shoot in HD, I assume it is going to be a more expensive professional production with appropriate back-up, etc. That is the reason myself and others were saying the upgrade cost would be more.


ash =o)

<soapbox ON>
HDD reliability is really OT for this thread. But you guys who seem to be paranoid about HDD failure need to educate yourselves. While catastrophic HDD failure may be commonplace in your world it is very rare in the professional IT world. RAID is just one technology you seem to just keep ignoring. Using highly reliable HDD is another. You think the video world requires more bandwidth than anything else? Guess again. There are many other businesses/industries/government agencies that far exceed what you do. IT pros have recognized and developed solutions for this issue long ago. And finally, if you want a system that uses your security blanket tape, then go buy the system that uses tapes, forget about the HVX200, and please quit whining about HDD in the HVX forum.

Having said that, everyone who has critical data should have a well thought-out disaster recovery plan. Don't know what this is? Then hire an IT consultant, or do some research.
</soapbox OFF>

The subject is very pertinent as HDD storage is being offerred as an alternative to the prohibitively expensive p2 card solution. We are not talking raided back-up on a desktop system, we are talking about a Firestore drive mounted to or linked to a camera.

I have yet to see a single person in this entire thread say anything negative about the camera, we are talking the cost of upgrading and now specifically storage options. I think we are all excited about the HVX and the possibilities it brings.

You actually PROVED the point that myself and others were trying to make. You NEED to have a raid 1 system at least. In this workflow, there is not an option of rebuilding your project from a batch capture list, EDL, etc. If you go with the P2>HDD workflow and re-use your P2 cards (duh) you will have to have a mirrored system because that data will be lost forever with a HDD failure. This will increase your upgrade, you will probably need at least 1 terabyte of storage in raid 1 (so 2 TB total).

If you go with the straight to portable HDD then to desktop HDD, same thing. The only issue there is the potential failure in the original unit which will carry a higher failure rate (still low I would assume) than the P2 media.

As far as conditions and bandwidth? I am not talking giant servers filled with fans and sitting in a dustless climate controlled room. I am talking about a portable HDD attached to a camera or cameraman pulling constant HD footage in a very uncontrolled environment. VERY VERY different...




ash =o)

Desktop systems no - but you don't need a desktop for a RAID system, and - as I'm sure you know - RAID 1 is the most expensive (in terms of storage per £ or $) by far.

Both RAID 3 and 5 (just so you know Ash, I'm assuming you know this but putting it verbosely for those who don't and are reading this thread) will only require 1.25 Tb for a 1Tb array - at current cost here in the UK that's about £450.

Which ain't much I'm sure you'll agree.

We're not all talking about Firestore style systems either - I doubt I'll ever use one. For long gigs such as events and live shows I'll either (a) use an HDV camera for small gigs or (b) use gear hired by the company I'm working for, which is the case 99% of the time. This is generally HDCam cameras for HD gigs or DSR's or equivalent for SD (although from time to time I'm on DigiBetas).

For short and feature production the addition of a laptop and firewire connected RAID array is no bother and a minor expense.

Now, may I make the plea that all of the relevant information and options have been thoroughly discussed, so perhaps we should let this HDD vs tape vs P2 discussion lie - to each their own, after all, and I find it hard to believe that anyone interested lacks any of the information they need to make a decision. If they don't they can always post a specific question...

As far as conditions and bandwidth? I am not talking giant servers filled with fans and sitting in a dustless climate controlled room. I am talking about a portable HDD attached to a camera or cameraman pulling constant HD footage in a very uncontrolled environment. VERY VERY different...

I think it's important to point out that in this very same thread (since both are the cost of upgrading to this camera) both acquisition and archiving have been mentioned in the context of harddrive failure.

Now for acquisition, HDDs do present many problems, though the crop of DTE products on the market have been praised for their ruggedness.

As for archival purposes, HDDs are not that problematic... again, they will be accessed rarely (little to no strain on the drives) and can be raided in a RAID 3 or 5 configuration which will give you reduncancy without having to buy double your intended storage.

So while you, Ash, may be talking about that acquisition, not everyone in this thread has been...

I don't think any of us would debate either of your points... HDDs are great for archival and can be dicey for acquisition... Can we move on now?

I wont use a firestore drive either... it was brought up as a lower cost alternative to P2.

As far as HDD for achival? I think it is a terrible medium. I do a lot of work in the music industry and they are already having lots of problems with nice high end scsi drives failing after only a few years of controlled storage... that however, IS another topic =o)



ash =o)

Somebody said tape only lasts 10 years. I have Betacam tapes that are 20 years old and still play with no trouble. Some DVCAM tapes are approaching 10 years old with no problems. I have had hard drives die that have never been moved or mistreated. They just quit. Expensive drives too, some costing $2500. And some cheap firewire drives have died.

I think P2 is great for TV news, or for a shoot where a person can have a second set of cards and an extra person with hard drives to download the first set of cards as he shoots with the next set, and then back up what's been downloaded to a second drive or computer. Somebody compared the P2 card to film magazines, but it's not the same. You do have spare magazines loaded, and an assistant to unload and reload the ones you're not using. That part is fair. But when the film is processed, you have your original film. When the P2 card is downloaded and erased, all you have is the hard drive, which can fail a lot easier than a tape or film can be damaged.

I think Sony is on the right track to a tapeless world with the optical disc drive. The discs are cheap enough that they can be stored just like tape. Maybe P2 cards will come down in price and up in capacity to compete with optical discs, and if that happens, then the world will be a better place and if that happens I will be in line to say P2 is better than Bluray discs.
I guess my ideal small camera would be the JVC shoulder mount one that uses real lenses, with the capability of recording Panasonic's DVCPRO HD onto Sony's Bluray optical disc. Oh yeah, and I'd like it for about $6K, thank you.

After some reflection, I guess this whole issue of tapless vs. tape is on topic. After all, it's the main selling feature of the HVX.

My 'paranoia' for capturing with both formats is justified. I shoot alot of medical device training in the OR for corporate work. Most of these are on patients whom agreed to have it filmed. After tallying up the cost in fees for paying the docs/facilities and support and total human effort, even simple mistakes cannot be tollerated.

For the record, in my opinion, tapes simply outlive Hard drives.

First. I have a drawer full of firewire drives with multiple projects. I mark the format date on each one, and usually when they get about 2 years of age, things get noisy, and files become corrupt.

Second. About once a month I have to fire up my recovery software and perform a raw scan of hard drive that simply quit working. Then I transfer the files that survived to a new drive. The process usually kills an entire day. So, I've leaned to backup up support files to DVD, and simply recapture from tape. Saving many hours of watch and wait.

Third. Every year I have to swap out the drives in my scsi array, as one usually goes down. I had a media array once, and within the first month, had to send it in for a recovery, and lost a week on the project.

So I can only go by what I've learned. Don't get me wrong. I don't have a $120K avid and $80K cameras. My entire investment comes in at about $25K. I just learned to adopt workflows from the pros. Some folks here relish technology and embrace it wholly on it's novelty. Yet, hollywoods vaults are bursting with decades old media that survives the test of time. The HVX is a great concept, and I hope it proves itself well. I plan to rent one to see for myself. But until then, I'm going with what I know works.

It's siimple man,

If you're doing videography, you won't need the freaking camera for a while anyway, because most clients (from my experience) won't care a dime's worth. Get the next generation in a few years.

If you're doing high-quality features or shorts the camera and upgrading isn't as expensive as you think, assuming your work flow really won't be much faster to begin with. Features/shorts of quality are done like a movie set. If you're moving at that speed, you have time to dump footage each night or whatever, or even on the spot. Barry Green has got the right idea. So admit that the camera is a positive thing to your craft, sell older, lower-quality stuff, upgrade for a minimal cost considering what you're getting, and get on with your shoot.

Nothing is simple, yet. We need the camera to be released before anything can truly be said about workflow or costs.

As it stands at the moment, if you have a Mac and FCP you are fine. Getting DVCpro50 or HD into a PC unless you have a high end editor is quite another matter. But it is also not just a case of your editor being able to read DVCPro files. It also needs to be able to decode the wrapper MXF format files that the HVX stores the footage in.

So if you are on a Mac with FCP 5 you will not have much to worry about editing wise. On a PC you could be in for an expensive software upgrade.

Avid offers a fully-functional end-to-end solution for both DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO-HD today. If you're using Avid on the PC, it works right now.

Other PC solutions for DVCPRO-HD include Canopus and Pinnacle.

Yes, Avid and Pinnacle offers a solution, which why I pointed out that if you have a PC you could be in for an expensive time. If you currently edit on Vegas, an Avid system, especially one with P2 compatibility isn't exactly going to be cheap.

Well, if you want to do the same things you used to do, your additional budget would be: $0.

I mean, that presumes you're planning on shooting standard-def DV, just like you used to, and you would be using the HVX instead because of its additional capabilities (such as native 16:9 mode, longer zoom range, better focus & zoom, better lens feedback, etc). It is essentially a 16:9 DVX with a miniDV tape drive, so it could serve as a direct replacement for the DVX.

If you want to take advantage of its high-def capabilities, well, that may require a little bit of additional gear. Presumably you'd want a high-def monitor, and presumably one that supports 1080 resolution. You can get that with the Dell 2405FPW for around $900.

You'll need an editing station that supports DVCPRO-HD. Right now if you're using FCP-HD or Avid Express HD, that means no additional cost because you've already got it. If you're not using one of those, you may need to upgrade. It is expected that Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro should add support, but they may not, so that's something to watch for. Canopus and Pinnacle also support DVCPRO-HD, although I don't know exactly which products or what upgrades would be necessary.

As far as editing computers, if you're using a reasonably current system, you won't have to upgrade. You may want to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest, but you should be able to get adequate performance on current computers. DVCPRO-HD is a lot easier to handle (computation-wise) than HDV is, as HDV requires decompressing groups of frames whereas DVCPRO-HD is frame-discrete. You may want to get some more hard disk storage though, as DVCPRO-HD does take up 4x as much hard-disk space as DV does.

No extra expense for a deck, because P2 cards and hard disks are directly readable by computers today. You may want a $30 PCMCIA reader device for your desktop computer, but that beats shelling out $4,000 for an HDV deck. And you won't necessarily need that either, because you can plug the camera in via firewire and read the contents of the P2 cards straight from it. Whereas that workflow was shied away from with tape-based cameras (i.e., you didn't want to put additional wear and tear on your $4,000 camera by using it as a capture deck), with the HVX/P2 situation that's a non-issue because there is *no* wear and tear when copying files off the P2 cards, whether through the camera or through a PCMCIA slot on the computer.

So that leaves recording medium. To record HD on the HVX you'll either need P2 cards or a DVCPRO-HD-capable FireStore (or comparable product) or a direct firewire connection to a laptop or desktop. If you're using a studio setup where you can direct-connect, then there's no additional cost -- you can stream high-def straight to the computer and capture it there to hard disk. If you want to use P2 cards, best to get the bundle and get two 8gb cards with the camera ($9995 MSRP for the camera and two cards, we will have to wait to see what the actual "street price" is; might be $8500 or less). If you want to use the FireStore, well, we have to wait to see what they produce before we know what that solution will cost.

If you decide to go with P2, the P2 cards can be dumped directly to USB2 external hard disks connected to the camera. Considering that there's probably 4-5 months before the camera comes out, and considering how hard drive prices keep plummeting, it's reasonable to assume that an external 300gb USB2 hard disk will cost under $150 by then. That would give you five hours of storage at about $30/hr. That's cheaper than DVCPRO-HD tape stock -- about half the price of tape, actually. And drive prices will continue to drop.

Why would Sony support Panasonic's DVCPRO-HD? Sony doesn't sell enough units, and wouldn't sell that many more units if they offered support for the format in Vegas.

Trust me, we've been asking them to support it!

I sure hope they do.

The way I look at it, it wouldn't make sense for Vegas not to support DVCPRO. I mean, they want their NLE to compete with the big boys... and the big boys are supporting DVCPRO...

It's not really a matter of Panasonic's cams vs. Sony cams when it comes to the editing programs... They're gonna try to get your business where they can, and if they missed you on the camera, they certainly want to pick you up on the NLE... besides, it's a completely different part of the company (legally it's probably an actual different company).

Anyway, I can't see how Sony Vegas could afford not to support MXF and DVCPRO, especially if this camera is as wildly popular as people think it will be...