I filmed an event with 25 hours of footage using a VX2100 and streamed the output to an external HDD via FCP. It worked just fine, but I also recorded to miniDV tape as a backup, which required a pause in the action every hour for the tape swap, even using 83 minute tapes would have required pauses. Is there a way to record two streams at the same time so my redundency is all digital and I don't need tapes?

Or would it be best to record until a break point in the action and backup that video file to a second HDD? I always use a new out of the box HDD for each event so failure is very unlikely, but with only one shot and no do-overs I can't afford to not have a backup in place.

Thanks,
Grant

I would suggest that perhaps a raid mirror would accomplish this. Of course if you had any technical hiccup on one drive it would also appear on the second.

Alternatively you might consider pushing through a firewire splitter and have any combination of 2 devices grabbing the video.

I'm unaware of any software that would split the output to two places from a single stream although it doesn't seem like it should be impossible.

I believe the firewire protocol only provides for two units to be connected; I also researched this but could not find a distribution box.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.