RIP Magnetic Tape.

[Vincent Oliver]

Well said Jace, glad you like tape so much. I have just had two consecutive tapes screw up on me, they are now in the bin. I did my last tape job in August 2010 and have never looked back. As for archival quality, my bin can give you an honest answer to that.

Will be selling both my Canon XL1s and a1

[Jace Ross]

That sucks, I'm weary of tape so I like to have 2 methods of video storage/capture.
I've only ever had 2 tapes fail on me, 1 from the condensation issue Sony cameras had and the other was hit by a car (inside the camera) the tape was taped together and partly works.

[Mark Job]

Hi Shooters:
There are a few points in this thread which have not come out, which I think are well worth pointing out. I work in a professional production and post production environment. First, we always shoot double system. We shoot HDV recorded to wonderful tape inside the camera, plus we simultaneously shoot solid state as our primary source acquisition using a Convergent Design solid state digital HD Flash XDR Recorder/Player. The XDR is a much more versatile unit, but uses the exact same technology as the smaller Nano Flash device. Here a few points to consider.......

1. Unfortunately, through no fault of Convergent Design, Avid Media Composer has a serious realtime capture limitation in regard to source Time Code recorded in the XDR or the Nano Flash.
*Neither the Avid Adrenaline, or Mojo DX, or Nitris DX external Digital Non-Linear Accelerator I/O boxes can De-embed the source TC in the HD-SDI stream output from the Nano or Flash XDR ! This is huge for our post workflow and many other post facilities ! Why ? I can think of about 12 reasons why you would want to capture source audio, video, and TC information in realtime to Avid's DNxHD codec. Almost all of them are for post audio re-synchronization, and realtime output reasons.

I have been on the phone with CD and Dan Keaton pleading for them to enable the RS-422 interface on the Flash XDR just so the TC signal can be passed out during in box play back in the XDR allowing us to feed source TC into our Adrenaline box during realtime capture to Avid DNxHD codec @ 23.976p!

2. The fallacy of clip based import from solid state media being faster than realtime capture. We have not found this to be true at all ! Even with what Avid refers to as "fast clip import," realtime capture is by far faster from tape ingest - particular HDV. HDV offers one the added possibility of ingest via standard fire wire as well as via the Adrenaline interface. HDCAM SR decks allow for 2 x times high speed realtime capture !

**Again, through no fault of Convergent Design's Nano or Flash XDR SSDR's, or Canon, who manufacture excellent quality HDV cameras and Sony who make great HDV VTR's, Avid cannot capture Canon's 24F format (24p over 59.94i via realtime 3:2 pull down removal) via fire wire with source TC ! The only way to get Canon's 24F in via fire wire interface in MC is to crash record with the source TC capture button turned off ! This is a serious functionality oversight on Avid's part !

3. Thick Raster HD HDV format is not acceptable for broadcast. Well, this is not strictly true. Discovery's Deadliest Catch and Storm Chasers both have used much HDV source material in their programs. We shot a high profile documentary last year in Montreal on the homeless using a heavy mix of both full raster HD 1920 x 1080 23.976p 4:2:2 on the Flash XDR along with HDV 1440 x 1080 Canon 24F (23.976p) and hand held Kodak Zi8 at 1080p30. You go watch that Doc online by clicking here at A Home is More than Four Walls and a Roof - YouTube then come back and tell me which is the HDV footage and which id the Full Raster HD footage ?

4. The HDV m2t MPEG - 2 encoder in the XL H1 produces images on HDV tape far superior, in my opinion, to that of comparable HDV in Sony Camcorders. HDV can be primary and secondary color timed up to match very well with full raster HD images, as you can see in the Doc we shot. I think tape has a continued place in TV stations as well as for backup to solid state digital HD acquisition.

5. HDV tape should not be re-used and has inherent drop outs. False ! We have not experienced a single HDV audio or video drop out from HDV tape acquisition. Not even once. We re-used Sony 63 and 80 minute HDV cassettes up to 5 times and we still cannot see or hear any glitches whatsoever.

6. HDV tape is no different than DV tape. False ! HDV uses a completely different Long GOP signal recording method, which allows for a higher bias and wider signal path than DV. For this reason, HDV head tracking is less critical with more error correction, thus virtually eliminating video tape drop outs. The HDV format is actually fairly robust in comparison to DV.

Mark Job

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Vincent Oliver

Well said Jace, glad you like tape so much. I have just had two consecutive tapes screw up on me, they are now in the bin. I did my last tape job in August 2010 and have never looked back. As for archival quality, my bin can give you an honest answer to that.

It's all due to cost-cutting. Tapes maufactured within the past year or so are of generally lower quality than those of even five years ago: The oxide or metal-particle layers begin flaking off too soon on these newer-manufacture tapes.

[Allan Black]

I was involved with tape manufacture and that can't be true, the majors are still using the same plants with the same quality manufacturing processes they've used for years.

Even from a marketing recall situation there'd be trouble, re the bad shipment that Sony admitted and publicised recently.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...-hdv-tape.html

The major players have understandably slowed the development of new tape formulations and eventually when new tape sales fall below a certain level, they'll sell their plants to start up outfits who want to make a quick buck. They'll cut costs like packaging etc.

But the gigantic third world market for tape is as big as ever, it'll be a while yet.

Cheers.

[Ervin Farkas]

Although most of the time this is not an issue, there is another aspect no one mentioned yet: uninterrupted recording. Sure, it doesn't happen too often, but sometimes you just can't afford to stop for tape replacement.

I record to $200-300 64GB CF cards - can put up to 6 hours of uninterrupted 720P24 video on one card. Use this card only 8-10 times and it comes to the price of good quality tape; use it 100 times and it's practically for free.

And the recorder is under $1K...

[Colin McDonald]

Looks like Canon finally called time on the HV40, but is still listing some other tape models on the UK site at least:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-xa...hv-series.html

[Allan Black]

Uh oh Col. The next news we'll read from Canon will be ..

'From (date) Canon will no longer support the HV20/30/40 series of video cameras'.

Hopefully years from now but that will signal the end of that famous line. As I said in post 1 if you have a library of DV tapes it's worthwhile keeping one in good condition to play your library.

Cheers.

[Vincent Oliver]

Allan,

You make a good point here. All the tapes that have been archived will only be valid as long as you have a player/reader. Just take a look at audio cassettes or VHS, how many players can you buy now? Probably a handful today, but what about next year or the year after ........

[Sam Lee]

Tape is not quite dead yet. In the data world, LT0-5 and LTO-6 are gaining traction as the more viable long-term archival medium. I'm all P2 and solid state acquisition. But what I noticed is that 1 Tb hdds archived past 4-5 years won't spin up. I didn't perform the yearly refresh to minimize the demagnetize effect. But it's a very scary thing to find out that hdd is not ideal for cold archive.

I'm seriously considering getting a new LTO-6 tape drive to archive those priceless footage + regular 3 Tb hdds. This will give better peace of mind vs. two 3 Tb hdds. Do not want to wait 5 years later and find out that the 3 Tb hdds will not be readable.

[Vincent Oliver]

The trouble is that everything eventually becomes redundant, that is the nature of technology. The only sure way of preserving data is to move with the times. As a photographer I was seeking the best way to archive my digital files, the solution was found in old technology, simply print the photos and you have hard copy. Using pigment inks the prints will last for 200+ years.

Not sure how I can do the same with movie files.

[John Kang]

Looking for a solution to tapeless capture for my Sony Fx-1. Is there an easy way of capturing to a tapeless format?

I was thinking component to HD or something to that effect. However, I'm not finding much of a solution...
I can't seem to find anything doing searches on the forums.

The only solution I can find plausible is using a Kanex Pro component to hdmi and using something like the atmos ninja. Is this the only solution?

Thanks.

[Adam Gold]

Do you mean shooting to tapeless? Sony makes the MRC1k for shooting to card or the DR60 for shooting to Hard Disk. Both are specifically designed to work with your cam.

There's a specific subforum here for those:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-har...ard-recorders/

[Mikel Arturo]

Originally Posted by John Kang

Looking for a solution to tapeless capture for my Sony Fx-1. Is there an easy way of capturing to a tapeless format?

I was thinking component to HD or something to that effect. However, I'm not finding much of a solution...
I can't seem to find anything doing searches on the forums.

The only solution I can find plausible is using a Kanex Pro component to hdmi and using something like the atmos ninja. Is this the only solution?

Thanks.

My friend, the FX-1 is a tape cam from 2005. Purchasing something like MRC1k (750 $ more or less) in 2013 is a waste of money.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/580065-REG/Sony_HVR_MRC1K_HVR_MRC1_Memory_Recording_Unit.htmlSony Product Detail Page HVRMRC1K



Actually, you have a CANON HF-G20 for little more money and... probably better video quality. Is VERY similar to your SONY FX-1.
Or CANON HF-G30, similar cam but with x20 optical zoom, 50p and classic zoom rocket. All tapeless, with dual sd card slots.
Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : VIXIA HF G30

But if you want more info about external recorders, watch this video.

Datavideo's DN-60 versus Sony's HVR-MRC1K HD Video Recorder part 2 - YouTube

I bet for Canon HF-G30 versus external recorder (and don't forget that external recorder needs external power, external batery or something similar!!!!!; another thing that can go wrong working).
I bet

[Giroud Francois]

if you skip on the tape, the FX1 is an excellent camera, , one of the last 3 CCD at its best.
Picture blends very well with my EX1 and do not suffer from all the inconvenience of CMOS.