Sony EX and Weddings

[Robert Bec]

Hello

I am used to using tapes now my major work being weddings how do i store my footage, with tapes you put the tape away and pull it out in two to three months to begin work on that project

What would be the best way to store the footage of the memory sticks on hard drive a little risky to keep it on there for that long or store it back on tape when i get home i am confused

this is the one thing bothering me about tape less workflow

Rob.

[Peter Jefferson]

depends on the format in which u wish to archive,

You cold easily acquire the footage in XDcam good quality at hdv resolutions, then do a simple transcode from the PC back to tape in HDV format.. Youd need a HDV deck though..

Another opiton is to use BlueRay discs (XDcam specifically) and then use those discs as you would any HDD. This is more expenisve but much more efficient.
By editing directly with the files (through programs like vegas) you can edit using proxy's then do yoru final render in full res once the edit is complete. In trun, you wouldnt even need to have that footage on HDD at all..

BUT.. in al honesty for price and performance, you can easily grat a 1TB disc array with a Raid1 mirror set up and work from there. This way if anything were to go wrong with a HDD, you havent lost anything

I will be using this cam for wedding once the market for high end HD picks up, for now HDV is perfectly sufficient for weddings.

[Mike Williams]

Hi,

I too am a wedding videographer. I will likely be creating a mirrored raid with my apples.

I am in the same position as you. Only I don't wait a few months to start on the project. I within about two weeks as we have an in house editor. Delivery is in about 4-6 weeks.

I am not too nervous about having drives fail at all. I have been working my drives very hard and have not had any issues at all.

Using the pro res format I hope to reduce the file size and therefore the amount of projects on the drives will go way up.

There are some direct to disk back up options that have been talked about at length here. That seems to have the longest shelf life but the cost of entry is about 2K us.

The media seems cheap enough. I wouldn't freak out too much about having drives fail in that time period. When was the last time a drive failed on you? How old was it?

At the current prices for drives you could throw them away every year :)

Mike

[E.J. Sadler]

Hard drives are pretty robust, but at a minimum I would keep a second copy on a secondary firewire drive that you keep off-line.

We copy our raw footage from the the Firestores to a raid array, and then a do verified copy to a removable firewire drive on our file server. Last but not least, we burn a blu-ray copy of the footage.

Once we go solid state, the workflow will be the same.

[Don Bloom]

as stated with the cheap cost of big HDs you could buy a bunch of 750 or 500 gig HDs and archive them the footage offline or get a disc burner from sony and burn a bluray archive OR burn a couple of dvds to store them. Personally for me, IF I make the switch it'll be some HDs and after a year or so I wipe ithem clean. In my experience after about 6 months they aren't going to ask for anymore copies so why tie up the HD with footage that isn't needed. Now corporate stuff, yeah I keep it on forever. But that's just me. Tapeless workflow has me pretty excited-first time in a long time I might add ;-)
Don

[Robert Bec]

Ok so copy the raw footage over to an external drive (lacie, G-tech ) from there copy onto a blu-ray disc also for storage meaning i have two locations where the same footage is kept.


Sounds good a little more expensive but safe

Robert

[Sulev Sepp]

Hi all,

What Blue-ray writer and media do You use? Do You trust Blue-ray writing totally in todays development stage?
How many SxS cards You will take to one full day wedding ( sometimes I need to shoot during 12 hours, about 6-7 months of footage with one camera only)? Does it mean I need 6-7 cards? In Sandisk prices it means 7x900=6300USD. With coming EX1 we need promote our job for groom and bride as a new very High quality job with little extra charge until all investment buys back.
For conference coverage work situation is little easier. Mostly one session last 2-3-4 hours and during break I have time to transfer footage into computer and clean cards.

Sulev

[Mike Williams]

The recording time varies on the quality setting that you have on the cam. There are current posts that tell how long the recording time is in what setting and on what cards.

Memory serves ( no pun inteneded) two 8 gig cards can do 90 min in Full quality HD which for conferences is probably overkill.

Check around you will get more details of the recording time in this forum.

The capability to record longer then mini dv tapes without interruption was a major factor for me. Long ceremonies with one cam get really nerve racking when you know you won't have enough time :)

MRW

[Don Bloom]

The 8 gig cards 35mbps will do about 20 minutes-the 16 gig cards about 40 the 32 gig about 80 and the 64w when and if they really do come out will be about 160. Remember the camera has 2 slots that are hot swappable so double the time. Also remember that it can shoot at 25mbps which will also increase the time on each card. A 16 gig card at 25mbps gives 56 minutes-a 32 will double that and a 64 will double that. Length of time recording to me at least is not an issue.
As for archiving onto bluray, since Sony offers 3 cameras that use bluray discs to record to already with another one coming they already have the issue taken care of. A bluray disc and a burner - burn an archive and you're done. OR burn to a DVD OR keep the footage on HDDs and again since those have become so inexpensive it's hard not to reason using that system. Of course everine will have a different take but frankly to me the archive issue is a non issue as is the length of time you can record. I do a lot of seminars and generally they break about every 2 to 3 hours max. Lots of time to dump off the footage to a laptop with a big HDD and go on from there. OR have some extra cards. YMMV ;-)
Don

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Don Bloom

The 8 gig cards 35mbps will do about 20 minutes-the 16 gig cards about 40 the 32 gig about 80 and the 64w when and if they really do come out will be about 160.

The figures I've seen are 'at least' 50 minutes of full-quality footage on one 16 GB card, or correspondingly more time at the lower quality settings. So two 16GB cards would give you 100 minutes of full-quality footage or at least 2.5 hours of HDV quality, and two 32 GB cards (when available) will double those figures.

The EX1 probably won't be particularly popular for weddings compared to less expensive HDV cameras which are gradually taking over for this type of work, but I know several high-end wedding videographers who are very interested in the EX1. It's the most promising answer to the shortcomings of other <$10K HD cameras for event videography, and there's nothing else on the horizon to compare unless someone's keeping something secret. Of course we won't know how good the EX1 really is until we see some sample footage from final shipping units, but the specs suggest it could be the best video camera ever made in this price range.

[Don Bloom]

I don't know how popular it will be for weddings as a "standard" but I will say that it does interest me more than any other HD camera I've seen up to now.
I like the tapeless workflow and the real lens aspect as well as the small form factor BUT as you said, we won't really know until some folks start using it for real in real conditions.
I'm hoping though that the preview specs translate into real world specs and the camera is all it's cracked up to be. It's something I think the video world could use.
Don

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Don Bloom

I don't know how popular it will be for weddings as a "standard" but I will say that it does interest me more than any other HD camera I've seen up to now.
I like the tapeless workflow and the real lens aspect as well as the small form factor BUT as you said, we won't really know until some folks start using it for real in real conditions.
I'm hoping though that the preview specs translate into real world specs and the camera is all it's cracked up to be. It's something I think the video world could use.
Don

In many ways, it's going to produce quality on par with, sometimes a bit better than the big brother XDCAM HD units. I really don't see any way in the world you'd be disappointed with the output of the EX. If you look at programs currently airing that were shot with XDCAM HD, that should give you a good idea of what to expect.

-gb-

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Sulev Sepp

How many SxS cards You will take to one full day wedding (sometimes I need to shoot during 12 hours, about 6-7 {hours}of footage with one camera only)? Does it mean I need 6-7 cards?

If you want to shoot up to 7 hours of footage at full quality on the EX1 without stopping to transfer any of it, you'd need at least eight of the 16 GB cards for that. But why buy that many memory cards when for less money you could buy half as many plus a nice laptop and just make sure to find time to transfer some of your footage during the event? Surely during a 12-hour shoot you'd have enough downtime somewhere to pop open a laptop and transfer some data from the cards? If not then the EX1 plus enough memory cards would be rather pricey, and you'd be better off buying HDV cameras for that scenario.

[George Johnston]

I spent over 15 years in the top end wedding market and always took twice the amount of tape needed as belt and braces plus a second camera as a back up. Can I ask why do you consider the EX suitable for weddings apart from it's low light capabilities. Apart from broadcasters and electrical shops selling LCDs etc. no one has HD in their house as yet. Apple have no HDDVD or Blue Ray workflow in DVD Studio Pro-4 nor has Toast so I must assume the PC has software to produce HD DVD videos. I used to do 2-3 weddings a week and depending on the service and speeches could take 5-9 or more mini tapes and latterly we were producing 2-3 camera weddings I can't imagine how you are hoping to mix and match the Sony EX with lesser footage nor the amount of cards needed for 2 weddings on the same day. Once again I am assuming you are wanting to produce the best quality and drop it down to DV/DVCAM for a SD DVD or a DL DVD.

[Martin Mayer]

As you say George: "...no one has HD in their house as yet."

"I can't imagine how you are hoping to mix and match the Sony EX with lesser footage" - who mentioned doing that?

And again: "Apple have no HDDVD or Blue Ray workflow" and "I am assuming you are wanting to produce the best quality and drop it down to ........ a SD DVD".

Yes, for now maybe, but for how long?