How does it feel to go Tapeless? tell me about your experience

[Perrone Ford]

The Z5u shoots to tape. Not cards.

[edit]

I see you can add a module to record to compact flash...

That will get you about 72 minutes on a 16GB card. I see prices around $40 per card.

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-133x...869028&sr=8-15

You'd need 17 cards to hold 20 hours. So you'll probably be dumping in the field. A 500Gb hard drive will hold over 20 hours of HDV. They are around $60-$80. So you buy two for around $150, dump in the field, and call it a day. Tough way to go tapeless. But 20 hours is a LOT of data.

[Adam Gold]

I'm pretty sure he intends to snap the MRC1k onto the back and use that.

B&H and NewEgg and Amazon all have a large selection of cards to choose from. Don't just buy the cheapest ones. I've had five out of seven Kingstons go total failure on me.

Right now I'm using the Sandisk 32GB Extreme IIIs and they've performed flawlessly. They were running a huge rebate a few weeks ago which brought the price down to about $85 per card.

[Philip Howells]

We use Pretec 16gb 233x cards at about UKL55 each. They're metal cased. We're a three camera (Z1) wedding operation and have 12 cards which is more than enough for a complete wedding.

BTW we were tempted to buy a Nextdi disk backup. It's very fast but the Sony software can't read the data because the path is too deep. You can move the data of course but that rather defeats the object.

We also use a Sandisk High Speed reader via Firewire 800 which means another card in the computer, but instead of a day to get the tapes into the computer it's now about 2 hours.

[Randy Panado]

I shoot 99.9% all tapeless (have hv40 as a wide safe cam at times). I could not go back to tape. The ease of editing is so awesome. I used to shoot with the XH-A1 so I know what it was like to have tape. I don't worry about data loss as I don't guarantee long term storage of data after delivery.

[Silas Barker]

Yes I intend to use the extra add on device for the Z5....

Thinking about getting a second Z5, which reminds me I did a test with the Z1 and Z5 and the Z5's lighting fully zoomed in with 9db Gain compared to the Z1's fully zoomed in 9db gain....the Z5 wins with better low lighting....I used the same tape and swapped it in the cameras and played it back and Z5 wins.....

Anyways, Other options include the Sony Ex1, probably about the same weight as the Z5 with the memory recorder unit....only thing I want to run with this baby on the glidecam (no vest- think weddings)

We'll see....

Also I like having SD and HD formats which is easy with tape...any ideas people?

[Perrone Ford]

Well...

The EX1r will get you SD and HD. It will get you tapeless. It will get you low light performance beyond the other cams you mentioned. I can show you footage from my EX1 that looks like daylight until you see the headlamps on, and the automatic night lights on at the restaurant.

The problems with the EX1 are that it's pretty heavy. Putting it on a glidecam with no vest is going to be BRUTAL. There is also the "CMOS Problem" that some people are apparently afraid of. Personally, I think it's overblown, but whatever.

I'd shoot it and be happy with it, but to each their own. In my opinion, there's just nothing touching the EX1r under $10k right now when you look at all it brings to the table. Even after over 2 years this thing still sells like hotcakes. The fact that Sony has now endorsed SDHC recording giving you $40/hr media options only makes the decision easier.

[Silas Barker]

The Cmos thing is no big deal, been shooting with the FX7 for years.
But the weight of the EX on the Glide scares me a little. About half my work is weddings and weddings need glidecam shots to sell nice.

So...the question is whats the best Glidecam/tapeless Sony cam?

The Z5 is great (and barely ok on the glidecam for enough time to get shots I want) but with the memory recorder its an extra 4oz...not horrible more but maybe a enough to notice!!??

EX is probably going to be too heavy, the picture quality sounds nice...maybe for none glidecam shots. Which is a pity.

[Andy Wilkinson]

I don't do weddings but if I were you I'd buy an EX1r and but a Canon 550D/Ti2 Rebel (or 7D if you want the build quality) with a 28mm (equivalent) wide angle and use the Canon on a Merlin Steadicam or Glidecam or whatever system you use/favour. Then you'll have the best of both worlds, a light setup for glidecam shots (as well as a decent B cam) and stunning image quality and good ergonomics (well much better than DSLR anyway) for shooting those weddings. No one camera is perfect for all scenarios!

[Dimitris Mantalias]

Regarding safety issues in storing your data from your tapeless camcorders and DSLRs, you don't need to be afraid of a drive going bad. The simple and 100% safe solution is to build for example a RAID mirror setup with two discs 1.5 TB each. For those who don't know what RAID mirroring is, it's a hardware offering of most modern motherboards that allows two similar hard drives mirror one each other. When you are in your OS, you only see one disc, yet what you do is also change the "mirrored" drive without having you to worry about. So, if one of the drives breaks, the other one continues working and you receive the message that one drive is corrupt. So, you change the bad drive and the system copies automatically the data to the new drive, without your intervention. RAID mirroring is THE solution for tapeless footage. I haven't ever heard of two mirrored drives gone bad at the same time, so I think it's the best solution out there.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Dimitris Mantalias

I haven't ever heard of two mirrored drives gone bad at the same time, so I think it's the best solution out there.

Then you haven't been around enough. There is a reason people who work with crucial data are willing to use RAID 5, or RAID 10...

[Dimitris Mantalias]

Well Perrone... no. Maybe I am not being around in the videography business for too long, but I was certainly many-many years in the IT department. RAID-5 is NOT in any way safer than RAID-1 and certainly whoever made a system based on that, was definitely misinformed. In both RAID-5 and RAID-1 (mirrored), ONLY one drive is allowed to go bad. In any other case, this is the end of your data. So, no salvation with RAID-5. Regarding RAID-10 well, things seem safer, but actually they're not. RAID-10 contains a Mirrored RAID before a Stripped one. If one Mirrored and one Stripped goes bad, then the system keeps on, even with half the drives. But if two mirrored drives go bad, then it's bye-bye baby. Data lost forever.

So, this is why I am talking about safety solutions only. RAID-1 is slower in r/w than a single physical drive. If you want to combine high speed r/w with safety (so you can also work fast with those drives besides storing your data), ok, go with RAID-5 or 10 (preferably 10). But safety wise, the Nested RAIDs are not that safer because they happen to have more drives.

But because we have to be extra careful, add one external drive to the collection so you can also backup your RAID data. Now, if you have all 3 drives die at the same time, then you must be a really-really unlucky person.

[Perrone Ford]

Dimitris,

I have been in IT for almost 25 years now. I've seen all kinds of systems, and all kinds of data storage schemes. I currently protect nearly 100TB or sensitive government data daily. I've seen mirrored RAID go down hard. I've seen RAID controllers fail (HP DL380 fail at 3 years +- 3 months and I've got nearly 75 of them), and I've seen numerous hardware failures of DLT machines that were "last resort" backup solutions.

One thing I've learned is that you build a system EXPECTING it to fail. Period. And the only real question, is what will you have in your hands when it does. With my video data, it's double redundant (two separate machines and the drives aren't shared), and a third backup to optical. For work data, it's triple redundant, geo-dispersed, with constant write and point in time restoration. My video system costs $10k. My data system... well into 7 figures.

You have to figure out what you need, and go from there. But building one of these systems with the idea that it won't fail is a recipe for disaster.

-P

Originally Posted by Dimitris Mantalias

Well Perrone... no. Maybe I am not being around in the videography business for too long, but I was certainly many-many years in the IT department. RAID-5 is NOT in any way safer than RAID-1 and certainly whoever made a system based on that, was definitely misinformed. In both RAID-5 and RAID-1 (mirrored), ONLY one drive is allowed to go bad. In any other case, this is the end of your data. So, no salvation with RAID-5. Regarding RAID-10 well, things seem safer, but actually they're not. RAID-10 contains a Mirrored RAID before a Stripped one. If one Mirrored and one Stripped goes bad, then the system keeps on, even with half the drives. But if two mirrored drives go bad, then it's bye-bye baby. Data lost forever.

So, this is why I am talking about safety solutions only. RAID-1 is slower in r/w than a single physical drive. If you want to combine high speed r/w with safety (so you can also work fast with those drives besides storing your data), ok, go with RAID-5 or 10 (preferably 10). But safety wise, the Nested RAIDs are not that safer because they happen to have more drives.

But because we have to be extra careful, add one external drive to the collection so you can also backup your RAID data. Now, if you have all 3 drives die at the same time, then you must be a really-really unlucky person.

[Paul Hudson]

As a very old schooler I have to admit it was more than a little scary at first. I always backup to a cheaper 2TB drive because of the fear of not having tape to go back to.

Now 4 years later I have to say I do not miss sending all that money to Sony. :-)

Paul Hudson
Lizardlandvideo.com
Video Production Phoenix, Arizona

[Dimitris Mantalias]

Well, I fully agree with your backup solutions Perrone (25 years of your IT experience are awesome credentials, that's for sure :) ). My video backups are probably pretty safe, with backup in different machines (RAID machines) plus externals. I'd say I am scared of losing data, so we're spending money on storage solutions. But I believe that the chances of having both a RAID system AND its external backup drop dead at the same time are pretty low, although statistically possible. If such a thing happens, it will be a disaster beyond my thinking. Should anyone spend money to have a solution with triple-backups, available at any time? They should but they won't and I don't know if they are right, because I believe it's more possible to have a memory card failure during your shooting (even with the most reliable cards, I've seen it happening to photographers and it's not pleasant) than having all your drives destroyed by the anger of God.

Actually the reason I haven't gone tapeless yet (only a 7D in my tapeless arsenal and soon some CF card recorders for our HDV Sonys) is this one. Having seen cards going down during shooting, I don't feel that safe. On the other hand my DV tapes have yet to give me a fault, and I have used an unbelievable number of them.

But it is as you said it. You will have to figure out your needs and go for a solution that provides safety and doesn't ruin your bank account. What I wrote above is clearly my opinion about a balanced solution and some will go for more and some for less (I know of people that save all the tapeless data to one external drive).

[Gregory Barringer]

Do any of these video cameras have dual card slots that can record to both cards at the same time? My Nikon D3s has dual CF card slots. It can record to both cards, creating an immediate backup for stills only.