Backing up data "on the road"...

[Brainstorm]

This is my first post on the board so I'd like to begin by thanking Jim Jannard and his team for their efforts to bring RED One into being. This is the most exciting development in camera technology I've seen in a long, long time. As an independent producer/director, I'm thrilled by what such a camera could do for film makers like myself. Bravo Jim!

Now to my question!

Like many others posters to the board, I'm involved in documentary production and looking to find a practical solution to backing up data "on the road" on a daily basis. So far, I've read suggestions about carrying hard drives to download data, backing up to tape drives, visiting post-prod houses in each city a crew visits to have data backed up, etc. In view of my experiences of traveling internationally with a small (4-person) documentary crew for weeks one end, each of these options presents some real problems... and that's before I even speak to the average production manager who was inevitably trained by the Nazis in the best way to save $$$, no matter what impact it has on the final pictures on the screen!!! Sometimes I have to wave my hands in the air wildly to even get a "road-cased" wide-angle lens thrown in!

As we all know, baggage handlers can trash hard drive so easily. On a lengthy shoot where you're recording upwards of 40 hours of material, you'd also need far too many drives. Carrying a bulky tape drive in a flight-proof case would add an enormous amount to excess baggage costs. (I'm also constantly trying to find ways of cutting down the number of cases down my crews carry. As it is, we turn into death on wheels every time we cram all our gear and suitcases into a hired mini-van.) There's literally – and I mean literally – not a square inch of room left. Getting to a post house each day or two to back up is also out of the question. We often have enough trouble finding time to recharge camera batteries and the extra expense would be really hard to sell to a lot of production managers in these days of ever-shrinking budgets. They'd just say, why can't you shoot on tape and FEDEX them back like you always have?

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to back up to optical disk (I think!) , but so far a workable solution eludes me. The HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) is rumored to be hitting the market soon. It's said these disks will store up to 1.6TB with a data transfer rate of 120 MB/s (960 Mbit)... but I need something that works today, not next year.

If anybody has any new ideas for backing up that will work in the real-world of "tight budgets, no-time-to-breathe, carry-less-equipment-not-more" documentary making (or possible solutions that have already been posted that I've missed), I'd really appreciate hearing them. I would love to join the RED One "owners club", but until I find a viable way to deal with this issue, I fear I'll have to stick with tape.

Brainstorm

[Chris Kenny]

Toshiba is introducing 1 TB hard drives in a couple of months. REDCODE RAW 4K runs about 100 GB/hour, so 40 hours is 4 TB. Double that for backup, call it eight drives. Having everyone in your four person crew stick two drives in their carry-on luggage doesn't seem too implausible.

[ChristopherKenworthy]

I agree that this is a big issue. On a couple of features that we have lined up, for some parts of the story we want to get out and away from the usual shooting locations, with a skeleton crew and a couple of cast members. In some ways, Red makes this possible, because we don't have to worry about the lab. We disappear into remote locations and get shots that would otherwise have been impossible. But, if we're out there for a few weeks, I'm going to get really nervous about backing up, unless we have a rock-solid solution. And I haven't thought of one that makes me relax, yet.

[David Fairbanks]

And remember this is not MiniDV or even HD tapes, this is 4K. If it was back to film, imagine what would have to take place there (additional crew, couriers, processing). If you are in an adiquitly civilized area, you could have drives FedExed back an forth keeping one set with you and the other for transfer back in the states. Keep in mind that with a full digital tapeless workflow, you actually have the abitliy to make a backup before shipping it off. It might not be ideal right now, but it's been worse and it will get better as other technolgies come out.

[Brainstorm]

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the Toshiba 1TB recorder Chris... but this is still a problematic solution. For starters is weighs 15.2kg and measures 45.7 x 40.8 x 15.9cm. On an international shoot with say 20 flights over 10 weeks, you'd be adding something like $30,000 to the excess baggage bill. Ouch!

More importantly, you'd have to carry the unit continuously until you filled the memory up, and would still end up with only one copy... unless you carried two of machines. That's simply out of the question.

Also, with regards to asking the crew to carry hard drives in their personal baggage, that would really be pushing the friendship. My own suitcase is usually so full (and heavy) on a long shoot in multiple climates that there's barely room for a can of shaving cream!

The solution I need must involve backing up to something durable, small, and light (like optical disks) which can then be couriered back to the production office on a weekly basis.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I have not researched this myself but perhaps the answer lies outside our insular industry. What we are generating is binary data, just like databases and other business critical digital info. It is my thesis that there are vendors in most major cities whose business model is to store data for companies that need bulletproof offsite backups. Storing data, verifying its integrity, sending it via T1 lines to anywhere you request, etc is their bread and butter.

Even in Glenn's balls to the wall field expeditions you would still have to package tapes and run them to FedEx - use that same chunk of time to drop the RedDrives at the storage vendors shop. Yes there is a time penalty in that you will have to pick them up as well and that the storage vendors may not have as many locations or the same hours as FedEx.

For my own workflow projections I am figuring that for some gigs I will need to rent several extra RedDrives. The great thing is that the RedDrives are very small physically so even having ten of them with you should take up minimal space. Heck, a case of tapes takes some space - especially BetaSP shells.

Part of the problem here is that the risks and costs of tape based operations are understood and accepted whereas data based workflows are seen as a dark art fraught with danger. I believe that the solution for fast moving crews that are away from their bases for long periods of time lies in accessing the resources of the global IT infrastucture, after all - its just binary data.

[Brainstorm]

Thanks Blair.... I like your lateral thinking and I'm all ears if you can think of a way to shift large amounts of data securely from locations all over the world.

Normally I won't leave camera tapes with anybody on the road. When I courier them home, I always go to a large courier depot and literally stand there until the tapes are fully packaged and addressed. Even then, I've had tapes go missing for two weeks.

For this reason (i.e. a lot of people out there don't know what they're doing or simply don't give a shit!), the idea of leaving my precious data with anybody else is really scary. I also shoot in many countries where it would be very difficult to find a company that could reliably network large amounts of data across the world. But like Coca Cola.... FEDEX is everywhere!


P.S. to Chris.... I got the new 1TB Toshiba drives mixed up with the new Toshiba 1TB HDD recorder! The hard drives are obviously much smaller! They're a step in the right direction, but I'd still be worried about their ability to withstand the punishment that baggage handlers dish out on a regular basis.

[Nook Kim]

I understand that this is to find a better solution, and it will make everyone including myself happy if Red team, or anyone here, provides us with something fantastic. Nevertheless, it makes me wonder a bit on how you have been dealing with this when you were shooting on tapes.
If you have been shooting on DVCPro HD or HDCAM format, you must have had mutiple boxes of tapes for the "40 hour shoot" that was mentioned. What was your solution working around that issue? Also, I assume you'd make a back up copy tape first before you could ship out the tapes back to the studio, which should have required a deck or two?
If you have been shooting on P2, that must have required at least two or more HDD's considering the length of your regular shoots.
I'm just thinking in my head how you have been able to handle your shoot. Do you mind sharing that with us?

Nook

[Rob Lohman]

I think Toshiba has a 100 GB 1.8" harddisk on the market. There are also 1.8" external (USB) enclosures. That would not take up a lot of room to make backups.

Of course if you're gonna shoot 40 hours worth of footage in 4K you're gonna need some fairly decent storage. An hour of 4K will probably be somewhere around 100 GB.

It would be really great to simply have a (10) gigabit connection to your servers back home, but we're not quite there yet...

[Brainstorm]

Hi Janghos...

On a shoot for a Discovery Channel doco (or similar), I'm normally shooting DigiSP (or HD) with a mini-DV/HDV second camera. Yes we carry a large box of tapes around (50 betacam & 10 DV tapes at a time).... and no, we don't ever duplicate them before shipping. That's a huge risk, but I don't know of any crew that dupe before sending their tapes off. It's just a risk we all live with.

We never carry a deck. Rushes are only ever viewed back off the camera (on a tiny LCD screen) and we only view them for tech-checks. There's never any time to watch the rushes just to see how things look. (Oh, I remember those good 'ol days, but they disappeared long ago... along with business class seats on international flights!)

As for the P2: The data back-up issue is the reason that they haven't broken into much more than the ENG market. The production company I made two Discovery Channel docos for last year bought a couple of P2's and nobody wanted to take them on the road for that reason. Carrying card readers and extra drives (plus the time issue) proved too much for everybody... and we're not all wusses who expect a life of luxury on the road either ! :-)

[Stuart English]

For this kind of problem, I am very interested in the suitability of the new Sony AIT-5 date tape drives. Cassettes are small, relatively cheap ($60) and also WORM, so once written they can't be erased. Each casssette holds up to 400GB so a good one-for-one match to a 320GB RED-DRIVE Digital Magazine. Still looking for a portable drive unit, but they are relatively inexepensive at around $4K.

[Brainstorm]

Hi Stuart...

The Sony AIT-5 date tape drives (which I didn't know about) are by far the best solution proposed so far. Thanks for the pointer. If you come up with any other suggestions, I'd be very happy to hear about them!

Thanks again for your continuing willingness to participate in the Q&A session on this and other RED-related boards. Very much appreciated :-)

[jbeale]

The Toshiba MK1011GAH is a 1.8-inch drive, capacity 100 GB.
Size: 8 x 54 x 71 mm. Weight: 59 grams.
Withstands 1,500 G non-operating shock.
http://sdd.toshiba.com/

I don't know how far you could drop the bare drive, but it is so small and light I would think a normal padded envelope would protect it.

[Samscad]

This doesn't sound like a big problem to me.

Even without the new 1.8 inch drive. Just a standard notebook drive is cheaply available at 160gb. Just get a $25 USB 2 notebook enclosure, four or five notebook drives and a laptop. You can dump the data onto the drives and fedex them. Or stick them in your camera case.

I'm presuming if you plan to use Red, you're going to have to plan to have a laptop with you anyway.

[Samscad]

I like to ask in addition:

Are you really planning to shoot 4K documentary?

[Brainstorm]

Hi Samscad

It may not sound like a big problem to you... but it sure is for me and many others like me! I don't know if you've ever been out on the road shooting around the world for weeks on end, but all the issues I raised are very real.

I've watched out the window of a 747 as baggage handlers threw our cases 10 feet at a time. I've had to race around replacing $50,000 of damaged equipment on that resulted from things being dropped from a high enough height to snap the legs of a Sachtler tripod while it was still in its case. I've had a suitcase dolly turn up at the airport with forklift prongs driven straight through it. I've also had to bargain my ass off to try and keep excess baggage costs under control – and then justify every cent I've spent to an over-wrought production manager... etc, etc,etc.

Also, four or five notebook drives will not back up 50 hours of data. Besides, you would never carry all your data (or camera tapes) for the entire duration of a shoot. If things go missing, that's a sure way to lose the lot! I've seen that happen too, thankfully not on one of my shoots.

As for shooting a 4K documentary... yes I do hope to do that, but for cinema release, not for broadcast or cable TV.

[MikeCurtis]

the "find a place in each town" solution sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen of detailed troubleshooting at each location. AIT-5, properly roadcased with 2 inch foam all around would be pretty good as Stuart suggests.

other punt solution - 750 GB drives in a padded roadcase, using a single eSATA hotswap dock - just keep chucking drives in and out of it, it is dirt simple, no software needed, just drag files over to copy. Ever order drives in bulk (more than 4 at a time)? They always come packed in pre-cut foam, with 2 inches of foam on all sides and an inch or more between drives. I just pitched all mine for space reasons (haven't needed in a while), but that's always been a back-of-my-mind solution to use. Fit about 7 hours of 4K@24p on each one. Make two copies, ship in separate containers home (or ship one home and keep one with) and deal with it that way.

Or bubble wrap the snot out of'em and keep in with other stuff. Typical math to be run on space taken vs. how securely stored. Just DON'T put'em next to that subwoofer in the back of the car!

: )

Want to increase your storage effiency? Shoot 2K RAW with S16 lenses and get a lot more than an hour in each 100GB.

-mike

[Brainstorm]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your input. I really think Stuart's suggestion is the best to date. For me, backing up to a tape (or optical) media seems like a more secure and less risky option than backing up to drives. The 400GB tapes for the Sony AIT-5 drives are relatively cheap to buy & ship compared to drives and are also very compact.

Some people might think I'm joking about the lack of space once our hired mini-vans are loaded up, but I'm not exaggerating at all. We only just fit in with a 4-man crew, luggage and equipment. Sometimes we're so loaded up that even a 10MPH accident would be enough to take someone out permanently!

[jbeale]

I see the AIT-5 specs indicate a transfer rate of "up to 24 MB/second", meaning a full 400 GB tape will take at least 4.6 hours to write. So the transfer to tape runs somewhat slower than "real time", if 4k 24fps Redcode is 27.5 MB/sec. I assume you would setup the tape dump at night, so it would be done by morning.

[Brainstorm]

I think a transfer rate of 24MB/sec is about as good as it's going to get until some totally new type of back-up technology hits the market. It's not ideal, but it's possible... and at least the poor crew member who gets the job can still get SOME sleep!

:-)

[Finner]

I think there will always be prices to pay when getting a piece of equipment that is so far ahead of the curve like the red. Oh well at least you get much more of a future proof camera.

I see a simpler answer to this that was talked about in detail on a thread about flash memory. If red makes the flash port to accept non-red specific flash memory cards (Sandisk and others). You could just run with a bunch of these cards and feel confident in them not being easily destroyed in shipping. They are light small and you can buy them all over. Transport and shipping would be much cheaper, you would need quite a few but that cost would be much cheaper from shoot to shoot as you could re-use them. You could probably buy them yourself and rent them to the production and have them paid off in 4-5 shoots. The way memory always continues to get larger and cheaper I think this would be the best option.

[jbeale]

Flash is pretty rugged, that is true, but just thinking for a moment-

www.taperesources.com sells a single 400 GB AIT-5 tape for about $60.

I think flash ranges around $20 - $50/GB, meaning $8k to $20k for 400 GB. I've had very bad luck with the cheaper flash brands, so I wouldn't trust the cheap stuff for real work.

I'd say having the original material on a tape that you can keep as an archive copy is good. If you use a bunch of flash that's so expensive you have to wipe it and reuse for the next job, that means you still need some other solution for archiving.

[Finner]

But the archiving can be done back home by your editor right? Also costs will drop drastically over the next while on flash as memory companys are concentrateing a lot of their effort on flash memory.

If you are looking for a simple answer that will work as easily as tape does and you want that answer right now I think you already know you will not find one. On the other hand how much depreciation of a HD camera are you willing to suffer for the imediate convienience of tape? The rate memory goes down I do not see a huge problem with dealing with the small imediate difficulties of red now for all the benifits and convieniece that will follow.

It was also not mentioned that after 1 or 2 high quality red documentary's you will set yourself in a level high above an HD doc and probably be given the doc's with the bigger budgets.

[Brainstorm]

Hi Finner,

Until flash cards have a MUCH larger storage capacity – along with a BIG price drop – they can't compete with the tape drive solution (when you're talking about 50 hours of more of shot data). But, hey.... the flash card solution may not be far away. For example there's the promised HVC from Optware in Japan:

"The Holographic Versatile Card (HVC) is a data storage format by Optware; the projected date for a Japanese launch is 1st half 2007 (pending finalization of the specification). They claim it will hold 30GB of data, have a write speed 3 times faster than Blu-ray, and be approximately the size of a credit card. At release, the media will cost about ¥100 (roughly $1) each, reader devices are set to cost about ¥200,000(roughly $2000) while reader/writer devices are to cost ¥1 000,000 (roughly $8000) each."


I'll put this in the "believe it when I see it" category for the time being. In the meantime, I really need a solution that I know will work NOW if I'm going to consider moving into the RED zone!

[Chris Kenny]

I think a transfer rate of 24MB/sec is about as good as it's going to get until some totally new type of back-up technology hits the market. It's not ideal, but it's possible... and at least the poor crew member who gets the job can still get SOME sleep!


LTO3 drives are a fair bit faster than that, and media is about the same price.

[Brainstorm]

Thanks Chris... seems you're right! So far, all the LTO3 units I've seen in my quick web hunt are physically much larger and heavier than the Sony however.

Now if I can just find fast, small and light in a single package!

It's time to go hunting...

[Chris Parker]

What about Blu-Ray discs? If you can get 40GB on each disk, this would work nicely for a redflash backup, storage option for on-the-road. Each night, take all the footage that you have aquired that day on your external hard drive, burn two blu-ray discs of everything. They are small, they will be cheap, and they are easy to ship anywhere. At 100GB per hour of footage, each disc could get about 24 minutes on it. 200 Blu-ray discs could give you your 40 hours of footage, with a backup. 100 X 40GB = 4TB. Backup copy of another 100 discs.

What do you think?

[Stuart English]

LaCie Blu-Ray burners are just coming onto the market at about $1,100 each.

Remember regarding data tape and optical or hard disk, bits are bits. There is no quality gain or loss using any of these formats, whereas with videotape there will be. When in the data domain, just chooose the right balance for your application of initial equipment cost, media cost and capacity, portabiliy and transfer speed.

[planet e]

this isn't exactly "on the road," but it's fabulous for "in the field"--it's my new favorite device because it runs off the battery power of my macbook pro, and it's built like a little tiny tank. it's plug-free, unleashed back-up storage. they are super-portable, lightweight and you can use several of these in the field on a given day, then offload the footage to something larger, like a 1TB drive wherever you are based. i'm guessing that since RED is using g-tech products, they may be having some conversations as well.

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-RAID-mini.cfm

[Antoine Baumann]

What about Blu-Ray discs? If you can get 40GB on each disk, this would work nicely for a redflash backup, storage option for on-the-road. Each night, take all the footage that you have aquired that day on your external hard drive, burn two blu-ray discs of everything. They are small, they will be cheap, and they are easy to ship anywhere. At 100GB per hour of footage, each disc could get about 24 minutes on it. 200 Blu-ray discs could give you your 40 hours of footage, with a backup. 100 X 40GB = 4TB. Backup copy of another 100 discs.

What do you think?

I thought about blue-ray the whole thread. And Panasonic will soon release (or has already released) 100 GB blue-ray discs. So it will be only about 40 discs.

http://www.hdnumerique.com/actualite/articles/20102006-un-blu-ray-disc-de-100go-chez-panasonic.html

antoine.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What about Blu-Ray discs? If you can get 40GB on each disk, this would work nicely for a redflash backup, storage option for on-the-road.

BluRay is still somewhat of an unknown... We don't know how reliable BDRE discs will be for long-term storage or how resiliant they are to scratching under even light/casual use or transit. OTOH, I'll probably be using BluRay myself for smaller backups and whatnot just because I'll be owning a BD writer... I think many of us here will within the next few months so we can start delivering BluRay content anyway.

For a robust, mobile solution I would still consider FLASH cards and tape (probably LTO) to be the best choice. Same for long-term archiving... If you want something you can archive to and place on a shelf, then DLT or data tape is the way to go. LTO has the best price/performance/capacity ratio right now, but some of the most expensive drive units. AIT would be a good choice too, but does have that much slower record time. The cheapest reliable tape solution I've seen and one that I've recommended to others for the HVX200 has been VXA2. It's a solid performer with tapes as cheap as $22 in bulk (160GB tapes). Even with 1TB hard drives trickling into the channel at $395, the VXA2 tape solution becomes cheaper per GB than hard drive at about the 9TB mark.

[Chris Kenny]

The cheapest reliable tape solution I've seen and one that I've recommended to others for the HVX200 has been VXA2. It's a solid performer with tapes as cheap as $22 in bulk (160GB tapes). Even with 1TB hard drives trickling into the channel at $395, the VXA2 tape solution becomes cheaper per GB than hard drive at about the 9TB mark.

That sounds pretty attractive, but I can't seem to find VXA2 tapes near that cheap. Where are you buying?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'll have to pull my invoice, but I bought a 200 VXA2 tapes about last April/May for less than $4000 shipped. I know that they were $50 each when bought individually from most places last year at this time, I don't know what they are now. I want to say I ordered through TapeResources, but it might have been a local supplier as well. I'll see what I can find. I bought the VXA2 tape drive unit from Provantage. The external Firewire VXA2 drive was $1K at the time and that included 1 tape and some junk backup software. There's also an internal ATAPI version for about $725. I'm just about out of tapes now and that's after using them to selectively backup only HVX200 footage and some animation work. I'm not so sure VXA2 would be that economical for RED and I don't plan to buy anymore VXA2 tapes... In fact, I'm hoping to migrate my VXA2 archives to something more dense within the next year or so. I'm currently looking at AIT and LTO options. The tapes are cheaper per GB for those two formats vs. VXA2. I was attracted to VXA2 because the drive was a cheap investment (compared to other tape solutions) so I didn't feel like I was jumping in head first. 160GB was a good size since I was mostly backing up P2 card images and individual project data. For backing up something like RED Drives, I think I would want a tape format that's 320GB natively or better so I can put a full RED Drive on a tape if I needed to.

I have a SAN here built of RAID 5 storage and that's where most everything resides and I have "live" backups of my data on the SAN. I just offload archival data to the tapes, for long-term storage... They sit in my fire-proof vault right next to the boxes of DV tape, CD-R and DVD-R media that I need to start picking through and thinning out. :)

Anyway, I'll see what I can dig up for VXA tape pricing... Depending on how my purchase of RED and new workstations and everything else I need starts to shape up, I may just have to live with VXA tape a bit longer. I have no problems with that other than the 160GB capacity and the transfer rates aren't all that fast compared to some of the LTO options. Some LTO drives offer upwards of 75MB/s!!! ...Uh, expensive though.

[Brainstorm]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

The 100GB Blu-ray disks seems like an interesting possibility, depending on the write time. Obviously, their limited storage capacity means somebody has to keep watch as all the transfers go through, so disks can be swapped when needed. The thing I like about tape option is being able to set the copy off and then be able to go off and do other things for a few hours (like sleep!) an entire 320GB RED-Drive is backed up on its own.

[Ken Corben]

Thanks Stuart,

The SONY AIT - 5 external drive is SWEET. A great suggestion for field back up this year for my remote shoots and peace of mind. The external drive is small, light and under $3k.

Can someone explain the cabling and adaptor issues in the field with a mac laptop, red drive on the left and AIT-5 on the right:

1) SCSI firewire adaptors like this will work on the AIT drive side?

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/scsi/FR1SX.php

2) Will adaptors slow the transfer speed?

3) Do we know the tentative connections off the red drives?

TKS

[Jeff Kilgroe]

sharkguy, which mac laptop are we talking about?

If it's a MacbookPro I would recommend, if you're going for a SCSI unit like that Sony AIT, to get an ExpressCard SCSI adapter. If it's an older Powerbook, get a PCMCIA SCSI adapter. If you're using just a Macbook (dare I ask why?), then yeah, the firewire to SCSI adapters do work OK, but I know they're not 100% reliable at all times, plus they clog up your firewire interface that you'll want for your RED Drive - presumably. Although, you may be able to connect the tape drive via Firewire and the RED Drive via USB2.

I think we'll know more as RED gets closer... I'd also see if someone makes an AIT or LTO drive with a firewire interface. I'm sure someone does. I saw an LTO3 drive somewhere with firewire - it was about $5K and I can't remember the specifics.

[Samscad]

Brainstorm,

After all these great suggestions I'm starting to realize the biggest problem is time rather than storage options.

For someone shooting a documentary in remote locations you're going to have to devote a lot of time at the end of your day to making and checking backups, which you just don't want to do.

Already with the HVX we've found that backing up adds a good hour at day's end. It's a lot less than capture time would be, but you have to do it right then and there making it a production issue, rather than a post production issue.

It seems to me that a new crew position needs to be created, somebody specifically responsible for carefully backing everything up. I'd want two copies of everything, (especially if it's going to blu ray) so that person is going to have to work late.

This could work for a regular shoot, but it doesn't help the small doc crew who have to squeeze in a minivan and don't have the manpower to make somebody do what essentially is a night shift.

I think if you're shooting 4K you wouldn't have any choice but to hire an extra person to take care of this.

It's a quandry for sure.

[Brainstorm]

Hi Samscad,

Time is the biggest issue for the crew on the road. Weight & volume of equipment are the BIG issues when your ass is being whipped by a hardline production manager who stresses (for valid reason) about excess baggage costs and won't allow you to hire two mini-vans instead of one!

:-)

[jbeale]

The Sony AIT-5 drive uses an Ultra 160 SCSI connector with 68 pins. Is that compatible with a 50-pin SCSI-firewire adaptor?

There are something like 10 varieties of SCSI, not counting fiber and serial variants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The Sony AIT-5 drive use68s an Ultra 160 SCSI connector with 68 pins. Is that compatible with a 50-pin SCSI-firewire adaptor?

68pin UW SCSI[3] (even UW320) can sometimes be connected to a 50pin SCSI[II] connector. ...Provided the SCSI interface on the device itself allows it and provides proper termination for the high-byte portion of the interface. Most current external SCSI devices have built-in termination so you don't need a 68pin terminator for the out-stream port. But you may need a terminator with a low byte / 50-pin SCSI pass-through. Or you may need a cable that provides the proper termination... If anyone is interested, I have a couple 1M SCSI cables that are HD-50 SCSI-II on one end with active termination for the high portion of an UW SCSI connection... They have a VHDCI micro 68pin connector on the other end. I was using them to connect from an external 68pin UWSCSI-3 interface on a server to an external SCSI-II 50pin enclosure with a ZIP drive and CD-RW. Parted out and sold the external enclosures and drives, but nobody wanted the cables... Such a cable might be useful here.

SCSI can be a real PITA sometimes, but if it's all properly terminated and connected with the right cables and you don't mix LVD with non LVD (Low Voltage Differential) on the same channel, and use active termination when you should... Then it works great! ;)

Most current UW SCSI adapters allow for connecting 50-pin legacy devices, but it's usually problematic going the other way, trying to connect 68-pin devices to a 50-pin host adapter. I could swear someone out there has a UWSCSI3 68pin host adapter that fits an ExpressCard interface. But trying my luck on Google proved futile. Everyone in the world is making eSATA adapters, but SCSI cards are few and far between and I'm finding that Adaptec, Buslink, Mylex, etc.. and most of the big names have discontinued their PCMCIA SCSI cards and all their offerings for ExpressCard slots are eSATA only. Hmmm... Maybe we need to wait it out a few more months and see if some of those tape drives start migrating to eSATA, then it will be a simple solution.

FWIW, those USB2 to USCSI adapters (I can find the Adaptec one for $75), are getting mixed reviews. Basically, it's a cheap way to keep using your old junk SCSI peripherals, but it doesn't work with a lot of non-storage devices like scanners. Not that it's an issue here, but I don't know how well such an adapter would work going to a modern tape system... Assuming you could get the termination and communication to work between the UWSCSI/UW320 interface and the older 50pin USCSI/SCSI-II interface to begin with.

OK, I'm rambling...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Doing a bit more looking, it seems Quantum offers DLT4 units (160GB tapes) with SATA or USB2 interfaces. Those are available as internal units only, but no big deal to place them into an external enclosure for eSATA or USB2 connectivity. I see some third-party vendors are selling them that way. This looks better than the VXA2 I mentioned earlier as the drives configured externally would be about the same price, but the tapes are looking to be cheaper. Also, I can't seem to find the external VXA2 firewire drive that takes the 160/172GB native tapes. All I can seem to find for sale and on Exabyte's web site is their model that takes the 80GB native tapes... The only desktop 172GB model they still show is the 1x7 autoloader, which Provantage has for $1500, but it's SCSI only. Some of the bigger Exabyte LTO and Quantum LTO autoloader drives have ethernet interfaces though and you don't have to use SCSI. There's a thought... The Exabyte Magnum 224 holds 12 tapes at a time for 4.6TB of storage (uncompressed) and has ethernet. It's not all that portable as it's a 2U rackmount unit. But at less than $4500, I'm seriously thinking this might be worth looking into... I don't need to be portable with mine and I could put it in my rack along with a lot of my other junk and render nodes. I can fill 1 4.6TB set and then swap to a new set of empty tapes.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

...My bad.

The ethernet ports I mentioned on those tape systems are just for remote management, the interfaces for data are still SCSI. The Exabyte Magnum systems also come with Fiber Channel interfaces as an option. That would be cool, but it's like a $1500 upgrade. Ouch.

[Rob Lohman]

it seems Quantum offers DLT4 units (160GB tapes) with SATA or USB2 interfaces. Those are available as internal units only

Internal unit with USB2?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Internal unit with USB2?

Yep. Actually, Quantum's USB2 internal drives are still their SATA units. However they ship with Quantum's proprietary SATA to USB2 adapter (which only seems to work with their specific products). For a list of DLT4 drive configs you can view them here --> Quantum DLT4 (http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DLT/DLTV4/Index.aspx)

[Storyline]

We use Quantum's LTO3 Superloader 3 for backups of everything here. I see on Quantum's site that they have a half-height LTO3 external tape drive, which with its 400GB uncompressed capacity could also be a good match. So far, we've had good luck with the LTO3 tape cartridges - they seem more robust than AIT - we had AIT-2 years ago with mixed success at the time.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Looking at these a bit more, I'm confused as to why anyone would buy the desktop versions. ...Unless they absolutely needed the portability. Cost-wise, there are 7-slot LTO3 autoloaders for just a couple hundred more. Price wise, I'm really starting to like Quantum's 16-slot LTO3 unit. I'm starting to think maybe something like that would work best for me or the Exabyte Magnum 224. The FC models can sit in the rack next to the XServe RAID and another system on the network can perform backup duties. I already have an XServe G5 running XSAN, adding a tape library to the mix should be no big deal... I can connect the tape library via SCSI to the Xserve -- just have to buy a SCSI controller for it. Or I can just to the FC tape library since I already have FC in place, I suppose it depends how much that SCSI controlelr is... Probably cheaper than the difference between the SCSI and FC tape libraries, I'm sure. Bet I can pick one up for cheap on ebay.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on such things -- probably won't change my habits or buy anything new until I pay for my RED One. If holographic storage becomes a reality within the next year, then these tape libraries could become obsolete real quick.

[Ken Corben]

OK,

Thanks for user input on AIT fickleness.

Let's summarize options for this thread to be applied with this year's technology for backing up data on the road using a hypothetical HD one-hour broadcast client. Figure 2 red cameras and let's say 15 hours each in 4k (stock footage may be used in a feature film) one now has 3000 GB on 10 (?) red drives.

Old school, I'd have 30-40 HDCAM tapes to hand carry - hell I've hand carried 20 rolls of 35mm before. Pissed off the South African airport security dudes when I set up my changing bag for the inspection.

Options

1) 10 (?) additional red drives ($$$$?)
2) "Tabletop" AIT, LTO, DLTS4 w/surge protector/scsi cords/tapes etc ($4k)
3) Red Digital storage solution not yet released? specs subject to change.
4) A few dozen portable firewire HDD ($$$)

IMHO, it would be prudent to back up the digital footage and send the clones FEDEX and hand carry the masters. Corrupted digital data in post is very painful.

So I guess it's wait until NAB to decide the economical choice for field back up of digital data, yes?

This link is spot on for LTO vs gen 4 DLT.

http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_122/DLT-S4/DLT-S4.htm


PS - The Quantum model DLT does come in a "tabletop" model @ 13 lbs and stores approx 8 hrs of WORM 4K RAW. A reasonable archival method, no? DLTS4 may also provide a smart way to deliver a finished film to the film-out lab?

PSS- Today's HD broadcast production budgets can not afford to retain a Digital Media Technician in remote locations. I think my soundman just got a new paragraph added to his job description.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For situations where you just have to be portable, I would consider buying/renting a bunch of RED DRIVES and then having a tape backup system as well.

If the tape unit must be mobile, then it's probably going to be a desktop LTO3-HH drive. Quantum has one for about $3300 street price (your $4K figure is about right by the time you address all the details). But then we get into all the issues of connecing UW160 SCSI to a notebook computer. Or you could go with a system similar to the Dell 20" XPS portable - I believe it has a PCI-E expansion slot that could hold a SCSI adapter. If the tape drive can be located a bit off location (hotel, van, boat, etc..) where the dump to tape could be done in the evenings, you could connect up the RED DRIVES used that day and have them back up overnight to one of the LTO3 autoloader units. Surprisingly, the autoloaders aren't much more than the single stand-alone unit. LTO3 drives should be able to back up a RED DRIVE in less than 2 hours. Depending on make/model, they advertise 240~290GB/hour. The autoloader units are not by any means truly portable though.. And if you promote your sound guy to backup-tech as an additional job function, that should be pretty simple. Someone hands him a RED DRIVE, he plugs it into the notebook, inserts a blank LTO3 tape and starts the copy. It should be done within 90 minutes or so, completely rewound. So in plenty of time to intercept the next RED DRIVE and do the same.

Portable/external HDDs might be an option too, but I would definitely double up on all your back-ups with those.

[Brainstorm]

Hi Applied Visual.

Oh... I do love some of the toys you're adding to the list of suggestions! If only I had unlimited $ and a reservation for a RED One!!!

:-)

[Arnaud Paris]

Will we be able to transfer footage at the end of the day directly from the Red Drive to an AIT-5 Drive? And I'm talking doing it as easy as plugging your AB battery packs into the charger for the night.

I know everybody talks about using their laptops to do transfers but am I the only one to feel that this is going the weakest point of the data backup workflow?

I mean my coming productions are going to be remote documentary shooting and I know for a fact that there won't be any budget to hire one person specifically to handle data backup.

So it's going to be up to the AC to handle the data storage along with the batteries and so on at the end of the day. So we need to find a safe, quick and easy solution for the AC to do this.

And to me a consumer laptop is not safe, easy and reliable!! Plus it's the first thing that is going to be stolen among all the equipment (believe me, between an AIT-5 and a Vaio; even if it's cheaper the thief goes for the Vaio :)

The Sony AIT-5 Drive is a good starting point cause it's already there, it's cheap (compared to other dedicated drives mentioned in this thread), and it's reliable.
BUT this solution only works if you can transfer directly from the RedDrive to the drive...

Just imagine an AC exhausted at the end of the day (and I've been there) his brain can only do one simple procedure with no more than 5 steps.
-plug batteries to charger
-plug RedDrive to AIT-5
-push button (only one!!!)
-eat (if hotel restaurant still open)
-sleep
OPTION: brush teeth

Any comments on that Red Team?

Thanks

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Oh... I do love some of the toys you're adding to the list of suggestions! If only I had unlimited $ and a reservation for a RED One!!!

Haha... I know what you mean! I've got my reservation and I'm still trying to figure out everything else. It's great that the camera itself is so cheap compared to Genesis or D20, but that's only one piece of the puzzle. I think a lot of people are in for a shock when they start trying to figure out how to archive what they shoot with RED. Even if you throw away 70% of what you shoot, that still amounts 96GB of data you keep for every 2 hours of 4K 24p you shoot. Ouch.

I'm kinda surprised that more people haven't added their input on this subject. Mobile or not, I find it strange that not many people have an opinion on backup and archival of their data. The capacities are large and much of it will require long shelf-life too. Hard drives aren't going to cut it here and holographic storage isn't ready for prime time yet. :)

[Finner]

I think most everyone is in the know that this will be huge amounts of data even at some points more then we can handle. Personally though I will take a camera that gives me more image data then I can handle with options to down rez to less then a camera that gives me less right off the bat and has me begging for more and having to upgrade every 3 years.

[Brainstorm]

Hi Arno....

You get it! 5 steps.... no more. Ah. that would be great wouldn't it?

By the way. Is the hotel restaurant still open or do we have to go to Burger King again cause the shoot,drive, unpacking and backing up keep us going late again?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Back on the subject of external, single-slot / desktop tape drives. mwave.com has some decent prices. Or at least a bit cheaper than what I've seen most other places. The Sony AIT-5 desktop unit is $2900 and the HP LTO-3 FH desktop unit is $3K.

These are bare drives - no cables or backup software, but this may fit the bill for someone. Anyway, I'm not affiliated with mwave, just doing my due dilligence. I've bought from them in the past and have been pleased. I also really like newegg.com - great place to buy shtuff. I haven't checked to see what tape systems they have, but I bet it's worth a look. Anyway, I'm still going to wait until my RED is ready to ship before I make the final decision. I'm afraid if I buy now, I might miss the boat for for something better. :)

[Arnaud Paris]

Well often the room service is the last option for food (especially when shooting in the middle of Jordan), but by the time they knock on the door the AC has usually fallen into the 2nd stage of emergency repair sleeping.

I'm surprised Stuart hasn't commented yet on my last post. Indeed I imagine that setting a communication routine with the AIT-5 would need to be implemented in the RedDrive if we want to avoid the use of a laptop.

But with all the attention in this forum thown onto the spike thread I guess we'll have to wait a bit for Red team comments.

Hello Red Team... Houston, we've got a problem....
(Waving desperately in the dark)

[Stuart English]

Arno, I'd take a laptop.

A RED-DRIVE and data tape drive can't talk to each other - as they are both peripherals they need a computer to communicate to them... With regard to a laptop, if its gets stolen, that is unfortunate, but at least its guarenteed that you'll be able to purchase a replacement.

[JohnF]

I'll throw my thoughts in at this point!

1. There are ruggedized laptops (designed for military field ops) that are shock-proof and splash proof plus they have a PCI(express?) type socket onboard for slotting a card in. If I go down the RED route for "far-in-the-field" type shoots I will be getting one of those. (around the $2000 mark)

2. For higher budget shoots I was considering shooting 4k to RED magazines whilst feeding HD-SDI out to HDCAM SR as a lower but acceptable rez back up format. This will have the added benefit of reassuring producers worried about tapeless work flow. Though the data BU tape formats are also a possibility (re costs)

3. I've ordered many hard drives mail order over the years and none of them have arrived damaged due to decent packaging. So I would consider sending data back up hard drives via FEDEX but only with decent packaging.

4. The other and most simple choice is, untill a workable solution comes along, keep your shooting ratio low and treat RED footage like you would a 35/S16mm and have enough RED magazines.

I think it's important to remember that for the best part of 100 years the world has been shooting on a format that could not be backed up. So try and learn how the hell they managed it with so much sucess.

JohnF

[JohnF]

As an added note I've just read up on the Sony AIT-5 and noticed that it can fit
in a 3.5" drive slot. The ruggedized laptops I mentioned above have a just such a slot space for additional drives. (they are larger than normal laptops)

I think I smell a solution coming on!!!

JohnF

[Arnaud Paris]

Good lead John, what brand are these laptops?
A.

[JohnF]

At the moment I'm away from my computer with the company links on it and right now I can't remember the name, sorry!

But it is a US firm that makes them. I think they can take upto 15G whilst operating! Plus they've been vehicle crash tested (upto 40mph and still work).

The laptops themselves are briefcase size.

JohnF

[JohnF]

Slight correction I think it's a US company that makes them.

I'll let you know when I check up.

JohnF

[Arnaud Paris]

John, I think I found what laptop you refer to, the Warrior 2K
http://www.bsicomputer.com/notebook/warrior2k/warrior2k_details.htm

There is also the Itronix XR-1 that seems to have better performances and resistance but it's $4k+ (yeah I know for a 4k Camera this seems appropriate but not for my wallet:)
http://www.gd-computing.com/index.cfm?page=Products:XR-1&locale=en_US

[JohnF]

Interesting finds there Arno there seems to be more choice than when I last looked.

But those weren't the laptops I was talking about. The one I have in mind actually looked like it could take a pounding! (more like a Pelican case with a computer in!!!)

JohnF

[Arnaud Paris]

John the dimensions of the AIT-5 are 4.0 x 1.62 x 6.10 inches, I doubt it would fit in the laptop 3.5 bay.
A.

[JohnF]

Read this: (http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/hardware/2171303/review-sony-ait-sdx-1100)

It mentions that the AIT-5 can "fit the drive into either a 5.25in or 3.5in half-height slot."

The laptop I'm thinking of has an large expansion bay on the underside with enough room for a full sized PCI-e card and two extra drives.

Now we've been talking about it and now that I've heard of the AIT-5 the more I think about it I'm quite excited that a practical solution to in-the-field back up is actually possible.

JohnF

[Arnaud Paris]

I also truly hope that we find a workable solution for the documentary field otherwise the Red will remain within the non-remote filming realm which honestly would be too bad... Come on let's get those lions in 4k!!!!

[Jeff Kilgroe]

John, I think I found what laptop you refer to, the Warrior 2K
http://www.bsicomputer.com/notebook/warrior2k/warrior2k_details.htm

OK, where do you ad the U160 SCSI adapter? It only has a PCMCIA slot. Seems a little extra chunky and hacked together. Nowhere near as polished of a product as the Panasonic Toughbook -- Is Panny still making those? Expensive, but they could take a beating.


There is also the Itronix XR-1 that seems to have better performances and resistance but it's $4k+ (yeah I know for a 4k Camera this seems appropriate but not for my wallet:)
http://www.gd-computing.com/index.cfm?page=Products:XR-1&locale=en_US

Looks to be a much better, more developed product... It is very expensive, but if you can actually hose it off the way they show, that's cool. :) No PCI Express here either. Other than running backups or similar tasks, it's not going to be that good for any sort of video or graphics work. Only a 1.83GHz CPU and an X300 GPU.

[Arnaud Paris]

That's why I'm eager to see the laptop that John refered to cause it seems to have all the room and connections necessary to make the AIT work within the same rugged case, which would be great.

[Arnaud Paris]

Thinking about it, it's becoming pretty insane though.
I mean we're already in the +$4k range and over 8lbs just to have an interface between the AIT-5 and the RedDrive.
And if we have a laptop then we're back to "why not take LaCie 750Gb harddrives (soon 1T) and offload to them rather than to the AIT tapes..."
I'm really feeling that there is a simple gap to fill (of couse I'm not an engineer to say that) for the workflow to become nice safe and easy.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I hope some of the rental oriented folks on the boards are reading this thread carefully. For starters I would have plenty of RedDrives and rugged shipping containers for them. Secondarily I would build up and unitize a back up solution (AIT-5 and LTO most likely) ready for flypack.

IMHO: just use a small/medium sized Pelican case with 20 RedDrives (60 hours of 4k@24fps) out on location - the mags are pretty small and lightweight so this won't be a monster to handle. I can still remember lugging 35mm Arri mags in Anvil cases around set as a 2nd AC and they were NOT light.

Yes, that's right, I am suggesting that instead of backing up in the field that you just bring enough mags. Its not that different than boxes of tape. If you just cannot imagine letting the shot mags travel out of your direct control then put them in your carry on bag and be patient at the security checks. Seems like a worthy trade-off to avoid the extra baggage charges, expense of AIT-5 desktop drives, late nights of dubbing, ...

[Arnaud Paris]

I totally see your point Blair and yes, if in the end we spend more money for a backup system than just having as many RedDrives as necessary for our complete filming then your solution fully makes sense.

But if we end up going that route then I think something is wrong because I honestly think it does not have to be that way. Because it's sort of a bummer to pay for the entire RedDrive while all we really need to change are the drives and not the entire RedDrive unit. I mean in the $1000 price tag of the Red Drive I imagine that the drives themselves represent about a quarter of the cost of the system.

We've seen the discussion about the focus assist. From what I've understood the Red Team is hardly working to provide a solution so that the Red is taken seriously in the high end film and video sets without having to bring some extra costly setup/boxes/converters for the video village.

For our problem the easiest solution would be to have a hard drive swappable RedDrive unit so that we can just change the HD at the end of the day in the RedDrive.

I don't see it as being a terribly huge technological challenge, but again I'm not in there with the engineers, and of course I understand that the integrity of the RedDrive has to be preserved to the highest point.

But I doubt that Hitashi, Maxtor or WD are going to make some custom drives for the RedDrives, so it is going to be consumer grade HDs that end up in the Red.

Should we be able to swap them? That is the question, but to me this would be the easiest solution for data backup.

The second easiest solution would be to have some kind of AIT-5 that can communicate directly with the RedDrive and to do automated backup during the night. As Stuart already said, this is not going to be possible. I guess I understand more the technical reason for this than for the non-swappable HDs in the RedDrives.

But if you think about all this, none of those two solutions are feasible without the help of the Red team at the current stage of designing the RedOne:
We know that if this is not taken into account right now then it just won't happen (or maybe in Red Two...), let's be clear on this.

Now some people might say that it is in the interest of the Red Team to sell many RedDrives, personnally I don't think that's their mindset and they have proven their commitment to helping the community it since the begining.

But let's not forget that they are a business and at some point they have to start thinking about making money.

And I think that behind our issue might lie this very sensitive point. Where is the Red team going to draw the line between adding feature that make our life easier and that save us money, and thinking about preserving their profit? I sincerely don't know. They have done so much already maybe we should feel just like lucky bastards and not ask for more.

But you know filmmakers, they can't just ever stop asking for more...

[Chris Kenny]

Yes, that's right, I am suggesting that instead of backing up in the field that you just bring enough mags. Its not that different than boxes of tape. If you just cannot imagine letting the shot mags travel out of your direct control then put them in your carry on bag and be patient at the security checks. Seems like a worthy trade-off to avoid the extra baggage charges, expense of AIT-5 desktop drives, late nights of dubbing, ...

Well, it's going to be pretty expensive. If a 320 GB REDDRIVE costs $1K, that's over $300/hour for 4K REDCODE RAW. If you use Toshiba's 1 TB $400 hard drives, it's $40/hour.

And I, for one, am too paranoid not to have at least two copies of everything, physically separated from each other. (Mail one set of drives back to the office, or at least pack the two sets in different people's luggage.)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

When considering a remote situation where media is being shipped back home, I definitely wouldn't trust a single hard drive as my only copy.

This thread has been good though... I think it shows that there's really no ultimate solution for this sort of thing. Tape is more robust and can be cheaper than hard drive in the long run. If you price out 1TB hard drives vs. LTO-3 tape using a 1x7 autoloader or desktop single-slot unit (about the same price ~$350 different, maybe). It seems the two solutions are even in price at about the 20TB mark. After that point, the LTO3 tape is the clear price winner.... Tape is slow, but compared to a RED DRIVE or most mobile solutions and external hard drives, it's not. AIT5 is about 60% as fast as a decent 3.5" 7200rpm HDD these days. LTO3 is roughly 2.5X faster and about the same price to set up and use ($50 tapes, $4K drive & controller/cables). I also like that LTO3 tapes can be re-used if necessary where AIT5 are WORM media. At an uncompressed transfer speed of ~68MB/s, LTO3 should be able to record the contents of a RED DRIVE faster than the little drive magazine can dish it out.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Once you get the RedDrive back to base (likely your edit bay) you can run as many back ups as you like and return the rented RedDrives. The marketplace has not determined the cost of RedDrive rentals but at $60/week the rental house should do OK.

Yes there is some risk to not having a redundant back up in another location but I have done plenty of remote gigs to tape where we never made copies of the master tapes in the field. Don't get me wrong, back ups are a great idea but this thread started on the premise that a fast moving doco crew had limited options for using the RedOne specifically because of the extra "weight" mandated by an data centric technology vs tape.

I highly doubt that the rationale behind the topology of the on board recording options hinges on the profitability factor for Red. Do I think they don't care about being a successful business? IMHO that is not the issue at hand.

I think they are focused on shipping a complete digital acquisition system with a real world workflow that is a successful product. If they can achieve that, anywhere close to the specs we've been hearing about, the profit will come quickly enough as the RedOnes sell as fast as they can make them.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Perhaps I am more offended that I should be at the notion that the Red Team is making choices based on revenue streams. I guess I still remember paying $2K for my Firestore FS-100 that only holds 100GB and never has to write faster than 15MB/sec vs the RedDrive that holds 320GB, has to be able to write at over 30MB/sec and costs half as much - hard to feel like I'm getting ripped off.

[Damien Molineaux]

...

This link is spot on for LTO vs gen 4 DLT.

http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_122/DLT-S4/DLT-S4.htm

PS - The Quantum model DLT does come in a "tabletop" model @ 13 lbs and stores approx 8 hrs of WORM 4K RAW. A reasonable archival method, no? DLTS4 may also provide a smart way to deliver a finished film to the film-out lab?
...

Thank you sharkguy for this interesting link. I was going fot LTO-3 until I read this. Faster transfer rates, double capacity : 800 GB uncompressed, vs 400 MB for LTO-3, at approximately the same price point.

About backing up on the road, I've also been looking for a SCSI express (34 or 54) card, but had no luck. I think on the road I'll be backing up to HDs, using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once, then either I ship one drive and keep the other, or have another member of the team keep one copy.

As a side note, yes this may not be cheap, and somewhat of a hassle, however, remember this is an alternative to film, light sensitive negative to be precise, so in fact it's a lot less of a hassle and a lot cheaper. For those who think it really is too complicated or expensive, maybe they should be looking at other camera systems, as in HD, there are good options, record to tape, but hey... it's video.

Personally, I'll be shooting 2K, at least in the begining, while travelling, gives you over three times the amount of footage for the same HD space.

Cheers,
Damien

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm not sure what those guys are comparing with their speed tests, which seem to be missing something... They're also comparing vs. IBM's LTO3 drive, which appears to be a slow performer anyway and is rated slower than Quantum's DLTS4 drives. So what's the point...? Quantum rates their LTO3-FH drive at 68MB/s, their LTO3-HH drive at 54MB/s and their DLTS4 FH drive at 60MB/s.

I think one reason I'm also still leaning toward LTO3 is it's become a more universal standard. Whereas DLT and VXA have essentially become proprietary technologies of their respective owners - Quantum and Exabyte.

FWIW, Dell has some pretty good LTO drive prices - $2700 for a desktop LTO3 unit (it's a Quantum drive in a Dell enclosure). Lots of LTO-3 units for sale on eBay, There's a Magnum 224 12-slot LTO3 autoloader on there for less than $3K. I'm so tempted, but I don't need it right now and want to wait a bit longer.

DLTS4 might be a good option - price of the drive is roughly the same as n LTO3 unit, maybe just a bit more. Tapes are a bit more than double, but you also need to carry half as many tapes. DLT tape media has typically been viewed as less reliable than LTO, but I'm sure it's still far more rugged than hard drives.

As for an ExpressCard SCSI adapter, I can't seem to find one either. Adaptec appears to be the only company still making a PCMCIA Cardbus SCSI adapter. However, it's only Ultra SCSI II - 32bit 50pin with a max transfer rate of 20MB/sec. Google the Adaptec 1480.

I've been looking around and researching and apparently there are no ExpressCard solutions. I've emailed Adaptec inquiring about ExpressCard SCSI adapters and if they will be offering such a product. No response yet, but I only emailed yesterday afternoon.

[Ken Corben]

"...using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once.."

Earthling very good idea, do you have a link explaining how to do this via laptop etc?

Sharky

[Damien Molineaux]

"...using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once.."

Earthling very good idea, do you have a link explaining how to do this via laptop etc?

Sharky

No link, but it's very simple.

Plug in an express card with double SATA connectors, like this :
http://www.pearl.fr/article-TG1097.html

Then connect a double SATA drive enclosure, like this :
http://www.pc-look.com/boutik/Prod_Stardom-Boitier-Ext.-3.5''-USB-SATA-2-DD-SATA-SOHOTANK-SR-3610-2S-SB2__6284_fr.html

You can configure the drives in RAID mirror with Disk Utility and the double drive will appear as a single drive, and single sized, to your computer. Just make sure you use identical sized drives and preferably same model.

Cheers,
Damien

PS I just did a quick search for the above links, those were the first pages I found with these type of product. I don't use these drive cases, but I know people who do and I've been thinking of getting some.

[Ken Corben]

COOL! Thanks for the idea/links.

Do you know the transfer rates thru a mac book pro - 320GB red driv to sata drives? 1:1 OR ?

[Chris Kenny]

Yes there is some risk to not having a redundant back up in another location but I have done plenty of remote gigs to tape where we never made copies of the master tapes in the field. Don't get me wrong, back ups are a great idea but this thread started on the premise that a fast moving doco crew had limited options for using the RedOne specifically because of the extra "weight" mandated by an data centric technology vs tape.


Well, the difference is if you drop a tape down the stairs, it's probably fine. If you drop a REDDRIVE or other hard drive down the stairs, on the other hand....

If you're backing up to LTO3, you can probably get away with just a single copy while you're in the field. The idea is a little scary, but not insane. If you're storing your stuff on any sort of hard drives, though, make two copies.

[Ken Corben]

For the very paranoid producers not comfortable with tapeless field acquisition I wonder what it would take to utilize the Sony HDW-S280 to make 1080/60-50i tape back ups in the field from the red drive media in 4K/2K?

I would presume the deck could be gotten for $1500 a week?

A pain in the butt, however, might be a good intermediary step for producers?

[Mike Devlin]

That is an HDCAM deck outputting 1080P 4:2:2, recording 1440x1080 3:1:1. So it is not anything like 4k or even 2k. At least use the Sony SRW1 if going for 1080P, it is full resolution 4:4:4 at 440mbps or 880mbps.

[Stuart English]

And the crazy thing is that $80K approx Sony SRW-1 tape recorder operating at 440MBps has only a little over 2 x over the 24MB/s data recording rate of a Sony AIT-5 data tape drive, the latter capable of cloning the 4K resolution 12 bit REDCODE RAW output recorded to a RED-DRIVE, the former limited to 1080p.

[Mike Devlin]

Compelling comparison Stuart, although some would argue the SRW1 is "milder" compression. Actually the SRW1 is not limited to 4:2:2, it records 1080P 4:4:4 10bit at either 440mbps (about 50min at 24P) or 880mbps (25 min) along with 12 channel audio (48khz 24bit). I will say that the SRW1 has proven to be incredibly rugged in the field (it's 12volt) in our usage (or abusage). Hopefully AIT-5 or other data tapes will prove to be equally robust. If not I am sure someone will come up with a robust field data solution in the near term.

[Brainstorm]

Here's some info a new product coming out at NAB which is VERY interesting! ..... A portable "onboard' HD-SDI recorder "capable of ingesting completely uncompressed 720p, 1080p, 2k, and 4k", to removable media!

http://www.colorspaceinc.com


In a post on dvinfo.net, Adam Burtle from Colorspace says:

"With respect to "mobile" and "portable" .. I believe these words are over-used nowadays. I like the word "on-board" as it implies what the product really is meant to do-- be used ON BOARD the camera.. whether it be on your shoulder, on a steadicam sled, etc. Portable *SHOULD NOT* mean "can be carried by a weightlifter" ..at least in my opinion. Portable means "i can hold this in one hand."


The whole idea of the indie-version of the ICON recorderis "To have it *sitting on-board an XLH1* and recording CineForm or equivalent footage. And doing so to hot swappable media packs, battery-powered, touchscreen, etc. The one downside of the XL series cameras in my opinion is that they are very front-heavy, and the ICON mounted on the back of an XLH1 will actually help to improve the ergonomics of this camera. We'll be showing more at NAB, but I think many people will be pretty amazed with the quality you can get out of an XL-H1 recorded direct to disk (out the HD-SDI)."


P.S. Colorspace are also releasing two cameras:

TRUE35 - The TRUE35 is a 35mm digital cinema camera. Constructed around an Academy[tm]-sized (24mmx18mm) bayer pattern imager, the camera outputs raw 2K (2048x1556) footage. The architecture of the camera is flexible and modular, allowing for a variety of configurations to suit the needs of each user.

TRUE16 - The TRUE16 is a 16mm digital cinema camera. Constructed around a Super16-sized bayer pattern imager, the camera outputs raw 1K (1280x960) footage. The architecture of the camera is flexible and modular, allowing for a variety of configurations to suit the needs of each user.)

--------------

ABSTRACT:
At Colorspace, we believe in the shift to digital technologies, but we also believe that the original camera negative is an important model to follow. With lossless acquisition, you will always have an original "digital negative" to return to, and unlike a film negative, it is not susceptible to scratches, dust, or dirt. This is one main quality advantage digital acquisition can leverage over film; an advantage that is lost by forsaking uncompressed acquisition for many of the extremely lossy codecs in use today.

While uncompressed recording does currently exist, the majority of products require filmmakers to be tethered to large, heavy recording units. Additionally, such recording solutions are generally relegated to the most affluent users and outside the range of independent filmmakers.

Our answer is the Colorspace ICON Recorder; rugged, modular, portable, intuitive.

SPECIFICATIONS:
The ICON is a portable digital cinema recorder, capable of ingesting completely uncompressed 720p, 1080p, 2k, and 4k*. The ICON Recorder comes in a small and lightweight form factor allowing for on board recording including steadicam, as well as shoulder and roving shots.

The recorder body is the main element in the ICON's modular design, and contains all the hardware I/O, with video acquisition based around single link (4:2:2) and dual link (4:4:4) HD-SDI. Audio can be embedded over HD-SDI, as well as acquired through XLR inputs.

The ICON accepts removable media packs, which can be either hard-disk or solid state based. Solid state media provides the ultimate in ruggedness, while hard-disk media provides an attractive balance between cost and recording space. With a 30 second rolling cache integrated into the recorder body, users can hot-swap media packs during recording, as well as take advantage of "pre-roll" functionality. Media packs will be available in durations from 10 minutes upwards of 60+ minutes.

A removable 7" touchscreen control module allows users to set recording options such as image and audio file formats, bit depth, compression levels, as well as enter meta-data, control file-naming and organizational syntax, and perform file playback. The file playback feature makes the ICON a versatile "all-in-one" unit, capable of not only extended onboard recording, but instant playback of these digital negatives. Users can display dailies on the included 7" touchscreen, as well as output through 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 HD-SDI.

Footage ingest can be accomplished by downloading the footage directly from the recorder with docked media pack, or by docking individual media packs into the separate ingest dock. The docking station will contain a variety of standard outputs allowing for ingest to any type of workstation through standardized technologies. Colorspace is also working with existing post-production software vendors to ensure both ease of ingest and file compatibility for editing and meta-data. File compatibility is central to our design, and no small part of the reason we chose DPX as the first format we would support.

*Bayered or striped 4k only. Please inquire for specifics.

AVAILABITY:
Colorspace will be attending the NAB 2007 exposition in Las Vegas, Nevada, where we will be exhibiting pre-production examples of the ICON recorder, demonstrating workflow specifics, as well as talking about several before unmentioned features and products currently in development.

The ICON recorder will ship late Q2 or early Q3 2007. Colorspace is currently taking private orders from interested parties, and public reservations will begin as of April 15, 2007.

In the months following retail debut of the uncompressed ICON recorder, Colorspace will be releasing a compressed ICON solution that utilizes high bitrate compression, targeted for use with prosumer HD cameras and aimed at the sub $10K market. This move serves to further blur the line between high end digital cinema and "indie" cinema, as independent users will now find themselves available to acquire footage at quality levels used on many big budget digital productions.

PRICING:
The uncompressed ICON recorder system is aimed at the digital cinema market, and a complete package will come in around $30,000.

The compressed ICON recorder system (target ship date: Q3 2007) is aimed at the indie/prosumer market, and a complete package will come in around $10,000.

Many factors continue to affect pricing, and the figures above represent our target pricing models. Specific pricing will be announced at NAB.

[mezmo]

Hi Guys'
Interesting thread with lots of suggestions.
I may have missed the latest release info but is it clear
as to exactly what Daul Stream HD SDI comes out the
back end of Red and would it allow the use of somthing like the
Colorspace Icon?
____________________________Mezmo

[PaulClements]

It'd cost about £1600/$3200 to make a 320GB RAID from 80 4GB SD cards... guess that's out of the question then :)

[Chris Forbes]

Colorspace is how much? $30,000.00 I believe. Is that really an option?

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Brainstorm,

After all these great suggestions I'm starting to realize the biggest problem is time rather than storage options.

For someone shooting a documentary in remote locations you're going to have to devote a lot of time at the end of your day to making and checking backups, which you just don't want to do.

Already with the HVX we've found that backing up adds a good hour at day's end. It's a lot less than capture time would be, but you have to do it right then and there making it a production issue, rather than a post production issue.

It seems to me that a new crew position needs to be created, somebody specifically responsible for carefully backing everything up. I'd want two copies of everything, (especially if it's going to blu ray) so that person is going to have to work late.

This could work for a regular shoot, but it doesn't help the small doc crew who have to squeeze in a minivan and don't have the manpower to make somebody do what essentially is a night shift.

I think if you're shooting 4K you wouldn't have any choice but to hire an extra person to take care of this.

It's a quandry for sure.

this will be the loaders job to back up...

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Im still trying to figure out my own workflow.. 2k or 4k.. compressed of course.. what is the main difference in storage between the two. I got that 100 gigs = 1 hour on 4k right.. so what is 2k exactly?
Im in the market for my lenses and i just want to know if i should purchase super 16 lenses or 35mm lenses and this depends on if i plan to shoot 2k or 4k.. what seems the best?

ill be mostly shooting low budget indis and music videos..

[PaulClements]

Personally I would be more than happy using something like the MyBook 1TB external HDD (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=270). As long as you are sensible backing up to them and shipping you aren't going to have too many problems.

5 of them would hold about 50 hours of 4k footage so 10 would give you a backup of each. You can fit 10 of them into the Pelican 1600 case (http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=1600) and so they'd be secure and safe from a large ammount the weather might throw at them or if you decide to go dropping and throwing the case about loads, heck you can even drive over it.

Backup using a laptop with an incar mains adapter whilst inside your van/truck. I remember someone saying there would be a means to check that the backup matches that on the RedDrive, I believe using RedCine. Label and stick the HDD back in the pelican case afterwards and leave in the van/truck or wherever you intend to store your equipment.

Current price for this setup, including case, hdd's, capable laptop and even in car adapter is appoximately $5300 if you shop around. And the prices of such devices will more than likely come down over the next few months anyway.

You could be a thousand miles away from the nearest building but as long as you have enough gas for the truck/van and enough space to put the case in it wouldn't matter. I reckon there'd even be room in the case for the laptop too.

[Chris Forbes]

At the theoretical maximum transfer rate of firewire how long will it take to fill a 1 TB drive? If you are just transferring 1 TB from one drive to another.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

1TB drives are actually 1.00+e12 bytes in size due to the way drive manufacturers represent megabytes/gigabytes/etc... rounding them off to even 1000 increments rather than 2^30 for 1GB as the binary memory space of a computer sees it.

Anyway, the currently now just shipping 1TB drives are 1000000000000 bytes in size, which equates to about 931GB. This is essentially 7,629,394 megaBITS. The max transfer rate of firewire is either 400Mb/s or 800Mb/s, depending on FW400 or FW800 being used (that's 50MB/s and 100MB/s respectively). 1TB 7200rpm drives can sustain about 30MB/s in most situations using streaming, sequential data like video.

Assuming you're talking about using a single 1TB drive to another via firewire, you're looking at a max potential transfer rate of 7,629,394 / 400 = 19,073 seconds or roughly 5 hours and 20 minutes. Realistically, you're not going to get that. In fact, with FW400 on a single drive, you're going to top out at the max rate of the drive itself -- in this case roughly 30MB/s across the entire drive surface - outter edge platter rates could approach 45MB/s. But if you figure a rate of 30MB(240Mbits)/s that's 7,629,394 / 240 = 31,789 seconds or about 8 hours, 50 minutes.

You would be much better served to use multiple 500GB drives in a striped array (RAID 0) over eSATA or FW800 to boost performance. An array of 4 fast hard drives can easily saturate a FW800 interface and let you dump an entire TB of data in about 2 hours, 40 minutes. eSATA would be significantly faster than that if you built a RAID that can provide the necessary data rates.

[PaulClements]

You will likely only ever be transferring 320GB's over to the external Harddrive/RAID (The size of the RedDrive). the 1TB MyBooks or other will allow you to write 3 red drives to it. 500GB's will require you to split the data, but with a RAID this wouldn't matter too much. Writing 320GB will take about 2hr 50min in accordance with Jeff's lower estimate. RedFlash would be just over an hour, although I don't know if it would write faster or slower... maybe Jeff can tell you, he seems to know more than I do.

I like the idea of using seperate HDD's rather than one large array, it means the data is stored in two completely seperate entities (When using two and making a backup), whereas I don't know enough about RAID striped arrays. The other thing with the seperate drives is if you have been using two RedDrives, at the end of the day, if you have two laptops you can be writing both to the HDD's rather than with the single larger RAID having to write one after the other, unless you can write two at a time... Jeff? :)

[Darren Orange]

Well....I can build a custom back up unit....If people want to give me some feedback on what they want to do...Here's what im thinking so far....

1.To be logical you want two back ups....1TB each drive means 40 hours equals 8TB.

2. You can protect it by, keeping one drive with you shipping the other, or shipping both in different boxes to different locations....(chance of something occuring to both drives is virtually impossiable).

The unit that i can build again would back up to two drives at one time with hopfully almost a push of a button. The unit could be powered by battery and back up to two full size 3.5 inch sata drives of like kind and size. The unit would accept the two back up drives as well as the REDDrive. Then at a push of the button(hopfully could be slightly more complex) it would dump to the sata drives and at another push you can delete all the data on the REDDrive. I would have to do some more research but i believe i can keep the list of one of thease units under 1.5K maybe under 1K, depending.

Thoughts?

Thanks

[PaulClements]

Under $1000 for 8TB? That's 1TB 3.5 SATA HDD's for $125 each... Where the heck you getting your hardware from!

I looked into it a while ago and there are various issues to consider in the whole scheme of things. By the time you've made up the casing (Rack mounted units or whatever system you opt for) the time, cost and energy spent in producing it you would be looking at alot more than $1000. A usable, secure, portable RAID array of such a size ought to be worth about $4000-5000 in my personal opinion. If it's done right and done to a high spec, people will pay for the quality.

[Darren Orange]

My Desgin would allow you to insert and remove 3.5" Hard disks in native form like floppy discs. If you guys want somthing that can hold 8TB on the go an copy data...I can build it thats not a problem. Is that what you guys are looking for...because I can custom desgin any solution for any red user. With current technlogy i could allow for a device that can handle up to 8 Drives and allow you from there to chose what drives you want to use...expandable for the future when 1.5TB etc... come out....For portablity handling 4 Drives is the best answer if you want. Heres what i want to know...do you guys want this device to back two copies or do you just want one copy, that will greatly impact things.

Do you guys want this machine to create a two copies of all data....Why not be able to set it up however you want it lets do that....so how many Maxium drives do you guys want it to hold.....really 4 would be best but 8 is do able....I could produce two different versions.

Again im not including the drives im leaving that up to you so it is expandable.

I am going to price out some setups and how much they would list for....I should have somthing togather sometime tonight or later friday.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I think he's saying the unit would be under $1K and he's not including the drives.

If that's the case, it's more reasonable... And I'm not sure what he would provide that isn't already available on the market. Plenty of eSATA and FW800 external enclosures with 4 to 8 (some even more) drive bays already exist. Many use hot-swap drive trays that literally take a few seconds to snap hard drives in and out of the trays. It's easy to custom configure various RAID setups, even mirroring for multiple copies, etc...

[PaulClements]

Reactor88 the issues are less about taking something that can copy one or two copies of data and more about creating something that protects the harddrives from being moved around constantly, knocked dropped having water spilt on them, being in very cold or very hot temperatures etc, but still acting like an external enclosure currently available on the market. Some people will also want to have a harddrive that has a proven and tested track record for being stable even after taking the knocks rather than looking for their own. It's about protecting the data more than it is about ripping it from the RedDrive. Come up with a mass storage device that is practically indestructable and rarely has a drive fail and you'll be onto a winner.

[Carlo Rho]

Great Thread thanks all!
I was looking around because as RED teach me single drives are too slow for REDwork and I start reading about eSATA & RAID.

For example at Addonics they have this Mini Storage Tower (http://www.addonics.com/products/raid_system/mst4.asp) that allow to fit 4 "as you like" internal 3.5" SATA HDD connected individually or via "Port Multiplier". Every configuration is under 200$.
Really interesting for us could be their allumium rugged anti-shock case (http://www.addonics.com/products/jupiter/jmr.asp) to protect HDDs while they have important datas in, for 89$ looks good.

They are open to "Storage Tower Build to Order" may be they want to produce a rugged MiniTower for 400$??

Any way... my idea is have 4 HDDs in double RAID 0, to make 2 copies at the same time splitted in 2 HDD each. Using the data rate of SATA & Raid 0 I think it could be really faster than with FW800. Is it possible?

I was looking to eSATA EXPRESS CARD & MacBookPro, I've got an unanswered question:
Wikipedia tells me that there's a huge difference:
"The ExpressCard has a maximum throughput of 2.5 Gbit/s through PCI Express or 480 Mbit/s through USB 2.0 dedicated for each slot" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard#Comparison_to_CardBus)
The EXPRESS CARD slot on a new MacBook Pro is PCI-E or USB based?

Ciao Carlo

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The ExpressCard slot in the Macbook Pro systems sits on a 4-lane PCI-Express interface. So no worries there. Be sure you get an eSATA-II (eSATA 300MB/s) capable card and one that has onboard RAID functionality. The software RAID within OSX is OK for some things, but can slow you down when you start running RAID-1 mirrors of large volumes with large data. Get a controller that will handle this for you. This way, you can create one RAID-0 stripe volume out of the first two drives and one out of the second two drives. Then create a RAID-1 mirror set where both volumes contain the same data in cae one fails.

You may also want to consider a RAID-5 volume. If any drive fails, it can be replaced and the RAID volume will rebuild itself with no data loss. RAID-5 will give you more usable space than a RAID-1 mirror.

RAID volumes like this are the best solution for everyday workspace and short-term backups, etc.. I would not recommend hard drive based solutions for long-term archival. Hard drives are not designed to sit on shelves and they are not as economical as tape once capacities increase into the tens of terrabytes.

[P Andersson]

for these documentarians, how about a third party thing that sits on the back of the camera holding (or connected to) the red drive and two small removeable standard usb drives, when not shooting it is quietly doing a double backup and verifying it

[Jeff Kilgroe]

How 'bout a SATA port splitter that can operate two RED DRIVES simultaneously. When done, you have two copies right there. Although, the camera would probably need to be aware of the device. Or the device would have to be intelligent and buffered to handle running its own RAID-1 style mirror. Should be possible though.

[MikeCurtis]

I'll throw my thoughts in at this point!

2. For higher budget shoots I was considering shooting 4k to RED magazines whilst feeding HD-SDI out to HDCAM SR as a lower but acceptable rez back up format. This will have the added benefit of reassuring producers worried about tapeless work flow. Though the data BU tape formats are also a possibility (re costs)
JohnF

Eek, I'd argue against that because:

1.) 5000 & 5500 HDCAM SR decks are a $100,000 deck with the 4:4:4 board/s
2.) it weighs something like 60-90 pounds if I recall correctly
3.) and it STILL requires AC power
4.) SRW-1 is smaller but still pricey - about a $80K package with the SRPC module (required)

For that kind of size/money/weight, you could get a roadcased server with twin tape drives (IF there is software that can write 2 copies simultaneously and compare them both to source).

Again, depending on how much footage to be shot, 500-750GB on a 3.5" drive (padded and packed of course) is pretty good GB/$/cubic inch of storage

Get a hot-swap drive shell and an ExpressCard34 eSATA card and you're off. Tape backup would be nice, but as has been pointed out on here, problematic to connect to a laptop. All of the go-between bits could either not work or hinder throughput as well.

And there's always 2K RAW to do better than 4K@24p's 100GB/hr...

-mike

[Chris Kenny]

Eek, I'd argue against that because:

1.) 5000 & 5500 HDCAM SR decks are a $100,000 deck with the 4:4:4 board/s
2.) it weighs something like 60-90 pounds if I recall correctly
3.) and it STILL requires AC power


This really baffles me. What exactly could be going on inside that case? As far as I can tell, the whole device should basically be a few custom ASICs and a tape transport mechanism. I can't figure out why this would need to be much larger than a clock radio, or why it shouldn't be able to run for a couple of hours off a laptop-sized battery. Is there something I'm missing here?

REDCODE RAW 4K will almost certainly require much more processing than HDCAM SR, and Red is managing to fit that into an 8 pound battery-powered device, which also just happens to be a camera as well.

[Alex Fostvedt]

Shoot smart, shoot less? Just thought I'd throw that out. Are hard drives not the new tape stock? I just Fedex'd a Maxtor TB drive, it arrived in fine shape. It was the main backup drive on an international project.

[Chris Kenny]

Sure, and bare 500 GB hard drives storing REDCODE RAW 4K run about $30/hour, which is a fair bit cheaper than HDCAM tape stock.

[JohnF]

Eek, I'd argue against that because:

1.) 5000 & 5500 HDCAM SR decks are a $100,000 deck with the 4:4:4 board/s
2.) it weighs something like 60-90 pounds if I recall correctly
3.) and it STILL requires AC power
4.) SRW-1 is smaller but still pricey - about a $80K package with the SRPC module (required)

Mike, I completely agree with you but producers are a pretty conservative lot and frankly I think that a camera system like RED is, at first, going to scare the hell out of them in terms of format reliablity so I think you're likely to see RED adopted for shoots with someform of "traditional" tape back up whilst producers become comfortable with hard-disk-only shooting.

I don't know if you've read through the whole thread but I am more interested in running data back up to tape using a Sony AIT-5, which is small enough to fit inside some ruggedised laptops. This would also have the added benefit of being a simple method of storing footage over the long term...

The HD deck would be more about giving clients a feeling of security.

JohnF

[david farland]

Here’s what I’d do regarding backup if I’m traveling round the jungles of Borneo, Antarctic (sans jungles), outer space etc.

I must plan on everything going wrong!!

I’ve got 1 RED camera, let’s hope it doesn’t break. Either I’ve got a spare camera or I wait for another to arrive.
Hopefully my backup regime will fit spare camera too, particularly if it’s not RED.

Hopefully my REDDRIVE doesn’t break. But hey I’ve got a spare REDDRIVE/REDFLASH or two. I might be even able to change the faulty drive and not the whole REDDRIVE unit?

Say REDDRIVE’s average backup transfer rate is 40MB/s.
Nothing in my backup system needs to be faster than this.
Really only need usb2 (or firewire) here.

I’d go for the laptop /usb/ raid 1 solution.
Here’s why?

If my laptop dies (yes, I’ve got a backup of OS/Raid s/w & REDCINE on DVD) I’m gonna be in a much better position trying to source another simple pc/laptop with usb port and external sata box.

My Raid 1 unit would be an usb2 device i.e. Thecus etc, which would take 2 drives at whatever size I choose. Probably go for Seagate 320GB,500GB or 750GB’s depending on shooting rate, ease of transporting backups or need for footage back at ranch/ mothership/ edit facility or just plain paranoia/safety. Nothing new here!!

I’d also have a single usb/sata drive cradle. This would be my B plan if the Thecus or equivalent dies and would let me review backups on the road.

Ok, as I’ve filled up the REDDRIVE, it’d be also backed up to my RAID 1 device.

Nice as I’m shooting to have 3 copies of my footage.

As the REDDRIVE is filled (or before), I’d ship off or separate (hide in a tree/cave) one of the drives of my Raid 1 pair. Nice if it was going back to production house that would then be able to be properly backed up and start editing. They’d also tell me the disk arrived safely, but anyway I’ve got the matched pair and if the production was worth billions I’d probably have another copy on my single usb drive until I knew the transported copy arrived safely.
Note: As REDDRIVE is full, is it FIFO or do I have to erase and start shooting again on a blank REDDRIVE?

But wait, I’ve got another REDDRIVE (or not) and cycle them so i've still got 3 copies of my footage using the cheapest, easiest to replace components there are!!
One copy is always going back to production house (or secure location) and the other copy I can always keep with me for all sorts of uses. Sure I can use tape but it sounds like the tape equipment is more specialized and harder to replace and I’d ALWAYS have to make two tape backups anyway and that's slower.

So I’d start my trip with a laptop, raid 1 device, usb/sata cradle and as many blank drives as I needed.
To have 2 continuous backup copies of 40 hours footage, (hopefully 3 with an extra REDDRIVE @ $1K and production house backup), I’d need to buy 30 x Seagate 320GB drives (~$100 ea = $3,000) or 16 x 750GB drives (~$300ea=$5,000). Place them in two small pelican cases.
That’s it! And for what, an extra small pelican case and $2,500 less!!!
This solution is cheaper, easier to replace parts, takes less backup time, easier to review/edit footage on road and a bucket load of other silly stuff I’m too tired to mention as it’s 3am.
DF

Stop Press: You'll be needing 2 tape drives unless you can wait till your 'on the road' drive comes home! Good night....

[Ken Willinger]

This is a great thread and addresses many of the issues tapeless/filmless production is now going through. Of course there are no secure answers yet.

It's interesting how many of those who work with tape just cannot fathom the jump to digital media. I've got a doc coming up soon and the company I'm working with really wants to make the jump into HD. I've done docs with them for almost 15 years. I've suggested going tapeless. They can't wrap their heads around it. It's very frustrating. They want to record DVCPro HD Varicam on tape...because it makes them feel better. They know and trust tape. Getting people to change their thinking is going to be quite a battle. I think I've convinced the head of the company (and a good bud of mine) to come to NAB this year and see the change that is taking place for himself.

I've been playing with an HVX for my own enjoyment and brought it on vacation to Hawaii last week. I also brought a firewire on-the-go drive with an 80GB (laptop size) HD to dump the P2 card. No laptop. Put the camera in 1394 Host mode, attach a firewire cable to the drive, turn it all on, camera sees the drive and with a press of the button transfers the material to the drive...pretty quickly (of course this is 720 24pN and only 8GB). Worked like a charm. Will RED camera have this ability to transfer directly to HD?

For most of the work I'll be doing with RED, it will be HD doc orientated, 1080 most likely for broadcast. I think at this point HD backup is going to be the way to go. I'm sure we'll see many solutions at NAB with much more to follow.

Our big mission as photographers will be getting the producers to accept the media digitally just as they accepted tape. I've seen lots of things go wrong with tape in its day, from head clogs to tapes eaten in the camera or a deck. I was on a doc once where we finished about 10 days of production out in the middle of nowhere Churchill Manatoba. Packed up 20 betaSPs nicely (with a handle and everything!) for the producer to hand carry back home (he left separately as his home was different from the crew). The sound guy and I make it through customs and security at Toronto and start heading toward the gate. The sound guy says "Hey look!" and sure enough sitting on top of a rubbish can is the nicely packaged 20 betacamSP tapes! The producer, in a rush to catch the flight, got through customs and sat the tapes down to arrange his stuff, and forgot the tapes (he actually didn't remember them until he was in the air for about an hour, then freaked out trying to get the flight attendants to get the pilot to call back to Toronto to find the tapes and not destroy them...they didn't do it.)

Of course we picked up the tapes and brought them with us. Had the tapes been lost, the cost of a reshoot would have been incredible. With digital, making backups in the field is easy if not a little time consuming. But if the producer wants to do it...I say have at it!

[Nick Shaw]

Will RED camera have this ability to transfer directly to HD?

I suspect not. I think it may even have been said by somebody from RED in another thread. Shame, but as I understand it the camera only has a single e-SATA host port for connection to the RED-DRIVE. No firewire, and USB only as control/comms, not for connecting a hard drive. The RED DRIVE has eSATA, USB-2 and Firewire 800/400, but I believe is only a 'dumb' drive, and cannot act as a host to attach a backup drive. I could of course be wrong, and "all specs are subject to change".

So your stuck with taking a laptop on location for backup.

I intend to use LTO-3 for archiving my footage, but I see that as long term storage, to be done at the post facility. I see short term backup on location being done with multiple redundant hard drives and a laptop. In extremis I would consider taking a load of RED DRIVEs on location if backing up as we went along was impractical.

[JohnF]

I feel that until more practical solutions come along, or rather production methods that producers can feel confident in, shooting to hard-drives is going to be more like shooting film than video in terms of work flow/practise.

This will be an advantage for RED as film shooters already understand that they have to protect the master footage with their lives! (or at least their professional careers)

Television shooters have had decades of a surprisingly rugged tape based shooting formats to work with so the change back to film type workflows might well be a little jarring for them. But this shouldn't be too difficult as RED's offered pic quality is likely to persuade alot of producers of the potential for footage and production resale.

Personally I'm looking to use RED for it's pic quality and lens options giving me the option of obtaining fantastic images. Carrying a laptop and a few spare hard-drives, which I'll probably be doing anyway, is not much of a price to pay for the potential results...

JohnF

[Brook Willard]

I suppose the RED could "transfer directly to HD" via HDSDI to a deck...

[Stuart English]

Yes, recording 1080p to a VTR is one option, but as we have also discussed, so is recording REDCODE to RED-DRIVE and then cloning that to an appropriate data tape. As long as the transfer rate is at least as fast as REDCODE, you should be able to play back the rushes just like a "videotape".

[Ken Corben]

So your stuck with taking a laptop on location for backup.

I intend to use LTO-3 for archiving my footage, but I see that as long term storage, to be done at the post facility. I see short term backup on location being done with multiple redundant hard drives and a laptop. In extremis I would consider taking a load of RED DRIVEs on location if backing up as we went along was impractical.

We used the G-Safe 500 GB RAID 1 mirror drives to back up the hundreds of 8GB card we shot on location recently. Worked well. I understand these fabulous drives are now "end of life cycle" - bummer really liked the solution.

The work flow we have adopted currently seems ideal with today's off the shelf products.

So here is my present day plan pending newer technologies in the future:
We shoot CF cards (and RED DRIVES soon) then dump to RAID 1 mirror drives on location. Then when at the studio back up to LTO3 or DLT4 or which ever one chooses. Obviously make 3 copies and store in different locations (General rule of backing up critical data). In our case, valuable .r3d files.

Here are the readily available RAID 1 HDD compatible drives systems I have found and plan to use to replace the phased out G-Safes (a damn good product).

There are three field back up solution options for RAID mirror drives that duplicate .r3d files to two independent 500GB drives simultaneously that I have found.

http://www.cooldrives.com/dusahddfiusb.html

http://www.cooldrives.com/2usb20andfi8.html

http://www.cooldrives.com/blackicelcd2x.html

I think that owning two of the selected models to travel in the field is key for redundancy. Also, the 500 GB hard drive trays run $20-30 each. With the multiple options from firewire to USB it isreasonable to supply one drive system and one set of the HDD's to the client while retaining the redundant back up for security.

The seagate 500 GB drives are currently $119 each plus the model specific tray ($20)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2273393&Sku=TSD-500AS2

My idea for shows I am producing or shooting for clients and for stock footage is to use the HDD's as digital mags. Specifically, each drive stores 250 minutes of 4k redcode raw. Making two copies at the same time is prudent sense if dumping cf cards or red drives to these hard drives in the field. That works out to $280 per 250 minutes or $1/minute for duplicate drives.

Simple labeling A1/A2, B1/B2, etc works well. The drives are light and will fit into a pelican or soft case for carry on. Back at the studio back up to LTO3 or DLT4 and retain one HDD as a short term working drive for transfer to the editing HDD and on site back up storage.

This is the best solution I have developed thus far.

Let me know your thoughts.

[Matthew Rogers]

There are three field back up solution options for RAID mirror drives that duplicate .r3d files to two independent 500GB drives simultaneously that I have found.

http://www.cooldrives.com/dusahddfiusb.html

http://www.cooldrives.com/2usb20andfi8.html

http://www.cooldrives.com/blackicelcd2x.html


Just to let you know, I've seen people on other forums that have not had good things to say about cooldrives.com--I believe both about products and customer support.

Are you basically the G-Safe as a swappable system? AKA, copy the CF to two drives, and then take one out and stick in a new drive and have that duped onto? That way the client can walk away with a drive, or you just have three copies?

Also, what LTO drive(s) are you using?

Matthew

[Bing Bailey]

it seems to me you can have security for your footage or low costs but you cant have both. if you want a solution thats rock solid its going to cost you something either in money or weight carrying around backup devices

[Steve Sherrick]

I think a case study is in order, resulting in white papers that could benefit the community. I have several solutions in mind, but without a camera in hand yet I haven't been able to try them out. I see the three challenges as follows and in the order of importance.

1. Data Integrity. Whatever we backup to there needs to be very little chance of data corruption. Must avoid any solution that is a kludge of interfaces that could result in data being compromised.

2. Speed. In situations where we are on the move a lot, speed will become an issue. Must have a solution that is fast, but must stay true to the first rule about data integrity. What is the fastest solution that maintains that integrity.

3. Cost. Always important, but in light of the first two issues, needs to be third in the equation. It will cost you more in the end to have a day's worth of shooting go corrupt then it will to spend some money up front to offer a reliable, relatively bulletproof backup system. I also think this backup system is a justifiable rental item to our clients, so we should be able to see a ROI.

Are there any plans to do testing at LART for backup systems? I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but was curious if this was one of the things on the agenda.

Steve

[Ken Corben]

Just to let you know, I've seen people on other forums that have not had good things to say about cooldrives.com--I believe both about products and customer support.

Are you basically the G-Safe as a swappable system? AKA, copy the CF to two drives, and then take one out and stick in a new drive and have that duped onto? That way the client can walk away with a drive, or you just have three copies?

Also, what LTO drive(s) are you using?

Matthew

Thanks for the feedback on cooldrives - I can see that their customer support sucks based on their sales policy "People are stupid - if you buy it and don't know how to use it or set it up don't bother us." Not finding a lot of other dual drive RAID 1 500 GB options though. The G-Safes are out of stock at Gtech and many other vendors. Too bad, a great product.

Your triple disk idea works also. My practice thus far is to make the RAID 1 dual drive copy of the cf cards on set. When the 500 GB drives are near capacity I swap them both out, label and save the dual drives for LTO 3 back up at the studio (or in the field if feasible). You can then pass one drive to client and keep second as a back up. I am sticking with Seagate 500 GB drives for now due to their reliability and track record - the 1 TB drives are a bit new in comparison.

For the future of 4K footage and amazing stock footage, I am practicing the 3 back up system with the LTO 3, you know, one copy that will be corrupt, one copy that will be damaged and the third one prevents ulcers. All stored in different location, rotated and backed up on a regular basis (6 months/12 months?)

LTO3 choices
BEST:
Quantum scsi 160 800 GB LTO3 drive of choice:
http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/LTOUltrium/LTO-3HH/Index.aspx
http://triointernational.com/all.cfm/partno/TCL32BXEY/stat/froogle

Good:
Dell option if you don't mind their lousy customer service from India:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pvaul_110tlto3?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

[Ken Corben]

Are there any plans to do testing at LART for backup systems? I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but was curious if this was one of the things on the agenda.

Steve

Great suggestion - I'll pass the request along to the LART workflow team for possibilities.

[Tom Lowe]

Why not just use a bunch of 500GB or 1TB external harddrives? They work well enough, and they are cheap now. Make multiple copies on externals and split them up among your crew. Maybe even mail copied drives back to your home or office every now and then using Fedex or whatever?

[Matthew Rogers]

Thanks for the feedback on cooldrives - I can see that their customer support sucks based on their sales policy "People are stupid - if you buy it and don't know how to use it or set it up don't bother us." Not finding a lot of other dual drive RAID 1 500 GB options though. The G-Safes are out of stock at Gtech and many other vendors. Too bad, a great product.

Your triple disk idea works also. My practice thus far is to make the RAID 1 dual drive copy of the cf cards on set. When the 500 GB drives are near capacity I swap them both out, label and save the dual drives for LTO 3 back up at the studio (or in the field if feasible). You can then pass one drive to client and keep second as a back up. I am sticking with Seagate 500 GB drives for now due to their reliability and track record - the 1 TB drives are a bit new in comparison.

For the future of 4K footage and amazing stock footage, I am practicing the 3 back up system with the LTO 3, you know, one copy that will be corrupt, one copy that will be damaged and the third one prevents ulcers. All stored in different location, rotated and backed up on a regular basis (6 months/12 months?)

Have you tried looking at this: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax It supports Raid 1! I've actually got two OCW Mercury cases on my desk that support RAID 0+1--that's what I am probably going to use on set.

Thanks for the tape drive suggestions. As much as I don't want to spend the money on that, it's gotta happen since I won't have any other tape to go back to for shoots. At $35-$40 a tape it's still cheaper than shooting DVCPROHD tapes! Of course, if you are giving a HD to clients, then you've got to add the cost of a 500 GB drive also. Then again, both of those together is cheaper than a few feet a film.

Matthew

[Steve Sherrick]

Why not just use a bunch of 500GB or 1TB external harddrives? They work well enough, and they are cheap now. Make multiple copies on externals and split them up among your crew. Maybe even mail copied drives back to your home or office every now and then using Fedex or whatever?

I think the problem with this is whether or not you data is getting verified properly. Won't do you any good if the data that is copied onto three drives all have the same inherent corruption. Not saying that the workflow isn't valid, I just feel that we need to have established protocols for high level productions so that there is a confidence level amongst producers and financers that the data files are safe. I know there are current standards on movie sets that are shooting with the Genesis and other cameras where they are backing up to RAID and LTO or DLT. I guess what I'm looking for is to establish a whitepaper specific to the Red camera that outlines best practices for mission critical projects and perhaps others that detail solutions for other types of productions as well.

Cheap solutions are all well and good, but in my opinion the cheap part has to come into play after you have established the first two pieces of the pie. If budgets are very tight, then you do what you can, I completely understand that. But some projects will have very little room for error.

Steve

[LEON]

Have you tried looking at this: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax It supports Raid 1! I've actually got two OCW Mercury cases on my desk that support RAID 0+1--that's what I am probably going to use on set.

Matthew

it seems OK but time consuming if you want to swap the disks because they are not fixed in a tray. It is rather a fixed installation, no ?
Leon

[Matthew Rogers]

it seems OK but time consuming if you want to swap the disks because they are not fixed in a tray. It is rather a fixed installation, no ?

It is fixed, but if you were going to give the HD to a client, you would have to remove the drive from the tray anyway, so why not from a case? I can understand if you are just swapping out for your own use...

Matthew

[Michael Brennan]

This may sound ridiculous but as an Aussi based in the UK I know how much excess baggage can eat into a Aussi production budget.
BA now meant to charge a flat rate of £75 per case per sector but I was quoted £120 from South Africa to London last week.
Other airlines charge +$30 per kilo.

So how many CF cards do we need for 40 hours!

Is there a CF rental opportunity here?
Producer can fedex them back or hang onto them as he would tape.

When the RED drives becomes available this will be even cheaper way to go.

You'de only need 15 RED raids. Dont let the munbers scare you, why do we think 15 drives is a high number and 40 tapes isn't?


Savings in excess baggage would be significant compared to taking firewire drives and computers and enough incentive to rent a 15 RED drives?

Think of the savings in time and not putting doc crew under pressure to clone stuff late at night ect.


Renting a piece of kit worth $15k (15 x RED drives) is no big deal for a production. 15 red drives take up less space and excess baggage than 40 HDCAM tapes.
$15k doesn't even buy a HD 2/3 inch lens.....



Mike Brennan

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For mobile hard drive solutions, take a look at the caldigit ones. www.caldigit.com. They have dual-drive RAID units with USB2/Firewire800 interfaces or dual-drive and 5-drive units with an eSATA connection.

I will be bringing one of their dual-drive S2VR eSATA RAID units to LART. It measures roughly 4.5" x 5" x 9" and weighs about 7lbs. Will be connecting it to a Macbook Pro via the Caldigit ExpressCard34 eSATA adapter.

The one I'm bringing has 2x750GB HDDs in it and I'm planning on using it for RAID-0 workspace while there. But maybe I'll do some preliminary testing with it configured as a RAID-1 for offload and backup purposes first. I'll be bringing it empty, I guess we'll see what the schedule allows.

[Chris Parker]

For mobile hard drive solutions, take a look at the caldigit ones. www.caldigit.com. They have dual-drive RAID units with USB2/Firewire800 interfaces or dual-drive and 5-drive units with an eSATA connection.

I will be bringing one of their dual-drive S2VR eSATA RAID units to LART. It measures roughly 4.5" x 5" x 9" and weighs about 7lbs. Will be connecting it to a Macbook Pro via the Caldigit ExpressCard34 eSATA adapter.

The one I'm bringing has 2x750GB HDDs in it and I'm planning on using it for RAID-0 workspace while there. But maybe I'll do some preliminary testing with it configured as a RAID-1 for offload and backup purposes first. I'll be bringing it empty, I guess we'll see what the schedule allows.

I just got two of these exact drives. They are great. Just today, I was on set with an HD Camera, my MacBook Pro, this Caldigit drive, and an AJA IO HD. I am testing a new system. I recorded in prores 422 at 1080i23.98psf, and it worked like a dream. I loved the fact that my rough 'video assist' footage was of higher quality than the actual DVCPRO HD tape in the camera (their actual master).

Anyways, I can vouch for these Caldigit hard drives. They are good.

But still, for me, I am going to avoid the whole raid 1 thing, and go with two separate drives. Why? Because I want to be able to peel one off, give it to production, and keep one as the backup. If someone happens to drop it that night and break it, I will still have the backup. If they dropped my CalDigit unit, the whole thing might break.

[Torrey Loomis]

I'd like to chime in on a few things mentioned here.

At Silverado, we've been thinking A LOT about these details since Mike Curtis asked me my opinion about this a while back. There are some considerations that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

The AIT-5 tape drive is awesome for size and capacity, but since its SCSI based its a non-starter for taking onsite with a MacBook Pro.

Further, ANY tape type device that is SCSI or SAS based is not really practical for a laptop in the field.

You need to look for single points of failure in your data chain. Your first SPOF is the CF card itself. If that goes bad or gets damaged, your data is hosed.

We all know that, so lets move on to the next stage.

Backing up to a single drive in the field is dangerous since the drive will most likely be used in a field-situation that is dusty, hot, and subject to bumps and bruises while getting dragged along the way through your shots.

Talking about drives in the field. I think it is critical to have at least a 2-drive RAID-1 setup for transfer. With 1 Tb drives as the largest available, you are looking at two drives for a 1.0 Tb volume in RAID-1, or four drives for a 2.0 Tb RAID-1 volume--basically 10-20 hours of footage.

How do you carry all this stuff without resorting to baggage handlers who toss your stuff like a discus thrower?

From an insurance standpoint, what about insurance cos. that mandate that copies be made and kept offsite? This would preclude the drives-only approach.

We are working on the following package:

1. LTO-3 tape (400 MB native)
2. 2-4 Tb of storage on HD
3. Small enough to bring on a plane as a carry-on so you DON'T have to check it.

You would copy to your RAID-1, QC the footage, then backup to tape when you have aggregated enough to warrant a backup. Then, review off the RAID-1 while shooting a safe copy (or two!) on LTO-3 to an independent location via Fedex.

Further, we'll build into the system the value of having loaners that we can ship anywhere in the world overnight if something goes down on one of your components.

Give us a week or so and we'll have more information on the website. We'll explain everything probably via a video Podcast or a PDF.

This is a great thread and everyone has put in a lot of solid thinking.

[Matthew Rogers]

In theory, I'd like my workflow to be...

On set, backup to a RAID-1 two drive system. Make a third copy to either one of my firewire drives or the client's drive and have someone else go home with that copy. When I get home, make a copy of the all that data to a LTO-3 tape and copy the data from the RAID-1 to a RAID-5 system for editing.

The only issue I am worried about with that workflow is making sure I have enough time between shoots to handle/copy all of that data safely. I don't want to have three different shoots day after day after day. Of course, that workflow is already far more safe than just shooting a tape and there only being one copy of that tape!

I've got to write this whole system up so I can show producers how easy and safe it is (heck, I should just make a video!)

Matthew

[Steve Sherrick]

Other considerations. Laptops will need to have enough battery power to last a 10 hour or more day. If you are providing AC to the laptop and are using external drives that need power then you have to factor in a UPS system. There's no way I would take the chance of running this off a power strip only. As for LTO 3 and a laptop, the LTO-3A has gigabit ethernet and could work in that arrangement. Personally, I'm waiting for LTO-4 with it's increased capacity and speed.

I'm thinking of having a cart engineered that can house all of this gear in a compact, robust form factor with built in shock absorption for relatively easy maneuvering around set. It will have batttery backup built in and can even hold a desktop mac.

I agree, let's keep this thread going. A lot of details to be worked out.

Steve

[redicule]

For the very paranoid producers not comfortable with tapeless field acquisition I wonder what it would take to utilize the Sony HDW-S280 to make 1080/60-50i tape back ups in the field from the red drive media in 4K/2K?

I would presume the deck could be gotten for $1500 a week?

A pain in the butt, however, might be a good intermediary step for producers?

this, as well as a lot of other suggestions, are getting a bit over the top dont you think? if you are in a situation where you have to record to 1080, why dont you take a 1080 camera with a good lens that you can carry in one hand and be done with it!!!

I would love to see a "run & gun" crew hauling around a red kit with lenses, accs, support, HD monitors, HDDs, laptops, VTR decks... perhaps you might need a spare camera body just in case (which would then get used as a second camera), also a 4K projector for dailies viewing would be nice as well!!!

[Steve Sherrick]

There will be different levels of production with Red cameras just as there are with any other camera on the planet. I can assure you that a feature film set and even a high level commercial set will have all of the accessories you mentioned. Other productions that are going to be "run and gun" will have to equip themselves with whatever makes sense for their given situation. They may have to take more risks because there just isn't enough time, manpower, or gear available to do the high level of data protection and tape backup that the film setup can afford.

I just wouldn't underestimate the importance of data backup. I'm fairly confident that the first shoot you do where you lose a day's worth of shooting, you'll have trouble getting work in the future if it's a big enough production. This is a professional camera format, not a DVX (although I still love that camera).

Having said all that, people can use the camera any way they want. I think some of us are just trying to implement the best backup strategy we can, so we're tossing around ideas.

Steve

[redicule]

************************************************** ***
4. The other and most simple choice is, untill a workable solution comes along, keep your shooting ratio low and treat RED footage like you would a 35/S16mm and have enough RED magazines.

I think it's important to remember that for the best part of 100 years the world has been shooting on a format that could not be backed up. So try and learn how the hell they managed it with so much sucess.
************************************************** ***

I think that the above quote is the best post on this tread so far, and not because it has anything to do with film.

I know this is about backup on the road, but the reality is that there will always be compromises depending on your work situation, and in the context of doco, perhaps you have to ask a few objective questions such as "do I ACTUALLY have to back up on the road" or the big one.... "is Red ACTUALLY the best tool of the job?"

If want to shoot doco for cinema with a non-red camera capable of high resolution we are lookng at a 35mm kit right? If you made this decision, you would be buying into the fact that there will be more, heavier gear, you would have to carry around with you enough film rolls to cover what you want to shoot, you dont have backup so if you post any rushes you accept the risk off loss or damage and you probably get clever on your coverage (like people had to be before tape)

If this is not an option, then perhaps you consider 16mm, cause although it's lower resolution, you can blow it up to 35mm for release, less gear, lighter gear, longer run-times on mags, etc, etc.

Lets not forget that both of these camera formats are very robust and experienced camerapeople/ ACs can fix them in the field. A loaded film mag can potentially recover from being submerged in salt water!!

In the case were you might want to roll for excessive amounts of time and film was not within the budget, you would pretty much have to go with an acceptable tape based option, and live with the quality loss, perhaps grade in post or just intercut a different look into the film footage.

Applying this to Red:

4K: If you made this decision, you would be buying into the fact that you will be carrying a significant amount of gear (lenses, support, etc. Add to this a backup workstation of some sort and it could easily equal a 35mm kit). OR, you would have to carry around with you enough Red drives to cover what you want to shoot, you dont have backup so if you post any rushes you accept the risk off loss or damage and you probably get clever on your coverage (like people had to be before tape)

If this is not an option, then perhaps you consider 2K, cause although it's lower resolution, you can blow it up to 35mm for release (digital projection at this stage is mostly 2K anyway), less gear, lighter gear, longer run-times on HDDs, etc, etc.

Lets not forget that both of these camera formats are a lens attached to a computer and experienced camerapeople/ ACs can't fix them in the field. A HDD would never recover from being submerged in salt water!!

In the case were you might want to roll for excessive amounts of time and storing so much data was not within the budget, you would pretty much have to go with an acceptable tape based option, and live with the quality loss, perhaps grade in post or just intercut a different look into the RED footage.

also consider:

If backup is not feasible (and it certainly isn't practical in the field yet), but reliability is key, Ditch HDDs altogether and use CF cards. They are small, light & reliable. Suddenly you are a lot more portable, you don't have to consider hours of backup time, etc, etc. Sure record time is limited, but no more so than a film magazine. Sure they are expensive, but no more than a roll of film.

I have had to deal with portable backup already and it is enough of a hassel working out of the back of a van in the middle of a major city, let alone in the jungle halfway up a mountain. It's slow too. It takes longer to download a CF card to a HDD than to download a magazine of film, and you need power.

Don't kill your crew by making them stay up all night after a long day shooting, sitting by a blueray burner swapping discs every 40GB!!!!

Accept what is most practical might not be the cheapest option, then decide to do it or not. I'm sure before long this whole dilema will be a non-issue with high capacity low cost solid sate media (or something equivalent that we havent thought of yet), but until then it's all about compromising to achieve what you want to.

SPRINGER'S FINAL THOUGHT:

"Remember, it's not what you shoot with, it's what you shoot & how well you shoot it that will dictate how good your film is."

[Steve Sherrick]

Interesting points. I think a lot of doc work will be shot in 2K for exactly the reasons you mentioned. To me, this is all scalable in terms of backup solutions. When time and budget allow, there will be extensive backup done, a lot of it right there on set. Shooting in the jungle with little or no power, then that changes the strategy. But I still wouldn't shoot 40 CF cards and hope they get back to post safely. Too risky. Somehow, some way you need to make a backup, even if it's hiring someone to be doing this with a laptop and a portable drive. When all else fails and the only option is to shoot CF or Red Drives with no backup, then that is what you have to do and as you mentioned, this has been done with film and videotape for so many years.

Each project will carry its own set of requirements and will be tied to contracts, insurance, producer's comfort levels, etc.

Steve

[Chris Kenny]

Backing up to a single drive in the field is dangerous since the drive will most likely be used in a field-situation that is dusty, hot, and subject to bumps and bruises while getting dragged along the way through your shots.

Talking about drives in the field. I think it is critical to have at least a 2-drive RAID-1 setup for transfer. With 1 Tb drives as the largest available, you are looking at two drives for a 1.0 Tb volume in RAID-1, or four drives for a 2.0 Tb RAID-1 volume--basically 10-20 hours of footage.

I'd like to mention LaCie Rugged (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10949) drives again here.

They're practically pocket-sized, they're FW800, they're bus-powered, they're shock-resistant, and they're nearly sealed (I suppose dust could get into the ports, but they have no vents). I feel a lot more comfortable traveling with these than with 3.5" drives in full-sized external enclosures, which are much less likely to survive a fall, need external power, and typically have vents for dust to get into (and often even have fans to helpfully pull dust in and make noise on set).

And yes, I too have grown leery of LaCie's desktop drives. But we've had a bunch of these kicking around for awhile, and we haven't had any problems. Despite the fact that they've probably all been dropped a few times by now.

[redicule]

There will be different levels of production with Red cameras just as there are with any other camera on the planet. I can assure you that a feature film set and even a high level commercial set will have all of the accessories you mentioned. Other productions that are going to be "run and gun" will have to equip themselves with whatever makes sense for their given situation. They may have to take more risks because there just isn't enough time, manpower, or gear available to do the high level of data protection and tape backup that the film setup can afford.

I just wouldn't underestimate the importance of data backup. I'm fairly confident that the first shoot you do where you lose a day's worth of shooting, you'll have trouble getting work in the future if it's a big enough production. This is a professional camera format, not a DVX (although I still love that camera).

Having said all that, people can use the camera any way they want. I think some of us are just trying to implement the best backup strategy we can, so we're tossing around ideas.

Steve

Hi Steve

yes I agree with you. I was really refering back to the origin of this post with was about practical backup solutions in the field for a doco. i don't see lugging around VTR decks & computer work stations as practical for a doco.

Yes I have worked on high end commercials and feature films where they have this gear, and oh so much more. They also have had a shooting crew of up to 700 people. not exactly doco.

I have also worked on low budget docos where we had 4 people knee deep in a muddy swamp, so kind of looking at it from the two extremes here.....

[RCFisher]

I have been thinking about this for a few months. I am about to start on a large project that will go coast to coast. I am currently shooting P2 media so it's relevant to that workflow as well.

1. Have enough P2/CF cards for a days work, in my present situation enough to cover 4 hours of shooting. I have worked on docs that I would shoot all day and only walk away 2-4 hrs of footage a day.

2. In an emergency be able to copy off to a laptop or a Hyperdrive unit.

3. At the end of the day copy the P2/CF media to a Raid 1 setup, I think 1 TB Raid 1 would work for most situations.

4. Go through the shots to do a one light grade as time allows, also set a few looks in camera. Most situations are totally uncontrolled so a generic look would be a useful starting point. Being able to do a quick grade and storing the metadata with the clips is important.

5. When the section is done or weekly, whichever works, make 2 single drive copies and send one to editorial and another to a holding area. The drive can be copied onto the producers Raid 5 storage and the drive sent back to the crew. The second holding area could keep the drive as longer term storage. I also think I will keep a copy of the material for myself, and secondary backup. When ready to start the next section, of course after verification from editorial, erase the Raid 1 and start all over again.

One thing that a 3rd party might develop for this new tapeless workflow would be a firewire (to use any kind of reader you want) in to SATA drive (or maybe raid 1), removable, copying device that incorporates data verification for on the road crews who need the minimum amount of gear. Battery powered might be good or at least able to use AB batteries or the same Vmount batteries that the camera uses. Some CF backup devices work this way now. I have a SmartDisk FlashTrax that works pretty well, I don't think it has any data verification built in though. It's small enough to fit in my backpack with my camera so when I run out of CF card space I can free up some cards. I shoot Hi res panoramas so I do run out of space occasionally.

[Benjamin Rowland]

I can second the recommendation for LaCie Rugged drives. Ours has been back and forth through Fed Ex almost 50 times without a problem. They can take a beating. We use them to send our finished shows off for captioning and output to HDCAM.

[Michael Ragen]

The firewire port died on my Lacie Rugged drive, but I was able to get everything off via usb.

[MikeCurtis]

Back to the Digital Magazine file stuff - YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP THOSE. Just got off the phone with Stuart English himself.

Here's the deal, from my notes:

do NOT need to keep those files, the camera needs to know it (whether the mag formatted), and tell the camera what project frame rate was selected, what record resolution, that adjusts the user interface to verify if stuff is incompatible, etc.

-the other one contains a list of clips already recorded, and the purpose of that is to know what the next clip name to assign

-they are there for the camera, and once recording is made, DO NOT NEED

...as of build 9, you CAN change the resolution and Varispeed and keep shooting on the same card. The one thing that MUST remain is the timecode framerate - is it a 23.976, 24.0, 25.0, or 29.97 etc. based project. Which makes sense - you wouldn't want to mix frame rates in the same project anyway - but change res? Absolutely! Done it many times.

This fixes the duplicate file naming problem that I've been bit by a few times.

-mike

[Rob Lohman]

Back to the Digital Magazine file stuff - YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP THOSE. Just got off the phone with Stuart English himself.

Are you talking about the two .profile files in the root of the magazine? If so then I'd like everyone NOT to follow this advice just yet. I think that there are plans to use that information in some post production software. I'll check and let everyone know for sure

Stuart is very involved with the camera and workflows involving the camera, but he's not writing the post software :)

[Brian Critchlow]

Man, this was a long thread to read in detail.

We have a trip coming up where we will be in a fairly remote location with 2 REDs for 17 days. My estimate is 2-3 hours of footage per day per camera.

(3*2)*17=102 hours of footage or ~10.2TB
for redundancy, we are talking 21 1TB drives. not practical.
LTO-3 or AIT-5 would be ~23 native or 10-15 compressed. I can work with this.
I guess the main problem with the tape solution would be the SCSI interface to a laptop. Has anyone figured out a solid option? I havent found SCSI ExpressCards anywhere.

[Chris Kenny]

.R3D files being already internally compressed, tape drive compression isn't going to do anything for you.

[aviddv1]

How about the sonnet fusion d400Q with enough 1TB removable drives to meet your needs. You can create two separate RAID 1 pairs in the unit at one time. That means you have one RAID 1 for the primary backup and another RAID 1 array for a secondary backup. That would be a total of 2TB for every four 1TB drives.

Make sense?

[Chris Parker]

you could get an LTO3-A drive that connects via ethernet....from quantum