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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Backing up data "on the road"...

Blair S. Paulsen said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
hdcam tape backups?

hdcam tape backups?

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?
 
Hdw-s280

Hdw-s280

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.
 
Tape Recorders

Tape Recorders

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.
 
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.
 
Colorspace "Onboard" HD-SDI recorder

Colorspace "Onboard" HD-SDI recorder

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.
 
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
 
It'd cost about £1600/$3200 to make a 320GB RAID from 80 4GB SD cards... guess that's out of the question then :)
 
Colorspace is how much? $30,000.00 I believe. Is that really an option?
 
Samscad said:
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.
Click to expand...

this will be the loaders job to back up...
 
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..
 
Personally I would be more than happy using something like the MyBook 1TB external HDD. 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 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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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? :)
 
Simple solution

Simple solution

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
 
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.
 
Check this

Check this

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.
 
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...
 
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.
 
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