Feature Film storage for RC42 RC80 and RC100

[Cedric Akins]

I hope RedRay might be the answer for us non-rich customers... Jim, Jared, red guys hope you are getting this one... I hope it is an archival solution and that it turns up at a price low enough for everyone that buys a Red to be able to consider it. That way you sell more of them too... I am sure this is under heavy consideration and I hope you can find the way to make it possible.

What was the last capacity spec we heard?

I agree with USlatin. It would be great to have Red Ray as an archval device. Dual layer DVDs are a good option.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Be careful of this thought process - because even though its physically on 4 drives (2x raid 1), its not on 4 partitions. If you loose the partition info for a since raid set (by accidentally deleting the raid set, for example), you have now lost "two" of your copies with one operation. Instead, it is always best to think about the number of different partitions you have the data stored on as the number of copies you have.

Yes. I've noticed that RAIDs are always a bit risky. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

I hope RedRay might be the answer for us non-rich customers... Jim, Jared, red guys hope you are getting this one... I hope it is an archival solution and that it turns up at a price low enough for everyone that buys a Red to be able to consider it. That way you sell more of them too... I am sure this is under heavy consideration and I hope you can find the way to make it possible.

What was the last capacity spec we heard?

AFAIK, it's not for archival, but for delivery.

It's like a little universal cinema player, digital cinema quality.

You go to your nearest multiplex, plug the redray into the digital projector and project your movie there.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

AFAIK, it's not for archival, but for delivery.

It's like a little universal cinema player, digital cinema quality.

You go to your nearest multiplex, plug the redray into the digital projector and project your movie there.

Yea but I am hoping it could also help with archival... both.

 

[Joe G.]

"So for the model let's use the following: 200hs"

My calculator told me that 200 hours of 100MB/s footage would require 72TB! That's one copy.

That is also a 100:1 shooting ratio on a 2 hr film, and so a bit ridiculous, no? Granted, Tropic Thunder exceeded that, and other Big Budget Extravaganzas.

What does 150TB of storage cost these days?

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Yea but I am hoping it could also help with archival... both.

How? :waaa:

It uses standard DVDs, tha last I heard.

The miracle of RedRay is that it stuffs 2 hrs. of 4K in a DVD9 [8,5 Gb]. That's for projection purposes, not archival.

For archival, LTO tapes sound good enough in terms of price\reliability.

You don't have to buy the LTO drive.

Also, there was an interesting idea for a sort of footage archival house. You go there and archive your footage, pay a yearly fee and they keep it safe for you. This way you don't have to worry about storage becoming obsolete, etc.

Sounds ineresting...

 

[SalaTar]

you guys are really confused about what a "backup" really is.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Yea, karapetkov, I agree... but wouldn't it be sweet if I could burn a few DVDs and have an other copy at home?

mail4, point taken... please don't ridicule me for not having a clue about how much a feature would require.. that was the whole purpose of this thread

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Yea, karapetkov, I agree... but wouldn't it be sweet if I could burn a few DVDs and have an other copy at home?

Of course, but I don't think it's possible with RedCode footage. :blush:

 

[Joe G.]

"mail4, point taken... please don't ridicule me for not having a clue about how much a feature would require.."

There was no "ridicule" in my post. I said exactly what I meant. What are you talking about? Those are the numbers.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I know... I am not at all testy guys, sorry if my posts read like that... hence the

Ok, karapetov, but what about a small project... I guess I might have not realized that because of the topic of the thread you might have assumed only for features. I don't see myself wanting to burn any more than 30-40hs, if I had to. But if you shot a commercial, teaser, trailer, music video, short film, it would be sweet for people like me still doing short projects.

.R3D is gunna kick my ass! Partey!
:sarcasm:

 

[conrad gaunt]

If you shoot with the discipline and don't high five after takes (until you've hit the red button), there's no reason why you'd necessarily need 12tb (thats 18 full Red Raids, backed up twice).

Just imagine your using film stock all the time.

The difficulty comes if you want to master out to tiff or dpx sequences, that takes about 1tb per ten minutes @4k, but using compressed tiffs, or NTFS with compression enabled, helps.

The time it takes to read a tiff from an NTFS drive is often slower than the time it takes to read the same tiff compressed to 60% using NTFS with compression enabled (its quite fast and works transparently)

Compression is good, because it happens quickly in RAM using modern CPUs, whereas disk reads are mechanical and slow, by comparison.

I installed NTFS drive support (by Paragon) on my iMac to make transfering data between OSX and windows easier.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

I know... I am not at all testy guys, sorry if my posts read like that... hence the

Ok, karapetov, but what about a small project... I guess I might have not realized that because of the topic of the thread you might have assumed only for features. I don't see myself wanting to burn any more than 30-40hs, if I had to. But if you shot a commercial, teaser, trailer, music video, short film, it would be sweet for people like me still doing short projects.

.R3D is gunna kick my ass! Partey!
:sarcasm:

I think that, in any case, things will be much easier and cheaper than ever before.

And 3K [2K resolved] is more than enough...

My heart is at ease... :sarcasm:

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I think that, in any case, things will be much easier and cheaper than ever before.

And 3K [2K resolved] is more than enough...

My heart is at ease... :sarcasm:

Absolutely... and the DoF from a 2/3 sounds appealing, so I wonder just how sensitive the 2/3 will be? This might be a good reason to go to a chip with larger photosites, plus you get the added DoF and other capabilities. The thing is how to pay for all of that and more. :waaa:

 

[Katty Galloo]

Depends on how you plan to store it but I'd spring for an LTO-4 drive. Not cheap but the best way for long-term storage that's reliable and relatively fool-proof. Dumping it onto a bunch of hard drives might ultimately cost more and be way less effective.

Noah

Hey folks,

I just have spoken today to Reduser on the phone.He has allready some experience with red and he advised me today never to go for the LTO-4
system with is actualy a long existing system witch they haved used a few years ago. First off all it is quit expensive and when your system would fail one day just out of guaranty, it can become your worst nightmare. Second you need special software to get the data and wright the data to your device. Thus he works with hardisks, If one fails you just buy another and of you go. Also hardisks become more cheaper every year for more storage. So just one to say he made me thinking about that!

Euro girl :waaa:

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Yes, point well made... that is what I am thinking but I don't say it cause I assume everyone agrees and thinks the same. Of course I have no clue about the reliability of LTO but if you have a few copies you should be good to go for a while.

Now I don't think anyone caught my point about the dorment HD idea... HDs fail because the charge fades away... so why not have a facility that allows you to bring in bare HDDs and pug them in to a grid where every two months or so the full HDD is read once... every sector. Ideas and logistics can be changed but the idea is simple... read them and find out when something failed, at which point you can automatically create an other back up of that file from the other copies... you could keep up with a customer requested number of copies of every file... then when they come in to pick it up the system knows what drive and if there are any additional files etc... automate it as much as possible. A big old HDD Fort Knox, but with R3D gold instead of yellow bullion.

 

[Conrad Hunziker]

Yes, point well made... that is what I am thinking but I don't say it cause I assume everyone agrees and thinks the same. Of course I have no clue about the reliability of LTO but if you have a few copies you should be good to go for a while.

Actually, LTO by far is more reliable than HDDs. As with everything, as long as you store it right, it can last decades. And yes, it does require special software for some versions of LTO, but the benefits FAR outweigh the costs.

Now I don't think anyone caught my point about the dorment HD idea... HDs fail because the charge fades away...

Not true. Though I suppose there is some charge loss over time, thats not the biggest reason why HDDs fail. They fail because the spindles die out, the motors wear out, scratches from the head touching the platters, dust on the platters, etc, etc. These are physical issues, not charge issues.

If anything, the reason why LTO tape will fail over time is because the charge fades away and/or the tape degrades. In fact, thats the ONLY way that LTO can fail - which is why its so reliable. With a HD, its got to be at 100% functionality to be able to read any data. You can read zeros and ones off an LTO tape at 50% functionality.

so why not have a facility that allows you to bring in bare HDDs and pug them in to a grid where every two months or so the full HDD is read once... every sector. Ideas and logistics can be changed but the idea is simple... read them and find out when something failed, at which point you can automatically create an other back up of that file from the other copies... you could keep up with a customer requested number of copies of every file... then when they come in to pick it up the system knows what drive and if there are any additional files etc... automate it as much as possible. A big old HDD Fort Knox, but with R3D gold instead of yellow bullion.

Frankly, just the act of plugging in a HDD (or unplugging it) can cause a failure of the drive. And heres the kicker - with HDDs you need to actively maintain the drive. You need to keep to a schedule one make sure the zeros and ones can be read. However, with a LTO, just put it on the shelf. In 5 years, pick it up and read it. You spent about 5 minutes in 5 years maintaining it. As opposed to the 2 hours to read a drive * 12 times a year * 5 years = 120 hours, if you are lucky.

For long term storage, at this time, nothing beats LTO.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Not true. Though I suppose there is some charge loss over time, thats not the biggest reason why HDDs fail. They fail because the spindles die out, the motors wear out, scratches from the head touching the platters, dust on the platters, etc, etc. These are physical issues, not charge issues.

Well then we'd have no issue at all... they wouldn't be getting the wear and tear if they are stored. Every time one fails an other gets automatically made always keeping three working copies at the facility.

Well I am not too worried about it right now... but just for craps and giggles, how much would LOT cost for a feature?

 

[Katty Galloo]

Hello,

Ok each might have its own advantages, but to what the Red user told me
he made it clear to me, even on 4k you can store a lot of data on HD and why would you want to keep the uncut files and store them for years after postproduction. If your klient perse wants to store them for many years to come. Hire an LTO for a day, put all data on the tapes witch cost $50 dollar a tape, or let it be done by a third party en let the customer pay for his demands. We are not a storehouse wright? Infact thats the way I see it guys.:umm:

Euro girl

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

True, true... the problem is when you are producing yourself. I know that once I get my Blu-Ray I am in good shape. Though having a working copy for a few years is necessary. So you think, by the time both copies break you probably don't need it again because either someone bought it from you or you made enough money to make an LTO then. You can also make an additional copy any time you'd like, each time getting cheaper. Not a lot of fun I suppose, but what do you think about that?

Also, I can fit either 15hs of 720/30p or 8hs of 1080/30p of DVCpro HD, in this little RAID1 that I have which would be perfect for storing that footage for features in HD. That should be a heck of a lot of fun too.