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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 :)

Nexto - CF backup on the go

I'm sure he will. Beauty of making the recording material options such as compact flash means BU methods will be able to constantly evolve. It's definitely an attractive part of the camera since there is little on it to go out of date at the moment.
 
Maybe we could get the company to make a box that would host 1 or 2 ( raid 0 ) USB/ FW drives. Seems like they have much of the work for that done already.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
Very helpfull Paul. Great thread.

right now, i try to figure if it is better to invest in CF cards and RED drives, or only in a large number of CF cards...

any idea ? I do mostly 30 sec TV commercials.
 
FAT32 vs NTFS?

FAT32 vs NTFS?

PaulClements said:
I've found it for about $200 without Harddrive so I guess you can stick a larger HDD in there since it formats it to FAT32 - again ideal for RedOne as I believe that is FAT32 also.
Click to expand...

This looks like a really great system Paul, thank you.

the website says you can put up to 200gb drive inside.

Question: Isn't NTFS much better to use than FAT32 because of file size limitations with FAT? I know in all my windows edit systems we use NTFS for that reason. And, is RED actually using FAT32?

aloha,

Keith
 
I believe the Red formats to FAT32, I might be wrong on that, in which case the CF would be happier backing up if both are in FAT32... Though I'm not sure so someone more technical might want to step in.
 
I did some calculations earlier and the drive would take 37.20 minutes to backup and verify 16GB of data (as long as it was working at it's optimum speed).

Shooting footage in 4k would fill a 16GB CF card in just under 10 minutes. Interestingly shooting at 2k would take 38 minutes to fill a 16GB card, so effectively you could get away with shooting constantly with a minimum of 2X16GB cards and 1xNexto (Asides from swapping out of course). At 4k you would need 5x16GB CF cards and 4xNexto's as a minimum to shoot constantly as when you've filled the 1st card, you put it on to BU, then 10 minutes later the 2nd goes on to BU, 10 minutes later the 3rd goes onto backup, 10 minutes later the 4th goes onto backup and once you've filled the 5th you could go back and start using the first again as it would have been backed up and verified.

At 4k you would need to move onto your 2nd Nexto after shooting 1 hour 38 minutes, at 2k you'd have to move onto your 2nd Nexto after 6 hours 23 minutes.

Of course this takes little consideration of actually handling the things lol. But I thought it was an interesting minimum to work from when planning.

Note: This is if you were using 160GB PATA drives in the Nexto, I chose 160GB because they are cheaper per GB than 200GB drives but also because if using 16GB CF Cards it's 10x the capacity and the numbers make more sense!
 
Keith Nealy said:
Question: Isn't NTFS much better to use than FAT32 because of file size limitations with FAT? I know in all my windows edit systems we use NTFS for that reason. And, is RED actually using FAT32?

aloha,

Keith
Click to expand...

Yes, I think Red uses FAT32.
You're right, there are much better file systems out there now, but FAT32 is compatible with both Mac and PC.
I don't think you could mount NTFS formated drives on a Mac, could you ? I guess that's the main reason why they went with the FAT32 file system.
 
Yes, FAT32. You can mount NTFS formatted drives on the Mac, but it's read-only.

The best compatibility between all systems is still FAT32 unfortunately. Hopefully something better will come along in the next few years that works on all systems as well.
 
Love the concept of backup without laptop.

But think once you give something to production it is in their midset, "theirs" and relying on it to come back in one piece if at all is optomistic.

They can budget for and handle (new) drives as they do tape or neg and keep them as their masters.


Mike Brennan
 
Pywl said:
It wouldnt make everyone happy, but us Windows users could always use the MacDrive program.
Click to expand...

But Windows can handle FAT32. I think the point they were trying to make is that both Windows and Mac can read and write FAT32. So can other systems, such as FreeBSD or Linux.
 
Mickjoebill said:
Love the concept of backup without laptop.

But think once you give something to production it is in their midset, "theirs" and relying on it to come back in one piece if at all is optomistic.

They can budget for and handle (new) drives as they do tape or neg and keep them as their masters.


Mike Brennan
Click to expand...

I don't understand Mike? I'd rather give the production a Nexto at $270 than almost anything else, and if I can take the drive out of it and hand that to them then i'd be even happier. Frankly I'd just charge them for every drive they fill and never ask for them back.
 
PaulClements said:
Hi David,

Horses for courses I suppose. Everyone will have their favourite way of working.

Using off the shelf harddrives for backup does make it significantly cheaper and something like Nexto would appear to make it quicker than backing up CF to a RedDrive, even in remote documentary shoots.

If for example on an expidition for a week on a docu you managed to use up 10 RedDrives, that amounts to $9000. By comparison 20 160GB 2.5" drives could be bought for $1780 - plus one Nexto and that would be $1980 for 33 hours of 4K Footage for a system that doesn't require a laptop to transfer the data. Or you could buy 20 Nexto's and skip having to swap drives in the field for a total of $5780. Furthermore when you get home you don't have any further work backing up, just stick them in a RAID and off you go.

Like I say though, everyone will find ways they prefer working and I'm sure new technologies will allow us to work even more efficiently in the future.

Paul
Click to expand...

Paul,

These are all amazing suggestions. With a large number of CF's and the NEXTO, you might not need to use a RED DRIVE at all. The RED RAID doesn't do anything more than the CF, so maybe just the RED RAM for high speed shots in the field.
 
drive to go

drive to go

PaulClements said:
I don't understand Mike? I'd rather give the production a Nexto at $270 than almost anything else, and if I can take the drive out of it and hand that to them then i'd be even happier. Frankly I'd just charge them for every drive they fill and never ask for them back.
Click to expand...


Yeah thats what I'm getting at Paul, give them the drive and charge for it, so potentially walk away from the job at the end of the day if client can deal with RED codec in house.


Could do without managing the logistics of trying to get stuff back from production.



Mike Brnnan
 
jtm said:
Has anyone backed up a CF card containing r3d files to the Nexto CF Ultra? has anyone used one?
Click to expand...

We use the Nexto 2525 for on set backup on every shoot. We never erase the CFs and the corresponding Nexto until the footage is on LTO and project raid.
Nexto 2525 works just great.

Hans
 
hard drives in shoots make me nervous.. id rather buy a bag-full of cf cards.. and be sure the footage works when i get home from a shaky drive... but sounds like a cool thing to have around in case cards are full and one more scene is needed
 
Just looking at speed comparisons...

6 minutes for 2GB??? Thats terrible... 24 minutes for reloading a Full 4 minute mag?

No, thank you...
 
cinemano said:
hard drives in shoots make me nervous.. id rather buy a bag-full of cf cards.. and be sure the footage works when i get home from a shaky drive... but sounds like a cool thing to have around in case cards are full and one more scene is needed
Click to expand...

Well, we keep both CFs and Nexto. Nexto is only for on set backup. We never erase cards on set. I've got 20 and that seems just right for one day.

Hans
 
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