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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 :)

Playback and archive

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Scott Sniffen

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Can anyone fill us in on the process and ease of playback in the field? Also, how is the archiving of footage being addressed. Say one has finished and edited a project. Now what? Where does the footage reside?
 
I'm also not sure about the archive options.

i can see that the tapeless acquisition thing is the future but how do we archive huge data sets?

My clients sometimes come back years later and want stuff re-edited - where's the footage going to be?

The only thing I've seen recently that might work is the Ikegami holographhic storage system which they say is around 10 cents per GB.

Don't know if this could be adopted for RED transfers.
 
The camera can play the recordings back. Quite a lot of people probably bring a laptop (and possibly a 'truck' to backup footage shot / clear a magazine) and check on set. Bigger productions will probably have a video village with a DIT that records the HDMI or HD-SDI output from the camera to playback 720 or 1080 to the director and other people who need to check it while the camera crew gets ready for the next shot.

We're looking into tape systems for archival. Some customers also mentioned they might just store harddisks on a shelve.

Since the RED camera is an "IT" based camera (you record files to a drive which you then connect to a computer) the normal backup solutions like tape robots and such apply.
 
For the last 6 or 7 months, I've been looking into various archiving solutions that would best fit high-end, data-centric, video workflows. The best thing I've seen so far is the Quantum SDLT 600A tape drive. It can be plugged directly into your existing network, via Gigabit ethernet, and is then seen as a drive by any PC or MAC on your network. What's even better is that an LTO-3 version will be shipping next month, with higher capacity tapes and much faster transfer speeds. The form factor of the drive is not to big and could definitely be used for mobile solutions (ie plug into a laptop and dump your red drive data direct to tape while on set or on the road). There are a lot of benefits to this system, especially if you compare it to traditional video tape solutions. These drives are much cheaper then decks, tape capacities are much larger, archive life is 30 years and the system can be easily and inexpensively integrated into existing infrastructure. Check out these links

http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DLT/SDLT600A/Index.aspx
http://www.quantum.com/AboutUs/PressReleases/index.aspx?FullStory=4

I was really hoping that Red was going to suggest various back-up and archive solutions at NAB, but I haven't really herd anything come out of the Red camp in regards to this. I do remember Stuart or Rob mentioning the Quantum drive at one point, which gave me some comfort in my conclusion that this is one of the better solutions for the time being, but if anyone has found something better, please let us know. How is the Red team managing all the data that they've been acquiring?

best regards,

jeremy
 
Rob Lohman said:
Some customers also mentioned they might just store harddisks on a shelve.
Click to expand...

I've herd a lot of people mention this and I know that it can be an attractive idea, because hard drives have become so cheap, but in the long run I don't think it's a good idea. Hard drives are not built to sit on shelves, they need to be spinning in order to stay healthy. I see a lot of people archiving this way now, but what happens 2 years down the road when they need to pull some footage and they dust off that drive that all of a sudden won't spin up. I'm sure this system will work to a certain extent, but the reliability just isn't there, especially for long-term archiving solutions.

best regards,

jeremy
 
Archiving options.

Archiving options.

I concur. Data tape appears to be the most practical and robust digital archive choice. Quantum's networkable LTO-3 drive is going to be a good choice, and I'm still interested in the AIT-5 drive family from Sony, as they are smaller and less expensive, so a good compliment to the faster LTO-3 product.
 
I have researched much of the market for this on going storage debate and obviously your budget will dictate what solution is best for you. The holographic technology (ie. Inphase) looks promising but early to tell and still expensive (for the indie user) and for myself I have found Quantum's SDLT 600a solution to fit the bill. A producer friend of mine would prefer the Sony AIT-5 route because he feels he can rely on SONY still being around in the next 30 years to service parts etc, not a bad point…plus its cheaper.

Best
 
Archive hard drive vs. tape

Archive hard drive vs. tape

I have wondered about this as far as the hard drives long term health. Although I understand the issues of lubricants and bearings getting stuck, isn't the data on the platters actually as much or more robust than the tapes? I've always thought that all of the different tape formats, video and data, were a huge long term problem because interchange becomes an issue over time and finding a drive to play your old format could be tough. It seems to me a lot tougher to keep a helical scan, spinning head type of machine working - or to build a new one sometime down the road (think about what it would cost to have Sony or Ampex build a new D2 machine 10 years from now).

It seems like fairly soon the IT world and/or the government ought to call for either a standard tape format and/or a standard drive format designed specifically for long term archival use. It seems to me drive platters ultimately would be more robust since there is no tape to stretch, curl, stick to itself, etc. Optical always sounds great but it seems to have had significant degradation issues even in the short time we have been using optical discs.

What is the record of the various data tape formats from 10-20 years ago still working well today?


jnewm said:
I've herd a lot of people mention this and I know that it can be an attractive idea, because hard drives have become so cheap, but in the long run I don't think it's a good idea. Hard drives are not built to sit on shelves, they need to be spinning in order to stay healthy. I see a lot of people archiving this way now, but what happens 2 years down the road when they need to pull some footage and they dust off that drive that all of a sudden won't spin up. I'm sure this system will work to a certain extent, but the reliability just isn't there, especially for long-term archiving solutions.

best regards,

jeremy
Click to expand...
 
No single archive medium is going to be 1000%. Apart from silicon tablets engraved by lasers maybe.

Seriously though I would not bank on any particular drive technology lasting more than a few years - my Beta SP deck blew up the other day so no way of looking at old SP easily now.

I like the idea of an international standard - hard to imagine it happening though.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
I have wondered about this as far as the hard drives long term health. Although I understand the issues of lubricants and bearings getting stuck, isn't the data on the platters actually as much or more robust than the tapes?
Click to expand...

AquaVideoRed206 said:
It seems to me drive platters ultimately would be more robust since there is no tape to stretch, curl, stick to itself, etc
Click to expand...

This may be true, drive platters may be more robust then tape, I don't know. But at the moment, know one is making drive platters in a format for archiving, that I know of at least. So while it may be more robust, the medium in which it currently exists is for other purposes. Drives are meant to be in use, not on a shelf.

AquaVideoRed206 said:
I've always thought that all of the different tape formats, video and data, were a huge long term problem because interchange becomes an issue over time and finding a drive to play your old format could be tough. It seems to me a lot tougher to keep a helical scan, spinning head type of machine working - or to build a new one sometime down the road (think about what it would cost to have Sony or Ampex build a new D2 machine 10 years from now).
Click to expand...

You could argue the same against hard drives, 5 years ago almost all hard drives had an ATA interface, now most are SATA. Who knows what it will be 10-15 years from now, since technology moves so fast. While this might not be the strongest argument, I'm just trying to make the point that technology is always getting outdated, and this seems to be moving faster and faster. So for the long-term, you have to weigh your options and go with what you think will be the best solution, not knowing how things will be 10, 20, 30 years down the line.

The newer types of tape media try to address these issues better then older tape formats did, with most hardware being able to read media from the previous 2 or 3 generations.

AquaVideoRed206 said:
What is the record of the various data tape formats from 10-20 years ago still working well today?
Click to expand...

If we are talking 10-20 years then things look pretty good. DLT technology has been around since the mid 80's. LTO and DLT are linear tape technology, not helical. Linear has been around for much longer and has a long proven track record. Helical is not necessarily taking over linear, you still have new linear technologies being introduced, like StorageTek's T10000, which was introduced last year.

Another important point to make is that for companies like Quantum and StorageTek, who make these tape technologies, this is all they do. Their sole business is creating long-term storage and archiving solutions for data. And they've been doing it for 20 - 30 years. However, for the video world, data-centric workflows are still fairly young, we're just getting into this game, and these companies with proven track records are starting to realize that we are here, so they are just starting to introduce solutions aimed directly at the pro-video industry. Until the the hard-drive manufacturers move into this arena with using disk platters for long-term archival solutions, then I think tape is the way to go. I'll stop hear and let the discussion continue.
 
If one is considering hard drives as a storage solution, why not buy a shell to put them in a keep them active from time to time, like a cheap dell server or something.
 
Hard drive based storage is really only a short term solution. Your not going to be accessing video from hard drives that are 20 years old in 20 years time unless you keep migrating it, and at the rate youll be accumulating data thats going to be a scary thought after the first few years let alone after 30. We are waiting on pricing here in Aus on the Quantum SDLT 600A which is due to be released here next week. I actually rang Quantum yesterday about it. They guarantee data integrity for a least 30 years but would probably last a lot longer than that. In 10 to 30 years youll have a far better way of archiving than DLT but at least your old data will be safe and simple to migrate. Turner Broadcasting are using them with no problems apparently. The system also contains key MXF metadata and permits access to subclips by timecode.
 
We're probably going to hold out for the LTO-3 version which should be out next month. The bonus being 400gig tapes, allowing you to dump all the contents of a full red drive to one tape, not to mention the faster transfer rates of up to 544 Mb/sec. compared to 288 Mb/sec. of the SDLT tapes. LTO-3 tapes are also about the same price as SDLT II media, but you get 25% more capacity on LTO-3. Quantum is listing MSRP of the LTO-3 version at $7,950 US, since they have offices in Australia, I can't imagine pricing being much different there.
 
jnewm said:
We're probably going to hold out for the LTO-3 version which should be out next month. The bonus being 400gig tapes, allowing you to dump all the contents of a full red drive to one tape, not to mention the faster transfer rates of up to 544 Mb/sec. compared to 288 Mb/sec. of the SDLT tapes. LTO-3 tapes are also about the same price as SDLT II media, but you get 25% more capacity on LTO-3. Quantum is listing MSRP of the LTO-3 version at $7,950 US, since they have offices in Australia, I can't imagine pricing being much different there.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that makes then about 10k Aus which is what Im expecting with the SDLT's. Im wondering what kind of price the new LTO's are going to go for. I dont know whether the new LTO's will have the access and metadata features of the SDLT drive.
 
Bachman said:
Yeah, that makes then about 10k Aus which is what Im expecting with the SDLT's. Im wondering what kind of price the new LTO's are going to go for. I dont know whether the new LTO's will have the access and metadata features of the SDLT drive.
Click to expand...

That price is for the LTO version and it will have the same MXF-aware features. You can read the NAB press release here.

http://www.quantum.com/AboutUs/PressReleases/index.aspx?FullStory=4 jeremy
 
Rob or Stuart,

In regards to drives sitting on a shelf. Have you looked into MAID systems?

Maybe for a expanded data workflow.

If a semi robust red battery backup 5 HDD field achieve pack with a RAID 5/6 has MAID system configuration. That the drives could be removed from the field pack and placed into a more permanent (rackmount?) frame. Which becomes part of a larger on line modular MAID achieve system.

With Final cut server it maybe possible to media manage and having all achieves/backups nearline as part of the Red workflow. With media management at a fraction of the price that it costed 12months ago it would allow the achieve/backups to be more excessible. If tape in a few years is still the best $perGB then in could be deep achieved to data tape but would be still be media managed in one system.

David
 
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