So maybe tape still isn't dead.

[steve]

I see that Sony have launched two new HDV cameras in Japan:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/04/sony-debuts-hdr-fx1000-hvr-z5j-high-def-camcorders/

http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-16651-Sony+HDR-FX1000+now+in+Japan.html

They are not afterthoughts, but serious replacements (or complements) for the FX1/Z1 and FX7/V1 ranges. Its interesting that Sony still take HDV tape seriously for those who need to shoot, edit and then archive with sensible costs. They also offer a CF recorder similar to the Z7, so maybe this will become the transition route from tape to SS recording.

Of course there will be those who consider 1980 horizontal resolution more important, but this range seems to be fitted with the new Exmore sensors which give good low-light performance.

Steve

[infocus]

Of course there will be those who consider 1980 horizontal resolution more important, but this range seems to be fitted with the new Exmore sensors which give good low-light performance.
Worth noting that the size of the individual pixels is the same between these cameras (1/3" chips) and the EX cameras. The EX has twice as many pixels/chip, but sensors with twice the area - 1/2". Hence the low light performance should be comparable between the two, but obviously the EX will have better resolution.

I'm sure that ninety years ago the equivalent to internet forums amongst the farming community were full of titles like "Is the age of the horse over?" Well, steam and internal combustion engines were certainly pointing the way forward, but it took quite a while for the last horse drawn plough to disappear, for good reasons. It can often be easier to predict the more distant future than the change over period.

[steve]

I don't have an axe to grind either way as to whether tape cameras are offered much longer. Its more an issue of with no other low-cost archive medium to compete yet, tape still has a role. Like the Z7 CF recorder, this camera's gadget seems to be a convenient dual mode system. There are times when the (almost) infinite capacity of tapes during a session will be needed, but the facility for a quick rush of a short session on CF would be very convenient without having to make serious investments in SS storage.

I assume that Sony will roll these models out globally as there is a fair amount of investment to recoup. I imagine they will get a fair amount of support from the wedding video market.

Steve

[Steamage]

See this News thread (http://forums.dvdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=325112#post325112) for more info (and opinions!)

[steve]

Oops, I don't normally look at the News forum.

Thanks, plenty more info there.

Steve

[Alan Roberts]

It isn't really the manufacturers who are pushing tapeless (possibly except Panasonic), it's big broadcasters who have to manage their workflow and archive, and who are permanently buried under oceans of tape, which they can't search on-line and remotely. For them, tapeless is a solution to a big problem. To all others, tapeless is an expense. Panasonic are well on the way to making it all work, which is why the BBC's looking on them with more favour than in years past. Sony seems to be more interested in producing a constant stream of new models in whatever format current still sells. I've no problem with that though, it's how they make their living.

[drgagx]

How do the BBC and other broadcasters, who have gone tapeless, archive their material? Is it all on hard drives? With what backup?

I am curious because there is a discussion over at the Edius forum about how to archive P2 HD material - none broadcasters I believe - and some are recommending LTO tape archive.

My foray into HD, when it happens, will be using AVCHD and archiving will be an issue for me.

[infocus]

It isn't really the manufacturers who are pushing tapeless (possibly except Panasonic), it's big broadcasters who have to manage their workflow and archive, and who are permanently buried under oceans of tape, which they can't search on-line and remotely. For them, tapeless is a solution to a big problem.
My feeling is that when broadcasters currently refer to "tapeless" it's predominantly connected with the post side and archive, much less so (at the moment) with acquisition. The trend seems to have started (and be most advanced) with news and newsrooms, and is moving on to other genres.

Acquisition is the next stage, and many "tapeless" newsrooms still acquire on tape. (I've just been hearing stories from an editor who was handed a hard drive of material, and found it took longer to ingest into his system than if it was taken in in real time from DVCAM!)

Undoubtably tapeless is the future, and solid state at that. Whilst I'll agree that Panasonic may be well on the way to making it all work technically, they don't seem to have recognised many of the practical issues, which I suspect may be one very good reason that so much tape is still being shot..........

Sony have just said they will sell the solid state Compact Flash recorder (as bundled with the Z7) as a separate item, and are making big play this IBC of the very "HYBRID" concept (their capitals). After all I've said in the past, hardly surprisingly, I now think they're going very much in the right direction. :)

[PaulD]

How do the BBC and other broadcasters, who have gone tapeless, archive their material? Is it all on hard drives? With what backup?Hi
There was a magazine article I linked to a couple of years ago which described the huge linux-based multiple media server operation, with their own management software, that the BBC were trialing - hundreds/thousands of huge fully-powered-up RAID arrays, with full redundancy, to store the archive.

[Alan Roberts]

Yes, that's all correct. "Tapeless" means tapeless processing. What they're trying to get away from is a crazy situation I was in few years ago:

I'd been called into Soho to fix a problem. It involved some shots from one camera in one location. The cure was to use those slots in a slightly different way from how the editor and director had intended, but still told the story in the right way. The stuff was shot on tape, and had been ingested into a software editor in the usual way. What I found was mad, they were unable to get into the edit to show me the shots at issue, because the system was busily compiling a HDCAM tape (yes, doing an insert edit compilation, shot by shot) of the edit, to go to the colour grader. He would ingest it, again shot by shot, process and put them back as another insert edit. Both operations were entirely software based, and they happened on different floors of the same building in the same company. A more spectacular waste of time would be hard to imagine.

The tapeless work flow has the shots ingested into a server. The editor edits by proxies, or into a finished project on the same or a different server. The colourist accesses either the original shots and the edl, or a compiled edit, and does his job on that. Meanwhile the same original shots and edl, or compiled edit, can still be used for tinkering or showing or whatever.

The whole point is that tape no longer takes part on the process. Original shooting and final delivery, and archiving can all be on tape, but the process is all in software.

Archiving: always a problem. What I've been telling people for a long time is that video tape is not on the way out, it went out many years ago. The last time any of us used video tape was the last time we used Digibeta SP. Since then, we've all been recording data files. It's not video, it's data. Once you grasp that idea firmly, you can see that there's a simple way to archive, use an IT archiving system. It's our insistence on calling the cameras and data players "video" that's the problem, move away from that, and use the archiving systems of the IT industry, and we're home and dry. This works for banks, why not for us? The only point is that the IT tapes would have a continuous stream of data that's decodable by relatively simple "video" players, it has to go back into an IT system to use it, but I can't see a problem with that. The BBC's mega server simply puts off the time when you move stuff out to the less permanent archive, but uses an IT access and backup system just like any other IT system.

Over to you :)

P.S. I believe that Ray Liffen has been using a similar system for some years, except that it isn'a single server, he works each project on a hard drive in a caddy, and doesn't put anything else on it. Once the project's finished, the caddy comes out and stands on a shelf in a big heap with all the others. This is a tapeless workflow, just the same.

[Mark M]

P.S. I believe that Ray Liffen has been using a similar system for some years, except that it isn'a single server, he works each project on a hard drive in a caddy, and doesn't put anything else on it. Once the project's finished, the caddy comes out and stands on a shelf in a big heap with all the others. This is a tapeless workflow, just the same.

I thought we all did this! At pennies for gigabytes these days it seems the most sensible way. Especially now that there are devices which just let you plug in an SATA disc to computer without need of caddy.

Though I also create some redundancy by writing project files, artwork, edited audio to optical disk, as well as laying off the final edit to DV or DVCAM tape. Had one too many hard discs (i.e. one) fail when reinserted after a long rest to ever want to risk part of my archive to one solitary unraided disc ever again.

[infocus]

Yes, that's all correct. "Tapeless" means tapeless processing. ...........

The whole point is that tape no longer takes part on the process. Original shooting and final delivery, and archiving can all be on tape, but the process is all in software.

Over to you :)
An equivalent situation may be in newsroom environment where z single piece of material may be in demand for more than one thing at a time. The Prime Minister makes a very important announcement, and (say) the broadcaster wants to edit three packages at the same time - a straight news one, a "what does it mean for business" one, and a political one. Three editors may want to edit from the same tape at the same time. Problem - which goes away with a tapeless production workflow.

But for many on this forum I suspect "tapeless" primarily means acquisition, and here the advantages may not be so clear cut as with post. After a tape is ingested, all the tapeless advantages apply anyway, and often the ingest can be used to review the contents. Equally, much of the material (the PMs speech, for example) may be linked back as it happens for real time ingest.

Eventually, yes, acquisition will be solid state, but at the moment it's seen to bring as many problems as it solves - if it has to be one or the other. That's why I think Sonys embrace of hybrid solutions is a good idea. Solid state when it has real benefits, tape or disc or other times.

[Alan Roberts]

Quite so. I'm no evangelist for tapeless throughout, I can't afford it. But, I do only high days and holidays, two or three edits a year, and only for me, not paying clients. It might be difficult if I were doing a job or two a week. And it would certainly be different if I were in that newsroom situation, then I'd be kicking and screaming for tapeless at any price.

Mark, yes I know lots of us work that way already, but Ray's operation is the only one I have first hand experience of.

[SimonMW]

That's why I think Sonys embrace of hybrid solutions is a good idea. Solid state when it has real benefits, tape or disc or other times.

Mind you, something like the U1 XDCAM drive, now that it can write any data you wish (not just XDCAM video) to a 50GB disc means that many solid state solutions are now workable for smaller operations.

Quite ironic that some independents have now found P2 to be viable now that the XDCAM U1 drive is useful.

[Alan Roberts]

Solid state acquisition makes sense only if you have a semi-portable backup store. You should regard the solid state device as a transport means and not a storage medium, it's a way of getting the footage from the camera into the edit store, i.e. a cable with memory. The trick is that it stores data files and not continuous video, so it's all ready for the edit.

[Muse mode]
Bear in mind that making a copy and then deleting the original is dangerous until you've verified the copy. At present, the files we're making are not very robust, so things will have to change. What we need is for something like a cyclic redundancy check to be added to every file when it's generated, so that the software can recalculate it quickly at any time and compare it with what's stored to see if there's been any corruption. It's quicker than full error protection and consumes less data space, although full error correction is what you'd get if did di the proper thing of consigning all our video files to IT, where they'd get full error detection and correction at the expense of larger files.

The high-end video formats all have error detection and correction, because they need it, while the lower end (DV, HDV etc) have virtually no protection, which is why they go wrong from time to time. The problem with proper protection is that it can add up to 30% to the data rate, a big issue when we're counting the petabytes.
[/Muse mode]

[Steamage]

I'm certainly interested in the Sony CF recorder to work with my Canon XH-A1. I see it having one main purpose and two useful side effects:
Main use: I've had a few problem with my camera not writing the image to tape, or at least not in a form that anything can read it back. The camera has been back to Canon, twice, for repairs but I'm not confident it won't do it again. Moreover, a tape drop-out in HDV means a half-second freeze. Recording to CF as well as tape gives me a second copy that I can use to cover any shots affected by a tape glitch. I'd simply copy the glitch-free section from CF onto the end of the day's tape shots, if necessary.
Side benefit 1: quicker and easier import into the computer if I want to use it straight away. (My normal work flow is to gradually acquire footage for different projects, archive it, then pull it together at the end of the year or whenever I've got enough.)
Side benefit 2: 3-second buffer written onto the front of each shot when you press the start button. No more missed loco whistles!
I'm hoping the rumoured price (£500) is an over-estimate, though. That's as much as some AVCHD cameras!

[infocus]

Solid state acquisition makes sense only if you have a semi-portable backup store.
Depends on what bit of the market you're in. For things like news, sport etc that just isn't fast enough, often it's necessary to just shoot, hand media over, put new media in camera, carry on working.

Organisations that have used P2 have had to just get enough cards to support being able to do just that, and make sure they have a good system in place for removing wanted material from the cards quickly, for rapidly turning them around.

Cheaper than P2 forms of solid state memory are also meaning that enough capacity can be carried for an entire shoot, the downloading waiting until being back at base. That's why such as the Sony Compact Flash recorder are getting so much interest at the moment.

[Alan Roberts]

Yes, wholly agree.

A potential wildlife shoot was planning to equip each P2 camera with 10 cards, enough for a day. But the point is still true that the cards won't get used as permanent stores, they're recycled, they're only a cable with memory. That'll be true until they drop in price to somewhere close to current tape prices.

What's important, about this move to tapeless, is that it changes the workflow. It's not just changing the recording medium, it's fundamentally changing the whole process, and for the better in my opinion. The bigger the organisation, the bigger the effect.

[infocus]

But the point is still true that the cards won't get used as permanent stores, they're recycled, they're only a cable with memory. That'll be true until they drop in price to somewhere close to current tape prices.
The latter may come far sooner to the prosumer world (via Compact Flash) and the consumer world (via SD) than the pro world (via SxS and P2). I was pretty amazed the other day to be e-mailed details of the prices of CF cards in the US - not cheap, slow unbranded, but Transcend 133x in this case.

32GB - $99.
16GB - $48.99
8GB - $26.99

In other words, a range of sizes, and at about $3/GB! At todays exchange rates, the 32GB works out at £1.73 per GB. I haven't found them that cheap in the UK yet, but....

[JGNattrass]

I use the transcend 16gb cards with my Z7 as they give 73 mins which is 10 more than the HDV cassette that is running as back-up.

I pay around £50 a card delivered so those american prices are very good.

My workflow for IPTV is shoot HDV and HDV compact flash and I use the card to import into final cut pro via clipwrap and the tape is on the shelf as back-up.

I can also go direct from CF into avid media composer if needed as it imports the m2t files direct.

As for archive well I dont bother as once a master is made then the media can be deleted knowing that the HDV tape is always there as belt and braces.

[infocus]

A potential wildlife shoot was planning to equip each P2 camera with 10 cards, enough for a day. But the point is still true that the cards won't get used as permanent stores, they're recycled, they're only a cable with memory. That'll be true until they drop in price to somewhere close to current tape prices.
I'd be interested if they'd factored in the cost of transfering the cards every night.

Not really in terms of the cost per GB, but in terms of time? Assuming eating/sleeping time for the crew has already likely been paired to the bone, is there going to be somebody whose job it will specifically be to do the download? Or will an hour or twos shooting time be sacrificed for downloading time?

I'm guessing 16GB cards, enough for about 2 1/2 hours of 100Mbs video, so about 160GB maximum. If we assume the 10 cards need to be transferred off to dual redundant hard drives and verified every day that's a significant amount of time and effort. And critical enough that if it relies on a tired crew to do it after a hard day, with the likelihood of an early start the next day, there's a strong chance of making a mistake.

Isn't it far more satisfactory to acquire to good old tape or XDCAM, and worry about the ingest back in comfort? With a fully tapeless workflow from there on?

[Alan Roberts]

Bear in mind that current tape prices (DV/HDV) are about 10p/GB, so we've still got some way to go.