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Please don't let MiniDV tapes go away
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David Lynch and Steven Soderbergh to name a couple
every editor in the whole world know that it's very important to see the raw footage before it's all mangled up and edited and a good opportunity to see this is during the digitization process.
This is misleading. Compression isn't the same across the board, which is why they continue to develop new codecs. The H264 codec is the most brilliant yet devised for con/prosumer use, but it will be improved upon. If you think DV is superior to H264 based solely on compression ratio, then you should stop using JPG in favor of GIF.
I used DV for over ten years professionally and now I can't wait for SD to become the prosumer standard. I use SD AVCHD for home movies (Vixia HF100) and am consistently blown away by the quality and the tremendous improvement in workflow. Goodbye log and cap!
The thread starter should take heart that, as others have pointed out, MiniDV will be around for a few more years. Hire a teenager to capture all your old tapes!
Finally, the 800 lb gorilla in the room is data storage. Storage technology just hasn't kept up with even mainstream consumers' needs. An object the size of a MiniDV tape that holds less than 15 GB of data is sorely inadequate.
Yes, but an even better opportunity to see the raw footage is when you can slice and dice in real time. Saves a lot of time, and allows for a different kind of thinking (e.g. more immediate).
It saves a lot of time unless you have dozens of clips w/useless alphanumeric names from the camera that all have to be re-named before they can be brought in to edit. I'd kill for the ability to import clips that were shot consecutively as one large clip. For example, I just got some tapes back from CES. We digitized in the whole tape as one clip and armed w/the shoot notes the editors know exactly what is where on the tape. When we shoot tapeless we have dozens of clips per hour of shot footage that all have to be renamed so all the time saved by capturing at faster than real time is pretty much lost by having to rename all the tapes. And then the projects get congested faster and editing efficiency drops because you are sifting thru dozens of small clips as opposed to a few large clips.
Right now almost everything is a trade off since we are still in the growing pains stage. It'll get better eventually but today, ugh...
Lethal
you bring up a valid point with tapeless footage. someone still has to rename those clips. with tape footage, the renaming might happen during capture. or not. regardless, i don't think that time spent capturing footage is lost time. in fact, it could be a very productive time where the editor can "cut and splice or throw away" the footage in his head, while the clip is still being digitized.
sure. but you can also get immediate feedback during this so called "capture window." as mentioned before, it is a good opporunity to splice and dice in one's mind and then when the digitization is complete, the person can immediately go to work cutting and splicing because he or she had done it before in his head.
I was mentioning this elsewhere but I think the time already has come to those who're more professionally tech-literate.
Possibly the reason for the lack of uptake is the lack of confidence in data protection / backup solutions due to the availability in the main of somewhat fisher-price solutions definitely under OS X, and furthermore the lack of knowledge to implement them. I don't have that problem since I use Vegas in preference to FCS and use proper nonstop solutions on key machines (including the machine which has all my video diatribes on) under Windows, including the possibility of complete recovery (in minutes, assuming the kit is back and working) even in the case of total RAID failure using technology far less flaky than Time Machine.
I shoot video on a Sony HDV which records to tape as well as to memory - one of the main reasons I bought it, being conditioned for the master archival practice. However although I still archive tapes, I'm not really seeing a truly justifiable need for it anymore given the data protection infrastructure that we have. Once the prices for the sort of technology we currently use filters down to the small-video-house level of SME and then gets dumbed down enough for OS X (and to a certain extent Apple finally abandons the license restrictions on virtualising OS X clients), I don't think it'll take much more than a couple of years for digital videographers to realise that tape is almost totally redundant, although I still see a ready market for a while for dual media recorders aimed at those who still need, as a belt & braces approach, tape archival.
I agree with you. I worked like this for years and years--it's how we all started out. Now that I have learned to work with tapeless, though, I think my workflow is faster. We could get into the minutia of what really makes for "better" editing... but let's not.
It all depends on the situation though. For a low volume shop dealing w/formats that leave a relatively small footprint going to a tapeless archiving model will become viable sooner than a high volume shop dealing w/formats that leave a relatively large footprint. W/that being said, data tape is still the best solution for digital archiving so tape as a medium is going to be w/us for a long time. Sure, Reds and Vipers shoot tapeless but those digital files get stored on mirrored data tapes as soon as they come out of the camera.
I worked on a show once where we had 2500hrs of footage. At the end of the show we boxed up all the videotapes and they went to a climate controlled storage facility (if the show had a larger budget the tapes would have been cloned first w/the clones going to one facility and the masters going to another). At online quality we'd need about 100TBs of storage to hold all of it. Tapes in boxes seems like a more cost effective solution than properly building and maintaining a 100TB server indefinitely (or two mirrored servers in two different geographical locations ideally). At the company I work at now we literally have thousands of tapes in our library and shoot about 1000hrs of new stuff each year. That's a lot of data.
Assuming solid state media proves to have a long shelf life then that's what will probably replace videotape all around once prices come down. Shoot on an SD card, dump the contents onto your computer then put the card on the shelf as your camera master.
Lethal
Well - while individual DV tapes are the easiest to get people's heads around, the alternative doesn't have to be online storage.
You can even stick to tapes, albeit of a different kind: There are already solutions in OS X beta http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/macosx/pe/ for archiving from NLE (and others) to e.g. an autoloader.
You can even stick to tapes, albeit of a different kind: There are already solutions in OS X beta http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/macosx/pe/ for archiving from NLE (and others) to e.g. an autoloader.
Just to be clear, when I used the term "online" I was using it in the post production sense meaning "full quality" not in the computer sense of "the internet". If you don't use camera tapes as masters what you are left with are DVDs (which are too small), BR-DVDs (which are unproven and still pricey), HDDs (which are unreliable) solid state media (which hasn't reached a right price-per-gig yet) and data tapes (which are out of the price range of consumers as well as many prosumers). Assuming you shot on a quality tape stock it's hard to beat that bang-for-your-buck when your shooting stock is your archival stock and all you need to do is put in it a box in a climate controlled environment. As tapeless cameras become more common I think we'll see more people adapt data tape (they'll buy a DLT drive instead of a tape deck) and hopefully that increase in the consumer base will force prices down.
Yeah, I've mentioned data tape a few times already in this thread.
Lethal
I'm still using minidv for my hdv canon hv30, but sooner or later I'm moving on(to tapeless and prosumer level).
Tape is starting to reach it's limits for what cameras can do.
The next standard for me is probably going to be sdhc cards, with prices continually dropping it's going to seen be viable to shoot to a card, and shelf the card afterwards for archiving.
JVC's new camera coming out(JVC's GY-HM100) shoots the high quality xdcam ex format straight to quicktime files in any common HD resolution or framerate.
1920x1080 60i-50i-30p-25p-24p, 1440x1080 60i-50i, 720p 60-50-30-25-24
You can't get that format flexibility and instant access in final cut with tape, it's literally drag and drop and you're ready to edit. Also this camera shoots up to 35mbps as apposed to miniDV's limit of 25mbps.
Now to be honest until this camera was revealed a few days ago I wasn't over tape, no tapeless solutions really 'got it' because you still had to transcode or rewrap files before editing them, there wasn't instant access.
I have high hopes for this camera, but I hope it sets the standard of how camera makers should approach the formats their cameras shoot from now on.
Tape is starting to reach it's limits for what cameras can do.
The next standard for me is probably going to be sdhc cards, with prices continually dropping it's going to seen be viable to shoot to a card, and shelf the card afterwards for archiving.
JVC's new camera coming out(JVC's GY-HM100) shoots the high quality xdcam ex format straight to quicktime files in any common HD resolution or framerate.
1920x1080 60i-50i-30p-25p-24p, 1440x1080 60i-50i, 720p 60-50-30-25-24
You can't get that format flexibility and instant access in final cut with tape, it's literally drag and drop and you're ready to edit. Also this camera shoots up to 35mbps as apposed to miniDV's limit of 25mbps.
Now to be honest until this camera was revealed a few days ago I wasn't over tape, no tapeless solutions really 'got it' because you still had to transcode or rewrap files before editing them, there wasn't instant access.
I have high hopes for this camera, but I hope it sets the standard of how camera makers should approach the formats their cameras shoot from now on.
Just to be clear, when I used the term "online" I was using it in the post production sense meaning "full quality" not in the computer sense of "the internet". If you don't use camera tapes as masters what you are left with are DVDs (which are too small), BR-DVDs (which are unproven and still pricey), HDDs (which are unreliable) solid state media (which hasn't reached a right price-per-gig yet) and data tapes (which are out of the price range of consumers as well as many prosumers). Assuming you shot on a quality tape stock it's hard to beat that bang-for-your-buck when your shooting stock is your archival stock and all you need to do is put in it a box in a climate controlled environment. As tapeless cameras become more common I think we'll see more people adapt data tape (they'll buy a DLT drive instead of a tape deck) and hopefully that increase in the consumer base will force prices down.
Yeah, I've mentioned data tape a few times already in this thread.
Lethal
By online I actually meant in the digital broadcast terminology - i.e. 'HDD's that are actually connected to stuff which spins them and reads data from them', referencing your datacenter mention.
I didn't see your data tape reference and although as a regular user of LTO's I actually have less confidence in them as opposed to (my / broadcast definition of) online and nearline storage, I think the tape mentality will keep solutions in that regard viable for a long time.
That JVC does look like it could be a good camera, the 1/4" CCDs are a bit worrisome though. One of the biggest reasons EX1 footage looks so nice is because it uses 1/2", a full raster 1920x1080 sensor. The big brother to that JVC will have 1/3" CCDs in it which is a 'standard' size for prosumer cameras. The transcoding/rewrapping is as much Apple's fault as it is the camera makers. For example, footage from P2 cards can be imported directly into other NLEs (such as Avid) but it has to be re-wrapped for FCP. Having to transcode AVCHD footage into AIC or ProRes is just what has to be done to make editing that type of footage viable on todays machines. The compression scheme is so CPU taxing that editing it would be painfully slow. Also, the 35Mbps codec that JVC uses isn't the same codec that the EX1 uses but they are both 35Mbps and full raster.
Ah, online... one word, so many definitions. Maintaining a large (and perpetually growing if you never move anything offline) online and nearline system though gets complicated and expensive does it not? Especially when backing up/archiving 'done right' dictates multiple copies in different geographical locations. Like I said before, on a relatively small scale it's doable today, but when you start talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of TBs of data that's just going to be sitting there and rarely, if ever, accessed, it just seems like a waste resources. I mean, do the editors working on the 8th season of Scrubs really need online or nearline access to all the dailies from the pilot episode? The majority of productions today still use a traditional online/offline workflow. It's a big step from only onlining what you need for the final cut to onlining everything ever shot for that particular TV show, movie, etc.,. Whether it's a tape, a can of film, or a holographic disc I think there will always be a need for a long-life format that you can just put on a shelf. At least in industries like the entertainment industry.
Lethal
A couple of guys I've never heard of.. maybe Lynch his name kinda rings a bell but the other guys doesn't.
As far as digitizing its still a time consuming effort and as I've said we can all grab coffee come back and have it done but still I'd rather work on a video while the juices are still flowing you know what I mean?
I'd suggest you Google them and add some of their movies to your Netflix queue as they are both among the more talented and prominent directors of the last 30 years or so.
Or you can watch the footage, get a feel for it, take brief notes regarding your initial impressions so that when you get your hands on it you already have a familiarity w/it. Think about ways to be productive instead of reasons why you can't be.
Lethal
I'd suggest you Google them and add some of their movies to your Netflix queue as they are both among the more talented and prominent directors of the last 30 years or so.
Or you can watch the footage, get a feel for it, take brief notes regarding your initial impressions so that when you get your hands on it you already have a familiarity w/it. Think about ways to be productive instead of reasons why you can't be.
Lethal
I'll check em out
As for the video you can always scrub through it when its done downloading and get right to work
time is money 
I myself prefer minidv. I had a fire at my house recently which damaged both my Canon XH A1 and my Sony HC1. I'm looking to replace them both, but will probably go the minidv route.
This is one of the drawbacks to me of minidv. I have so much video that I've recorded over the years that I'll probably never get to. this is because it's not convenient to connect a camera, import, etc.
I wish I had something that recorded to both tape and a removable format so that I could always have the tape backup, but have something readily available to work with too - something small I could leave in my laptop bag to import when I had a chance. Recording to HDD isn't ideal for me either since whenever i had to do something, I would need the camera on me.
memory being hard drive or removable format? One of the reasons I am leaning towards the XH A1s instead of getting another XH A1 is that (from what I understand) it's supposed to be easier to record via firewire to a hard drive too. Now when I record w/ my XH A1, I'd be somewhere stationary so I could definitely take advantage of this. But when I use the prosumer camera I'm looking to buy (to replace the HC1), I probably couldn't record via firewire to a hard drive. So, again, I would love something that recorded to both a small, removable media as well as tape.
heh, I have this same project for a movie me and a few friends shot over the summer of 2000 (although the "movie" we ultimately made is so horrible that I just want to make the whole thing into a short, fun, YouTube-ish trailer). I have all the raw footage in hi8 but don't have a hi8 camcorder anymore. I did export the final product to minidv so could work with that. But I thought it'd be good to just work w/ the raw footage again.
This is one of the drawbacks to me of minidv. I have so much video that I've recorded over the years that I'll probably never get to. this is because it's not convenient to connect a camera, import, etc.
I wish I had something that recorded to both tape and a removable format so that I could always have the tape backup, but have something readily available to work with too - something small I could leave in my laptop bag to import when I had a chance. Recording to HDD isn't ideal for me either since whenever i had to do something, I would need the camera on me.
memory being hard drive or removable format? One of the reasons I am leaning towards the XH A1s instead of getting another XH A1 is that (from what I understand) it's supposed to be easier to record via firewire to a hard drive too. Now when I record w/ my XH A1, I'd be somewhere stationary so I could definitely take advantage of this. But when I use the prosumer camera I'm looking to buy (to replace the HC1), I probably couldn't record via firewire to a hard drive. So, again, I would love something that recorded to both a small, removable media as well as tape.
heh, I have this same project for a movie me and a few friends shot over the summer of 2000 (although the "movie" we ultimately made is so horrible that I just want to make the whole thing into a short, fun, YouTube-ish trailer). I have all the raw footage in hi8 but don't have a hi8 camcorder anymore. I did export the final product to minidv so could work with that. But I thought it'd be good to just work w/ the raw footage again.
Don't forget, that if you use HDs to capture and archive your video, you will need more than one for back up purposes.
So if you purchase a 1TB SATA hard drive and capture video you would need at least one other 1TB hard drive to back up your video. So it would cost a bit more than this.
Plus once you have finished your video, you can back it up the MiniDV tapes. The tapes will last a long time compared to a hard drive.
And if you want you can always us DV tape which holds a lot more video.
Don't worry, I won't let MiniDV tapes go away. I just have to tweak this letter to my congressman in WordPerfect, changing "8-track tape" to read "MiniDV tape"...