HVX & Documentary Shooting: Possible??

David Gottlieb · December 12, 2005

I have had an enourmous interest in this camera and am very excited that it will actually be released, but I recently found out that I will have the opportunity to make a doumentary out of the country for a month, and this camera's filmmaking advantages have seemed to falter with the thought of a documentary. I haven't given up yet, and am curious for any suggestions and comments: all equipment is unpurchased as of yet (this documentary will be shot in the summer) and I'm curious to everyone's thoughts and advice.

Should I go with 2 8GB cards or 5 4GB cards, or rather wait until June and see what is available then (a larger portable device called the Cineporter might be out by then that can hold up to 240GB on camera)?Also, should I get a large G-Raid to take along with me, so I could plug the P2s into a labtop and transfer them off from the labtop to the external? Or is there a more practical solution for mass data storage? I will need continuous footage and interviews, and I was thinking in this regard the 5 4GB cards might be more useful. I will use this camera for at least 2 feature length movies before this project, so I need some solution for now but want to think ahead to maximize my purchase. There also is a 60GB portable card reader right now but I am not sure how valuable it is if I have a labtop present that will almost certainly have more storage.

For more specifics, the two movies I plan to shoot in DVCPROHD 24p (highest quality), while the documentary's format has not been decided; however, I want to avoid DV, which I find distracting, although DVCPRO25 and DVCPRO50 aren't off the table (i.e. will need data solution, won't use DV tapes). Any comments and opinions are always appreciated!

Jonathan Bryant · December 16, 2005

Look for the Firestore harddrive to become available which will allow I think upto 200 minutes of 720p and like 100 minutes of 1080p

I have my eye on this camera but personally will all footage you have in a doc I would probably rather use an HDV solution due to fact that 60min dv tapes cost only 3 bucks now. And from what I understand they fare pretty close to the $15 master hdv series that sonly is pushing.

Of course you could always have some intern just exchange p2 cards back and forth from the camera to the hard drive. I can only imagine someday they will have a wireless link between your camera and a laptop so someone can monitor your shots and record them remotely. Wait isn't that going to be available on the Grass Valley camera. I wish something in the 20k range would satisfy all my HD needs :blink:

Phil Rhodes · December 16, 2005

Hi,

I can't imagine buying some other DTE solution for a P2 camera. All you're going to end up doing is giving yourself an offload problem from that, in the end, and you'll be back exactly where you started.

What I'd do would be to carry a laptop and a 1394 caddy for a 3.5"hard disk. Then I'd carry (carefully packed) and awful lot of 3.5" hard disks, which are about the cheapest sort of storage you'll find for this sort of thing. 250Gb is about the price/size sweet spot at the moment, vastly, hugely cheaper than Firestore.

You should be able to shoot for at least a day on a pair of 8Gb cards unless you're going absolutely nuts. Offload in the evening.

And prepare yourself for an awful lot of horrendous pain when it comes to posting the P2. Shudder!

Phil

David Gottlieb · December 17, 2005

Hi,

I can't imagine buying some other DTE solution for a P2 camera. All you're going to end up doing is giving yourself an offload problem from that, in the end, and you'll be back exactly where you started.

What I'd do would be to carry a laptop and a 1394 caddy for a 3.5"hard disk. Then I'd carry (carefully packed) and awful lot of 3.5" hard disks, which are about the cheapest sort of storage you'll find for this sort of thing. 250Gb is about the price/size sweet spot at the moment, vastly, hugely cheaper than Firestore.

And prepare yourself for an awful lot of horrendous pain when it comes to posting the P2. Shudder!

Phil

Thanks for the advice to carry around 3.5 disks - I had realized about two weeks ago how cheap they had become but didn't think about it for some reason. I had pretty much settled on the labtop solution since I will have two other people with me to help, although one will be the interviewer. The cost of 3.5 is way cheaper than most large-storage RAIDs, although I don't know if they can handle real time editing access to the DVCPRO solutions. HDV would work but I'm pretty much set on this camera anyways because of the PROHD and cinema settings (variable speed), as the JVC 24pHDV looks weak in my opinion, and I have narrative films to shoot prior to this documentary.

Hopefully by the summer the editing problems you experienced will be taken care of - I have few doubts that software will catch up; I just don't know by when. If not, I always have the built in DV deck B)

Thanks for your suggestions, I need all the advice I can get!!

Phil Rhodes · December 17, 2005

Hi,

> I don't know if they can handle real time editing access to the DVCPRO solutions

They ought to. 40mbps is not very much for a decent modern hard disk, which will usually sustain at least 10Mbyte/sec. However, while you'll probably want to view the stuff you're storing, you probably won't be editing off it in the field in any serious capacity.

If you were willing to splurge on the large 400Gb drives, you could carry a few terabytes with you in the field without too much back strain.

Phil

SDC · May 30, 2006

Hi David

Let me know how you went. I am currently investigating the same work flows for shooting a documentary with this camera. We have an ambitous 75 day schedule in remote parts of Asia. We care to use this camera because of its affordability with DVC PRO HD format, but the thought of going away for that long with 2 8GB P2 cards is doing my head in, actually we will probably have 6. If you can keep slamming in the cards without stopping recording maybe it will be ok.For long sections and interviews, performances we will need longer running times. We may look at the FS-100 storage which will give 100 mins to cover this. Ka ching$

Currently we have decided to buy raid storage maybe 3 TB worth which we will use in the post sessions anyway, to plug into a FCP G5 system and maybe the P2 store to use in the field during the day and upload to the raids at night. What sends shudders down my spine is having all the rushes on a hard drive with no pysical back up in case of failure. So do I stripe the raids and make copies of the footage.. more storage.. drives dont fail right??

Also I have no idea what "1394 caddy for a 3.5"hard disk" are- posted by Phill. Phill?

Regards> SDC :ph34r: