DV storage options

[phil cash cash]

Hi Justin,

I can provide a few comments on a DV videotape archive.  The word from
the LAFCPUG (Los Angeles Final Cut Pro user Group
http://www.lafcpug.org/tutorials.html ) is that quality brand DVC tape
is good for at least 20 years.

In FCP 3, I believe it is possible to transfer directly to DV videotape
(check the the user manual Vol. 1 page 322) but I am not sure what the
actual steps are for doing so.  The international settings are the
DV-PAL codec which is 25 frames-per-sec, which is appropriate in your
case, as opposed the US standard which is the DV-NTSC codec at 29.97
frames-per-sec.  The recent versions of FCP HD also have the DVPRO HD
codec which takes advantage of the latest HD technology.  But for now,
the DV-PAL and DV-NTSC codecs are the most widely used transfer
formats.  The word in the EMELD school (http://emeld.org/ ), and I may
wrong on this, is that MPEG-4 compression is the desirable standard for
archving digital video whereas industry standards usually follow a
MPEG-2 compression standard (DVD quality).  The Sorensen standard
rivals the MPEG-4 standard so you have several options.

Ideally, transfering film clips digital-to-digital should result in
virtually no loss in information.  However, the manner in which this is
done can take several avenues.  A minimal set-up would be a single
camera and a Mac G4 with FCP (and an analog VHS recorder).  The limits
of your archive would be the limits of your hard drive storage and with
standard Mac G4s this is not a lot of storage!  In any film project the
maxim is - storage is everything and you can never get enough of it.

So you have four options.  The first is to continue with what you are
doing (which may not really be an option).  The second is to buy
storage.  This may not be so bad as storage is getting better and
cheaper.  But for archiving film clips you will want a particular kind
of storage that is suitable to film projects (meaning you want to be
able to playback your film clips at suitable editing speeds).  Take a
look at the recent RAID technology (http://www.videoguys.com/gtech.html
) as this may be a nice afforable option for storage, one that I am
seriously considering.  The third option will be to purchase a digital
video tape deck (like the Sony GV-D800).  These little tape decks are
handy for a number of reasons, the first of which is you are able to
transfer digit-to-digital (camera to digital video tape deck) fairly
easy without having to go thru a desktop computer.  Once you create a
copy you can use the copy for playback onto a tv or Mac.  Finally, an
added (fairly new) option is transferring your film to DVD.  Of course,
for your Mac G4, you will have to have DVD Studio Pro (a bit of a high
learning curve but am not sure about the most recent version).  The
newest DVD discs are now being made with scratch resistant surfaces and
some are able to double their storage capacity (Blue Ray technology is
one of the buzz words I think).

Anyway, these are just a few suggestions based on my limited experience
in working with FCPRO and student filmmaking.

Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce)
UofA



> ----- Message from justin.spence at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU ---------
>     Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 08:25:57 +0930
>     From: Justin Spence <justin.spence at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU>
> Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology
<ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>  Subject: [ILAT] DV storage options
>       To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
>
> Dear ILATers (ILATists? ILATicians?),
>
> I'm a linguist working for Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation
> (Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre) Australia's Northern
> Territory.  I'm new to the list and to endangered language work in
> general
> and am hoping someone out there might be able to help clarify a few
> issues
> related to digital video storage.
>
> In a nutshell, we record things on DV cassette and edit them with
> Final Cut
> Pro 3 on a Power Mac G4, but up 'til now we've been unable to keep
> digital
> master copies of our finished projects due to lack of disk space.
> Instead
> we've generally been exporting the final edit to VHS and then
> deleting the
> intermediate files from the G4 (so we're left with the raw footage on
> DVC
> and an analog master of the final edit on VHS).
>
> Since we're probably losing some quality and flexibility in the
> digital-to-analog conversion, we're exploring our options for keeping
> digital masters.  One possibility is storing them on DV cassette.
> I've been
> able to do this from iMovie, but is this possible from FC Pro?  Also,
> my
> understanding of DV technology is quite shaky here:  Is there quality
> lost
> in (a) transferring raw footage to the G4 in the first place and/or
> (b)
> transferring edited footage back to DV cassette (if this is even
> possible
> with FC Pro)?  Although both (a) and (b) are digital-to-digital
> transfers
> via firewire, this doesn't seem quite the same as just copying files
> since
> things like "frames per second" are involved.  (We import things to
> the G4
> using the "DV PAL 48 kHz" setting in FC Pro).
>
> Is DV cassette even a reasonable option for long-term storage? The
> other
> major option on the table is to buy some large-capacity hard disks,
> but then
> we have the problem of how to back everything up and who on staff
> will have
> the skills to cope with inevitable disk snafus.
>
> How have others out there tackled these issues?
>
> Thanks in advance for any insights you can offer!
>
> --
> Justin Spence
> Southwest Linguist
> Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation
> (Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre)
> PO Box 871, Katherine 0851
> e:  justin.spence at kathlangcentre.org.au
> p:  (08) 89 711 233
> f:  (08) 89 710 561
>
>
> ----- End message from justin.spence at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU -----