The end of tape for me? Top 10 reasons I'm switching to SD cards

[Superfly]

I think it's time.

I forgot to clean the heads on one of my cameras and I am spending more time fixing HDV gaps than editing the damn project.  I've been thinking about this for a while and I think even if you have to transcode a project, it will save me countless hours because having the computer transcode for 3 hours is better than flipping 3 tapes into a camera....or 12....

Here are the reasons I believe I have hit the wall on mini DV tape and will lean towards SD:
1.  I can't stand editing drop outs.
2.  No more boxes and boxes and boxes (we have 2 full walls of shelves with file boxes now) of original tapes.
3.  I can shoot theatrical events without stopping, thus creating the need for alignment later.
4.  I can do cheaper theater events that I used to ignore because for single camera shoots the editing time will be .....none...(I still shoot a second backup).  It's not what we make, it's what we keep and that's ALL about time savings.
5.  I want to go back to Panny, the XH-A1 aside from the long lens and extra tid bit of controllability (just enough to hang yourself with) is not a camera I have ever liked unfortunately.  I tried, I really did....  I've tried em' all and I'm just a Panny guy.  Not that it matters, but so is Mark Von Lanken now.  The Panny Mojo WILL get you if you own one for a while, but then why should the makers of Varicam, etc. make a good camera, eh?
6.  Toys, Toys, Toys!
7.  Few moving parts!A camera that could theoretically last forever....or ...well. ....a long damn time.
8.  HDV cameras will be hard to sell soon.  Uneducated consumers (the market for my Vixia HV30's) constantly ask me..."you're using tape?  It's not HD?  It's not digital?"
9.  Lighter than hell.  Von Lanken loves it for his steadicam shots because now he can hold them longer than 30 seconds (with his Sony).

Drum roll please..............





10.  This is a great excuse to do the great sell off of 2010 and turn our accumulation of goods into new, usable gear!  FUN, FUN![/b]We have got our equipment nailed.  We have the LED lights we like, 2 sennheiser ME-66's + an Azden shotgun.  2 Sennheiser Evolution 100's with 2 lav mics and 2 XLR transmitters for any mic....perfect for my SM58 for mic'ing speakers...all our tripods stands....the last component is....MATCHING PRODUMER CAMERAS!  Been using XH-A1 and 2 Vixias.....

11.  BONUS....Better low light performance than Canon and many Sony's......

Anyone made the switch?

Best,

Todd

[HankCastello]

All well and good, execept one minor thing - your statement that SD cams will last longer.  True enough, you get around head cleaning and transport issues and quicker media changes, but I've been shooting video since the 8mm Sonys first came out (around '87, I think?) and somewhere between ten and fifteen years, they seem to die over electronics (capacitor issues), not transport issues.

As for storage and your two walls - Yes, you won't have the storage problems because you basically won't be able to store everything forever.  ("Forever" is relative, since tape begins losing noticable quality after about ten years).  Tape cost nothing to store because it was already "there".  Digital media is relatively expensive, considering that harddrives aren't a comparative medium since their lifespan (if on-shelf and not used) is generally much less than ten years.  (The moving parts require lubrication, and self-lubricate when used.  When idle for years, they can "freeze up".)  Burning raw footage (can we still call it "footage" if it's SD?) to discs is too costly and discs are more fragile than tape.

Frankly, I share your preference of SD over tape, but long-term storage of massive archives is a puzzle that has not yet been feasibly solved.

[BillGrant]

I second Hank on the storage issue. I've used the 5D for about a year and the HD space required is about double or more if you want to backup everything. I am working on HD #28 and I'm not sure I'm not accumulating 1 per month or more.
Bill

[Superfly]

I get about 8-10 projects (not all weddings) on a single one TB hard drive.

AND, THE ANSWER TO BACKING UP THE HARD DRIVES IS OBVIOUS!  A TAPE DRIVE!!   

The real killer for me is those HDV glitches.

Great points Hank, but that's only 1 of 11 of my top 10.  Couldn't you tell I was convincing myself while I was writing?

Cheers,

Todd

[ampsonic]

I'm all SD, and I even edit in AVCHD without transcoding! best of  both worlds.

[kwshaw1]

Tapeless cameras are getting more interesting and the long record times are a definite plus. However, the workflow requires more discipline because the cards are still too expensive to archive with original data,  and there's been at least one horror story of someone losing a lot of work and backups because of a large power surge in his neighborhood.

Canon just shipped new tapeless cameras using a 50 Mbps data rate and 4:2:2 color sampling for around $7K or so; if they make a $4K version like the tape-based XH-A1 that would be a big deal. The Panasonic camera mentioned here is also nice but hampered by Panny's 960x540 sensors, which can yield soft images for high-detail scenes. (But still fine cameras.)

These are interesting times gear-wise, and tape is apparently on it's way out.   

[DavidPartington]

I made the switch a while ago.  I'm using 4x HMC151 cameras (the european version of the HMC150) and am quite happy with them.  The tapeless workflow if a blessing and a curse.  The curse is of course the backups.  I'm just at the point of buying an LTO tape drive for archives so will no longer be 'tapeless' as such, but my storage requirements are rocketing based on how much filming I'm doing and frankly I keep running out of HDD space. With 7 big events in the next few weeks I am going to be completely out of space multiple times over so action is needed on my part for off-line storage. 

I do transcode the footage for editing, though I know some people claim to be editing perfectly well with the MTS files.  However, I've yet to see an NLE that can handle the way "I" want to work with multiple camera streams + effects + color correction etc in real time and still use MTS files without transcoding first.  Even so, the transcoding takes less than real time so it's still quicker than importing from tapes.

[DavidPartington]

.... and I let the computer transcode all the footage over night anyway, something I could never do with tapes.  I'd have to keep getting out of bed to change tapes   When I get up in the morning everything is ready to go and editing is (as they say) "buttery smooth".

I also now have a GH1 while is of course also tapeless, but it does not support jamming time code like the HMCs do,  so I have to align all the footage manually on multicam shoots (which I do a lot of).  There are many reasons to use DSLRs for video, but they have their drawbacks, and timecode is just one of them.

[mark-mvs]

I think tapeless cameras are the future. I've never regretted leaving tapes behind. In my experience tapes are so much more fragile and sensitive to ambient room temperature/moisture and so on. Also the fact that they fade whether you're playing them often or not ALWAYS bothered me. I suspect that with time SD cards (or whatever cards they'll use in the future) will be significantly cheaper and be able to hold much more data. As for now, I guess the question for every videographer is "has the tapeless camera system advanced far enough for my specific needs?"

BTW someone mentioned the panny hmc150/151?  I've heard only good things about THAT tapeless camera....

Mark

[kwshaw1]

Regarding tape durability, I still have every master tape I've recorded over the past 10+ years and am confident I could play most of them, but I've lost track of how many hard drives have died on me during that time. Given that tape is reportedly the preferred archive solution for large data warehouses and now many "tapeless" videographers, doesn't seem like durability is the main factor in the move away from tape-based cameras.     

[Superfly]

Documentary film makers are already encountering challenges because pictures are lost forever on computers, tapes don't even last more than 20 years.

Where will I get my DAT tapes dumped to CD?  I know a place but you see where I'm going.

Nothing is permanent and permanence has always been an illusion anyway.

Get important photos made into PHOTOS.

Keep a camera around for tape backup?  Some tapes are getting hard to find.

Scary.....

Best,

Todd

[DavidPartington]

This is why big companies spend big bucks on their archive department.  They have specific rotation schemes that load and run every tape and transfer to new tapes if needed.   You would need to do that with hard disks too - but as a small company - how many of us will take the time to do this properly?

[HankCastello]

Where will I get my DAT tapes dumped to CD?

Who uses CD anymore?  DVD's cost the same and hold more and soon, we'll be saying the same thing regarding Blu-ray over DVD.

There has never been a truly permanent backup solution for any type of media.  Chiseling hieroglyfics onto large stones is about the closest we've ever come.

Meanwhile, make two copies of any really important stuff, onto either tape or disc, then recopy those every five years, and you'll be fine.  Of course, you could get a chisel and copy all digital data onto large stones.  That'll make you think, the next time you see a boulder with lots of pockmarks!   

[DavidPartington]

Hmmm.... sandstone 1,000 years from now - a little wind erosion here and there - now is that a 1 or a 0?  Hmmm.... not sure if it's artifacting on the original shot or if we got these few bits wrong....

Guess 1,000 years from now it won't be our problem

[Superfly]

CD's are still pretty handy to listen to Hank.     Unless you like your music nice and compressed like MP3.  Fine when jogging but not on the big speakers man!

Best,

Todd