tapeless acquisition

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Permalink Reply by Bill Mecca on November 11, 2010 at 6:38pm

I shoot with a Sony Z7u that records on CF cards. It's "convenient" but the tapeless workflow has it's own drawbacks. I edit on Avid Media Composer, so I use the Sony utility to import the clips from the card to the computer, then I have to import into Avid and it creates it's own mxf format, so it takes double the storage space. I know HD prices are sublimely low compared to when I got started but it's still a pita. The other disadvantage for me is the fact the clips are "named" with numbers. When I captured from tape, I could name them something logical, even ID the takes, and capture only what I wanted to specific bins.

So now, I record on CF cards, import into the PC, then import into Avid, then have to go thru the bin and figure out which shot is which.and then sort into other bins. Not really sure where the "time-savings" comes in.(I haven't put a stop watch on it, but importing 16 GB of data is not instantaneous, nor is the import into Avid.)

Fortunately the Z7 also records on miniDV simultaneously so I have an immediate backup, not need to go thru all kinds of machinations to back up, just pop out the tape and put it on the shelf.

So as you can see I'm not really sold on the whole tapeless thing, even though I use it. Then again, I'm not omnipotent and maybe I'm missing something. I mean I could log the shots as I take them, and then I would know what 00023-1987463-241 is, and import only the shots I want, but as a one man band... that ain't gonna happen.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Tworek on November 11, 2010 at 6:48pm

Does the Z7 have meta data capability? The Panasonic's with P2 do, so you can set up a meta data naming convention and theoretically, it will show up with the clip number. I'd assume that you have a couple of HD's for your macinations? It does seem like a PITA, but maybe that is an Avid thing. I have FCP and Vegas, so theoretically, I could just dump the cards direct into a clip bin.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Mecca on November 11, 2010 at 9:39pm

The Z7 names them in sequence so you can see clip 1, 2, 23 etc but unless I had a production asst. logging I still have to import them all and then sort it out, but I guess watching, logging and capturing tape is a similar time drain.

Sony gives out the utility and I followed the instructions on import, iirc it's something about making sure all the data follows the clips, and something to do with clip lengths. it's been a while since I read it.

I import the cards to an external HD, then import via Avid into and internal.

Somedays, when I get really frustrated with it, I long for the days of bear skins and stone knives. ;-)



Ed Tworek said:

Does the Z7 have meta data capability? The Panasonic's with P2 do, so you can set up a meta data naming convention and theoretically, it will show up with the clip number. I'd assume that you have a couple of HD's for your macinations? It does seem like a PITA, but maybe that is an Avid thing. I have FCP and Vegas, so theoretically, I could just dump the cards direct into a clip bin.

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Permalink Reply by Dreams Creation Video Production on December 19, 2011 at 5:36pm

I am also having this issue right now. I love the tapes and my partner thinks that tapeless work flows will increase my productivity. Here is my issue... to load in an hour tape its in real time, which means it takes 1 hour to load a tape. I'm a wedding videographer for the most part so were constantly start and stopping the recording. When I get home and load the cards in, it will literally have 100 or more separate clips, in which you have to log every shot and label them, which could take hours, and then you have to make separate bins for the clips as in... bride/groom prep, interviews, ceremony, photo shoot, reception, special dances and so on.

What makes me a fast and good editor is that when I'm loading in my tapes I watch every second of footage being loaded in so by the time the tapes are loaded I pretty much know how I'm going to edit the film. Not sure if everyone feels like I do but it really sucks that technology continues to tell us what we should be doing when were use to doing it a certain way. I still believe in tapes!

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Permalink Reply by Pierre Samuel Rioux on January 21, 2012 at 1:34am

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle/

Take a look in this product and it's increase the quality.

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Permalink Reply by Tom on March 6, 2012 at 1:36am

The thing about tapes, for me, is that you are tied to an interlaced codec. Interlaced was fine for DVD release, on CRT-tvs. Now consumers want progressive footage that will play on their progressive computer, 30p/24p on youtube, through their progressive DVD player, Blu-ray, onto their progressive-scan LCD-tv, or plasma. I highly dislike the interlace artifacting that invariably results, and the overall loss of quality, and detail.

All premiere ever did for me was label my footage, one tape at a time. 

What tapeless is not: it's not a guaranteed time-saver. You'll still spend the same amount of time previewing your footage, and you'll still spend time organizing your clips.

What you won't suffer through: tapes die after some time..they dirty the heads, they drop audio, they fail. The failure rate of SDHC is a vast improvement over the reliability of tape. P2 is even better, although you'll pay a hefty premium for the peace of mind. 32gb SDHC cost roughly a dollar per gb, for a good brand name. CF costs around $3-4, and P2 is (not sure, guessing) $25-35/gb. 

Many editors are used to previewing their timeline through their cameras, onto a CRT tv, for title-safe and colour fidelity reasons. This is largely irrelevant now, because most people are watching TV on an LCD, where everything is title safe, because there's no overscan.... it's all one here.

The convenience of tape-preview was for those with expensive cards that rendered FX on a built-in chip. One could export to tape, then capture the finished product before rendering to DVD. All this was a workaround for slow CPUs. My quad-core easily beats out the capability of the early Pyramid offerings, and again, the interlaced codecs, and cameras are quickly becoming irrelevant, and a liability. 

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