Tapeless Workflow - A few lessons so far

Our workflow had to change some from our original plans for this international collaborative documentary project. We intended to provide faculty/student teams in five different countries with Panasonic HD cameras. Throughout the year each team would shoot river footage and share it with all collaborators via DigiDelivery. Teams were to share periodic edits from our five rivers. Then one final collaborative edit would be completed and exhibited at the Beijing Film Academy in November 2008.

One Lesson. DigiDelivery is a fantastic tool. However, the backbone or infrastructure needed to upload and download even small files was not adequate for our needs. The upload time for just one minute of HD material was over 20 hours. And that was working with broadband access in the US. Some Global Rivers Project partners had much more limited access. In India, we often faced routine power shut-downs when we planned to upload Ganga River files. In the end, we switched to a workflow that shared P2 files by shipping hard drives from production teams to an editor.

Another Lesson. P2 tapeless technology is a great new HD format. At first we were nervous about going all-digital. Erase footage after copying it to a hard drive? No tape for backup? We recorded to P2 cards and then reluctantly followed the workflow. Now after a year of working with the format, most of us plan to continue to shoot with the P2 cameras. I for one, cannot imagine going back to clunky videotape ever again.

And Another Lesson. Technical support from Avid and Panasonic is priceless. As you look back through this blog, you will see posts that address our anxieties and questions. You will also read about HD workflow workshops presented by Panasonic. This project would never have happened without the generous support of Avid and Panasonic. Even more valuable were their replies to our panic calls and messages.

Keep reading this blog for further instruction and insights, frustrations and troubleshooting. The Global Rivers Project has tested the HVX200 camera on rivers in scorching heat, wilting humidity, and biting cold. We survived. The cameras performed. Now the big final edit begins.

Comments

[David N]

You need a backup! I've been in IT for 25 years and things happen, you need a backup. If you don't have one you're asking for trouble. That doesn't mean tape but it could. LTO (tape)seems to be the Hollywood and IT standard for backup and archival right now. You need a disaster plan. As part of that plan you need to protect against human error such as incidental deletion, pulling the wrong drive on a failed RAID, tripping over a network wire, tripping over a firewire cable or spilling a drink on a hard drive, as well as hardware failure, fire, flood…you get the idea. Yes tapeless is convenient but that doesn’t eliminate the need for a backup of some kind, you also need to think about how you will archive your footage for the future. I have had a 100% failure rate on 1394 drives within 18 months, regardless of brand!! Plan on firewire drives failing or you will loose footage.

[Norman]

Back up, for RIVERS, is additionally complex because I'm receiving material from so many sources.

But, for me, the backup that I've been using is to keep the original files on a different drive than the rewrapped Avid MXF files. I can't go back to the originals if those P2 files go away, but I can always replace the Avid Media Files from those P2 files.

It's not perfect. And there's no doubt that this is one of the deep dark secrets of the tapeless world -- that backups expand exponentially and are not cheap.

[David N]

Good to here you have some form of backup. Yes, tapeless has advantages and disadvantages, and there are different compelling reasons to go tapeless. I don’t think saving money is one of them.

Advantages of P2:
1. No camcorder tape handling issues, jammed tapes, clogged heads, good for severe environments
2. Fast turn around for simple, cuts only, no layering edits because you don’t have to capture
3. Simplified workflow, no online edit
4. Great for short form, 2-3 minute pieces, with web deliverable, simply archive to 1 or 2 Blu-Ray disks.

Disadvantages of P2:
1. Requires backing up/archiving of media, which is complex for long form shows
2. Archiving must be carefully planed or material may not be portable to another brand of edit system
3. For HD, editing slows for long form shows or when using many layers (in another few years or so it won’t matter since processors and software will handle the load)
4. Expensive 10GB network to support editing multiple layers (in another few years it won’t matter as networking costs will drop)

[Nick]

Check out the following blog link for others facing P2 workflow challenges:

http://televisionbroadcasttechnologies.blogspot.com/2008/07/panasonic-p2-and-long-term-archival.html

Panasonic would do well to develop (or buy) a solution that provides a backend archive to ensure the P2 inspired 'tapeless workflow' is an end-to-end solution and not the beginning of a logistical headache.