What is this "tape" of which you speak?

[Update: I found it on Wikipedia. Seems to have been used in the past for recording moving images onto an ironclad plastic band moving inside a plastic box.]

A few months ago I was asked to provide video programs I shot in 1999-2004AD on said "tape."

What an amazing PITB...

I've just been digging up clips scattered across 9 tapes from 2003 to 2006. Sure, it'd be nice if they were all archived on a server but we've not done that with the 200 or so tapes we have for this client. I'm happy to have the well labeled tapes in the well labeled boxes and to have well documented shooting logs to tell me what tapes to go get out of storage.

I suppose we could be doing the same thing off of DAT tapes if we ever go tapeless, but for the near future we just don't have a reason to do so. For now, tape gets the minimal level archiving we need done up front while we shoot, and that saves time later on. Given the way we work I know we'd be impatient with archiving later on.

It's not at all surprising that tape plants would be closing, though. There's certainly less demand and many companies (like Sony) need to cut the fat. None of these manufacturers need to maintain too much capacity but I think most of them will have enough demand to keep some plants running for the next decade.

Rob Mack

(Edit: I meant to say LTO tapes. Thanks Bob for using the word in a post and jogging my memory)

Local cost of 16GB SDHC card to hold 50 minutes of 1080p, AUD 60. Network will not accept that and I fear for such a tiny thing getting lost and how the heck do I put a label on it?

Local cost of 40min DigiBetacam tape that the network will accept, AUD 50. That only holds SD 50i, admittedly 10bit 4:2:2. It does have plenty of space for a label and much less likely to get lost in the lint at the bottom of a pocket.

Bob.

.....and much less likely to get lost in the lint at the bottom of a pocket.

or go walkabout in someone else's camera.....

I hear ya Bob. I'm going to be getting the Panny 150, and I'm a little concerned that I'll drop the SDHC card and it will fall in a crack or something.

I got slightly flamed for saying this once before but I'll say it again (this happened BEFORE I started getting paid for wedding videography)......

I left an SDHC card in my pocket one time and it had plenty of content on it from family stuff. Pictures and video both. That card went through a long wash cycle in hot water and then went for a tumble ride in a dryer with high heat.
Found it a day later. Stuck it in the card reader...into the computer....voila.....everything was fine.

Now I know this is a dumb consumer-grade brainfart move, but that incident alone tells me that SDHC media is incredibly robust. Granted, it was misplaced in the first place because it was so small, but the fact alone that it survived all that is quite remarkable. I don't even know if any other solid state media could take that abuse. P2? SxS?

HMC150 doesn't scare me at all.

Sounds impressive.

Did your footage look any cleaner?

=P

I'm sensing some sarcasm.

haha.

When i hear people dissing tape i start wondering how much real world experience those people have shooting. This week i shot for 2 reality TV shows and they all use tape -- they could have gone with p2 or any other solid state but chose to go with tape as it fits better their needs.

I think solid state definitely has its benefits. It will cater to a mass producing type crowd, helps with dailies, etc.
I don't think you'll ever really see tape die per-say, but it will definitely scale back quite a bit. Enough to shut production down and cause disgruntled employees.

I'm still considering using HDV. Don't know for sure.

I am on the flip side of most of you, I HATE TAPES!!! I Recorded (along with my younger brother who helps me do some video stuff ) everything that happened in my life over the past 5 years on tapes. Now when I need to go back and get some footage I have to sit there and watch every darn second of footage to get the shots I want. I can't stand it!
Now I record onto 8GB Duo Chips and love it. Everytime I shoot I come home that night stick it in my computer and....Voila.....I have all my video laid out in front of me in a nice organized way. I format....next day I am ready to roll with no money lost on a tape that I have to store somewhere and will eventually lose fidelity. I could not be happier with this system!
I may eat crow in a few months when I lose one or it gets 'corrupted' with all my precious, once in a lifetime data on it, like Sony warns can happen! But until then I will be whistling while I work!
Yeay for the digital revolution! (for right now, LOL).

peace out all,

ice

oh, and about that report. I don't know, maybe it's just me but it doesn't seem like it that would work out so great, unno? "Hey I got an idea....let's kidnap our boss so he pays us more!" ????? Maybe they don't have JAIL in france!?

Flash media recording is fine... as long as you archive it to a stable media with a proven archival lifespan like ummm... errr... magnetic tape. If you rely only on flash memory or hard drives to store anything you want to keep for more than a couple of years, you're just begging for trouble.

I'm shooting HDV, converting to Cineform, then backing up all my .veg files and trimmed Cineform AVIs to LTO Ultrium 2 tape. I keep the HDV originals, too, so I've got redundant archives. When I go tapeless, I will probably make 2 LTO backups instead of the HDV/LTO split I do now.

Give me a ring when Blu-Ray or flash media costs 15 cents a gigabyte, comes in 200-400 gb units, and lasts for 30 years sitting on a shelf. Then, I MAY consider giving up tape completely.

There is a WORLD of difference between video tape (analog or digital) and high end computer tape systems such as LTO.

Video heads last maybe 1500 hours, computer tape heads last 50,000 hours.

BER (bit error rate) is in a different league.

Tape environmental resilience is in a different league with computer tapes (see for example the VXA ads where they BOIL the tape in a beaker before pulling off a perfect restore...).

I could say more, but I have to think of my blood pressure :O).