SONY.... please, please.... PLEASE.....

Comments

farss wrote on 7/30/2008, 3:36 AM
"I understand many people still do, but why develop for what is to be ancient history? "

That'd make some sense if they were developing their tapeless workflow. It's as half baked as the tape based workflow. I'm still having to 'capture' my tapeless footage through that dinky clip browser. I still can't sync audio from any tapeless recorder to vision from any tapeless camera. And how many tapeless formats does Vegas have full support for? About the only thing I can think of is those pathetic AVCHD based palmcorders built for the soccer mums.

Bob.
Spot|DSE wrote on 7/30/2008, 6:40 AM
AVCHD is tapeless
HDV can be tapeless
DV can be tapeless
RED is tapeless
XDCAM is tapeless
XDCAM EX is tapeless
XDCAM HD is tapeless
Infinitiy is tapeless
Ikegami EditCam is tapeless
P2 is tapeless
Viper is tapeless
Genesis can be tapeless
F23 can be tapeless
The list goes on, and will continue to grow.
My post wasn't a commentary on quality of image, but rather a quality of workflow. Once you can skip tape..things become much faster. We've spent the last 6 months in many ENG orgs teaching tapeless workflow, archive, retrieval. They love tape. They love taking tape off a shelf and having something to touch. But the cost/benefit ratio is staggering whether you're talking about media per GB or man-hours in Xfer, or man hours in archive retrieval and data logging.
So I say once more...why *develop* new technology for a dying workflow? People will still listen to records too, and some even have 8track or cassette players. You can even buy USB record, 8track, and cassette units. But...tape is effectively dead. Developmentally, it *is* dead.
We shoot HDV on a daily basis, in addition to XDCAM HD. We don't use tape for HDV. CF is SO much better.
Sorry if my post"pissed you off" Blink...but like they say "Speak the truth and prepare for war."
Tape is a dying thing. Might as well develop a car that runs on coal, after all...they did at one time.
Spot|DSE wrote on 7/30/2008, 6:55 AM
And while it's true that HDD and flash cams are more efficient, the editing isn't and this entire idea of Spot's that HDV is "ancient" and dying is (imo) totally inaccurate.

If you're gonna quote me, please do it accurately. I didn't say HDV is an ancient format.
Tape is ancient. It is older than most everyone on this board including myself. It may still be current, but it is ancient. It *is* dying and only a short-sighted person won't see that it is dying.
farss wrote on 7/30/2008, 7:41 AM
"So I say once more...why *develop* new technology for a dying workflow?"

Because many will still have to work with it for decades to come.

And whose asking SCS to "*develop* develop new technology"?

We're asking they fix what they've been shipping for years, no investment in new technology required.
Tape or tapeless, it doesn't change the core workflow issues that Vegas has. If you go tapeless how does Vegas work any better. SCS have done a pretty good job of ignoring every benefit that tapeless brings to the table. This is not a sign of forward thinking at all. It shows that the same near enough is good enough mentality that's left tape based acquisition a mess with Vegas is carrying forward into tapeless acquisition. After all, once you've captured a tape, you're in the same boat as if you'd recorded the same data to HDD or flash.

Bob.
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 8:13 AM
Spot said: We haven't shot tape in over a year. I understand many people still do, but why develop for what is to be ancient history?

That's shortsighted. If Vegas were a brand new application without a user base I can see neglecting tape, but Vegas has been around for a while, has a long standing user base, and has had lousy capture abilities since before tapeless was a gleam in anyone's eyes. It's always been at a consumer toy level, not because the developers thought tapeless was around the corner but because the project managers just didn't see a need for professional capture abilities.

Why develop for tape?
-- Sony's current user base already owns their cameras and those who made heavy investments in better gear for business use will use it until its paid itself off several times over. These are also the people who need professional capture tools.
-- many Vegas editors working for pay get their footage from clients
-- Tape is far from dead. Working professionally as a shooter, do you hand off memory cards to the client? Hardly. You hand off tapes.
-- Case in point. Panasonic has had a run on the HDX900, probably their last professional tape based camera. Tape is in demand. In fact, we bought one to take overseas for our current doc. There was no way we were going to go somewhere remote with a tapeless system.


But you're right, a sanity check is called for. Vegas' capture tools need some robust features but these shouldn't trigger a major rewrite of Vegas. Capture needs to fit in with how Vegas works rather than driving major changes to Vegas itself. Some of blink's examples are of an NLE that manages clips very differently from Vegas (more like Media100 in my limited experience).

I'm off to work now so I'm not going to take the time to list things I'd like to see (plus I'm only working with DV and probably will stay that way for a few more years).

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 8:28 AM
Cars running on coal? Bad comparison. We're talking carburetors vs fuel injectors back at a time when fuel injection was new fangled and twitchy. Decades later there's no doubt that fuel injection is the way to go but we're not decades down the road with tapeless yet and I predict we've still got another decade left where tape needs to be supported.

Rob Mack
johnmeyer wrote on 7/30/2008, 9:34 AM
OK, I now understand what you were saying Spot. For the record, I DID quote you correctly (I just copied/pasted), but I forgot to include the one crucial element of my confusion, and here it is:

I don't know of any HDV camera which captures to disk or flash memory without an external box.

And, I actually did look at many old posts, and it is quite clear that you (and almost everyone else) still considers AVCHD inferior in picture quality, and also far more difficult and time-consuming to edit (because of timeline performance and render times). As a result, I made the conclusion that when you said that tape was a dead format, that you were unavoidably implying HDV was dead as well, and that's what confused me.

Let me be very clear about this.

If you go to this page:

Camcorderinfo.com

You will find this statement: "Camcorders compressing in HDV only record to MiniDV tape. Widely compatible with editing software and easy to use. Popular models: Canon HV20, Canon HV30, Sony HDR-HC9."

So, unless this is completely inaccurate (i.e., unless most HDV camcorder record to HD or flash media), then your statement that tape is dead effectively also must mean that HDV is dead, and that is why I said I was confused.

Again, I am well aware of capturing HDV either to external drives or to laptops. I actually do this myself. However, it is not a feasible solution for many situations involving quick setup; need for small form factor; need for hot shoe or other accessory mount for other equipment (since that's where Firestor, etc. is usually mounted).

So, until/unless HDV camcorders eliminate the tape drive as the native recording format, Sony MUST update their capture software. Otherwise, they need to drop the "Pro" moniker from the Vegas box because, in the realm of compressed HD products, HDV seems to be the choice for quality and editing performance of virtually everyone on this forum.
Terje wrote on 7/30/2008, 10:01 AM
I understand many people still do, but why develop for what is to be ancient history?

Because Vegas is not only for the super pros like you and others but also for enthusiasts and lower-end guys, and for us tapeless is still only on the horizon.

I might be going to Asia for vacation in a couple of weeks, and I have no intention of bringing a laptop if I do. I was going to bring my HDV camcorder and an whole suitcase full of tapes (OK, slight exaggeration). SDHC cards at 16G (let's pretend that is about the same size as a tape) are still around $60, which means that for this trip I should invest at least $600 in memory cards. Compared to $30 in tapes. I think 10 is a conservative estimate, some times I can shoot two or even three tapes in a day. What if I want to be on the safe side and take 20? That's $60 or $1200. I can find a lot or reasons not to spend $1200 on SDHC cards for this vacation (if it happens).

I don't know Spot, what do you think? Tape or SDHC? Oh, and are there any camcorders on the market right now that shoots HDV (please, no AVCHD) onto SDHC? I don't know of any, but then again, they stripped me of my omnipotence when I took my last job so I don't know (honestly, not trying to be glib, just didn't check camcorderinfo yet).

I expect SDHC to come down in price, probably to half of what it is now within two years. That is still an order of magnitude more expensive for a vacation than tape. On the other hand, that isn't relevant if the price is reasonably low. I'd say about $100 is a reasonable pain point for buying a ten pack of stuff like this, which means that 16G SDHC cards need to be down at $10 before tape will start becoming irrelevant. And the it will only start.

Not having a proper capture app i yet another sign that Sony still isn't investing a lot of money in the Vegas family of products. Not a good sign.
Xander wrote on 7/30/2008, 10:01 AM
Well, my HDR-FX1 uses tapes. Until it dies, I will continue to use tapes. I use HDV Split for capture. It may not be perfect, but it works.
CorTed wrote on 7/30/2008, 10:16 AM
I think Spot is working too far into the future, and missing the workflow of many (if not most) current Vegas users.
It would be very sad for Vegas to dismiss tape capture and consider it old school. Like many people have already said; HDV is easier to edit and IMO a better picture then any of the solid state formats.

Ted
Terje wrote on 7/30/2008, 10:19 AM
a 500 gig hard drive can hold about 41 tapes worth of DV or HDV footag

I really hope you are backing up to more than one HD. HDs will fail. For sure. Guaranteed. It is just a matter of time. This is also true for HDs in storage unless you have access to storage facilities I a pretty sure you can not afford.

If your DV/HDV tape develops a defect at a random place you will lose a second or so of video. Perhaps even more. If your HD develops a hardware failure in storage you may have lost (as you point out) 41 tapes worth of video. At that point in time I hope you had a regimented, and duplicated backup solution otherwise your HD is off to a clean-room rescue, which rarely gets all the data and usually costs an arm, a leg and the servitude of your first born.

Now, you can point out that two HDs rarely fail at the same time, but even when you use double backup, the backups can fail a year apart and you probably wouldn't notice. I have tape backups from 1995 which I am pretty sure are still OK (I do have access to some rather phenomenal storage facilities, but that's because I have a friend with such facilties) but I haven't tested them. I have two of each and I am happy enough about that since I know that the failure rate of those tapes is many orders of magnitude better than HDs. Both tapes will not fail within the same few decades. Two HDs stored in normal conditions, failing within the same decade, I would put the chance of that pretty high up there.

Then again, perhaps I am just paranoid.
farss wrote on 7/30/2008, 10:52 AM
"HDV is easier to edit and IMO a better picture then any of the solid state formats."

It's only better than 1 solid state format, AVCHD and arguably better than DVCPro HD. Apart from that it's at the bottom of the pile.

Bob.
CorTed wrote on 7/30/2008, 11:22 AM
Bob, I stand corrected. You are right, I was really talking about AVCHD

Ted
johnmeyer wrote on 7/30/2008, 11:26 AM
I don't think the failure rate of HDs which are rarely used is very high. If used 24/7 in a server, then definitely, but not sitting on a shelf.
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 11:49 AM
The idea that prosumer NLEs like Vegas and PPro should only develop for tapeless acquisition is wishful thinking. Unfortunately, it's the developers and project managers who are being wishful.

I think we'll see at least another 10 years of tape based cameras staying in service. SCS can't walk away from that.

Imagine if this was a brand new product. Let's call it Sony Vision Pro (just to give it a new. less dumb name). In your design requirements, would you try to accommodate tape, tapeless, or both? I think both. How far you go with each is a secondary question.

Tape is hardly dead.

Rob Mack
winrockpost wrote on 7/30/2008, 1:47 PM
beta sp died several years ago, sold my deck 3 years ago... to date 2008 rented a deck this year seven times for various projects that rose from the dead, delivered three in beta sp ,,smart move sellin that old beast
Spot|DSE wrote on 7/30/2008, 2:55 PM
John,
the Sony MRU is about the same size as a large FP series battery, and is a Compact Flash unit for HDV. We have 3 of them; they're used on the Z7 and S270's, but i'm using mine regularly on the HC5 camcorder. I can edit CF on the card, and do so almost daily. One of the largest Christian television networks bought into this workflow recently, and only last week sent a very nice letter of endorsement to us for this workflow, as they're saving money.
Let me be clear, I'm not advocating that Sony drop capture; I'm advocating that folks realize that spending more resource on capture is silly, IMO. The capture app works. I said previously that it's adequate. It is. Not much more, but it *is* adequate. I'll never buy another tape-based camera anymore than I'd buy another BETA SX deck or a 4:3 camcorder or monitor. I'll be surprised if many others here will as well. I wish there were better support for HDSDI workflows, and I wish there were a couple of capture features. Maybe I'm complacent because I've learned to deal with it over the past few years. Premiere isn't any better, and tools like HDV Split don't work terribly well.
And all that said...file-based formats, archival, retrieval, XML, metadata, file management are where the future focus of any NLE system (and camera system) need to focus. There is little point in looking backwards regardless of what feature we're discussing, IMO. Even if I do use HDV tape on exceptionally rare occasion (actually used it today for the first time in a while, a shoot required two aerial cams, and I only had one MRU to spare).
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 3:32 PM
"Because Vegas is not only for the super pros..."

A lot of the super pros use tape. Tape/no tape isn't a black and white proposition. Vegas just needs to support both, especially for the super pros because they'll be dealing with tape longer than the prosumers.

We bought a DSR500 DVCam camera as an intermediate from Beta SP to better digital formats and it still is our primary camera, keeping five people generously employed. We never thought we'd use the format as long as we did. As far as tape goes, we still have the odd client send us Beta SP tapes so that we can try to use some old footage they have.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 3:35 PM
Well, I hadn't mentioned SP yet, but yes we still have the deck with an SDI card installed, and we still use it maybe once a year or so. It's not a valid format to shoot with anymore but it still rears it's ugly head and we wouldn't install an NLE that couldn't do deck control. That's a nonstarter.

Rob
blink3times wrote on 7/30/2008, 3:36 PM
" Even if I do use HDV tape on exceptionally rare occasion ...."

Well, I'm really glad that you're now a "cut above" us mild and meager HDV tape users (thousands upon thousands of hdv users I might add) but we're still around (along with our typewriters and B&W rotory knob TV's)..... and as long as we're still here.... then it can't be a "silly" idea to reinforce the capture utility.

Frankly Spot... I think your entire argument is "silly".....IMO

And no Spot.... as I said above, the Vegas capture utility DOESN'T work. My HC3 gets the scenes split consistently 3 frames late (It ONLY happens with the Vegas capture utility. HDVsplit works fine as does Pinnacle studio, Avid Liquid, and Ulead.)
rmack350 wrote on 7/30/2008, 3:47 PM
Difference of opinion on this. While I don't think SCS needs to rewrite Vegas to act more like some other system, I do think that they never stepped up to the plate regarding tape based capture. It's sooo deficient that they need to work on it if they really want to call Vegas a professional tool. Just buckle down and get the work done, then call it quits.

The other option might be to open the project up to a third party. I think you could sell a better capture application to many Vegas users for 50 or 60 bucks. You just need to make sure Vegas can talk to the application.

Rob Mack
CClub wrote on 7/30/2008, 4:02 PM
This is part of the danger of the NLE developer also being the camera company. They get everyone to buy into the HDV's, put out quite a bit of capital, and then... "ooh, sorry, gang, that's ancient technology, and since we can't really spend much time going backward, buy a few of our new $6,000 cameras."

If that's Sony's tact here, and they don't plan to support tape based systems, shame on them. And hats off to any other NLE developer that picks up their slack and will continue to market to tape based videographers. I plan to pick up an EX or two over the next few years, but I also plan on keeping my V1U and Canon HV20 to supplement the primary cameras. I need Sony to keep working with me with the tape based cameras, thank you very much.
Xander wrote on 7/30/2008, 4:11 PM
The irony is that Sony is having to re-write the HDV Reader due to black / red frames, corruption, etc. more than likely because everybody is using HDV Split or other software for capture. If Sony's HDV Capture program worked properly, they could ensure the HDV streams were in good working order prior to using in Vegas. Their delinquency in one area is causing work in another.
blink3times wrote on 7/30/2008, 4:39 PM
Agree to EVERY penny of that!

If Vegas capture was more dependable/robust, I sure wouldn't be using HDVsplit right now. BTW... it's really interesting to see HDVsplit being mention so often on this site.... I wonder why ;)

and this: "The irony is that Sony is having to re-write the HDV Reader...." is simply PROOF that Sony is well aware that HDV is going nowhere any time soon.

Will we one day go completely tapeless? Sure... the writing is on the wall... but we're talking YEARS and complete vegas versions away.