Canon has posted some guidelines for CompactFlash media compatibility with the new XF305 and XF300 HD camcorders (purchase here).

The following media is compatible and Canon-tested. Links to buy are included where we could find them in stock, all purchases via those links help support FreshDV. Note that the Lexar cards do not officially support all recording modes as noted below. Also, some card model numbers may vary from Canon’s list, based on where they are purchased. This was acknowledged by Canon as well.

SanDisk ExtremePro 600x (90MB/s, works with all recording modes)
64GB SDCFXP-064G-E91
32GB SDCFXP-032G-E91
16GB SDCFXP-016G-E91

SanDisk Extreme 400x (60MB/s, works with all recording modes)
32GB SDCFX-032G-E61
16GB SDCFX-016G-E61
8GB SDCFX-008G-E61

Hagiwara SYS-COM Z III 300x (45MB/s, works with all recording modes)
8GB HPC-CF8GZ3U5
4GB HPC-CF4GZ3U5

Lexar Professional 600x (90MB/s, works with all recording modes except Slow Motion)
16GB LCF16GCRBEU600
8GB LCF8GBCRBEU600

Lexar Professional 300x (45MB/s, works with all recording modes except Slow Motion)
16GB CF16GB-300-386
8GB CF8GB-300-386
4GB CF4GB-300-386

Lexar’s 32GB 300x (45MB/s) is not listed by Canon, and I’m wondering if it was even tested? Specs seem to match the other smaller capacity versions listed above. Amazon has a two-pack of those 32GB cards for under $300.

Here’s an interesting concept for an SSD…Seagate is soon introducing a hybrid drive that offers a standard 7200 rpm, 500 GB notebook SATA drive, but with an additional 4 GB of flash storage. The drive firmware stores small, frequently used data chunks on the SSD portion of the drive, and uses the standard spinning platter for all your other storage needs. The OS will see all this fancy magic as a single hard drive. The advantage is that you get some of the benefits of SSD drives, lighting fast boot, quick app starts, etc, but at a much more affordable price point. Announced pricing is 500 GB @ $156, 320 GB @ $122, and 250 GB for $113. Not bad.

G-RAID Review
G-Technology
www.g-technology.com

Introduction
Monday April 12, 2010 marks the beginning of FreshDV’s fourth year broadcasting daily video coverage from the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow. The week of NAB is always a busy one for the FreshDV crew; we run camera crews all day on the tradeshow floor, meanwhile editors ingest, edit, and output video segments for broadcast here at FreshDV and also via syndication partners. It’s nearly-live coverage from this incredibly large tradeshow, and the pace is frenetic.

For the last two years we’ve shot and edited the show in HD, downrezzing for the web on output. NAB 2009 was the year we went solid-state, shooting on the Sony EX1 platform and running media cards back and forth to the edit suite. When we transitioned to HD acquisition, we also adopted a new storage strategy. For the last two years, we’ve been using G-Tech G-RAID 2 hard drive systems for storage and editing. They are reliable, fast, and durable enough to hold up to the rigors of our crazy production schedule. Since we started using these hard drives, G-Tech has released a new version, the G-RAID 3 with even larger max capacity space and a few other options like the addition of an eSATA port (and removal of the FW400 option, except via a FW800-to-400 cable). Beyond that, it appears that the overall design and has not changed. For the purposes of this review, we’ll be talking specifically about the G-RAID 2 systems.

Design and Construction
The G-RAID 2 is a two-drive RAID system, configured in a RAID-0 striped volume array for speed. In my testing, these units deliver upwards of 65MB/s read and write speeds, so they are plenty fast for our compressed EX1 footage and ProRes 422 sources (the latter which is used for our sponsor bumpers and supporting footage/b-roll). While the beautiful aluminum exterior matches the look of Apple’s pro line of desktop towers, it’s not all about looks. The aluminum case acts as a heat sink, and is built like a tank…they are rock solid. These are solid drive systems that can literally take the heat of production.

One of the things I most appreciate about the G-RAID 2 is the multiple interface options. These drives come equipped with Firewire 800, Firewire 400, and USB 2 ports for connecting to your computer system. What’s great is the fact that there are two FW800 and FW400 ports, and the drive acts as a hub. So if you are working from a laptop system that is only equipped with a single Firewire port, you can daisy-chain multiple firewire devices via the GRAID. I can’t tell you how many times this has come in handy when working on the road. Obviously the first drive in the chain needs to be powered up to pass through connections to other devices. What’s interesting is that you can chain a single or multiple G-RAID drives to one another via FW800, and add a FW400 to the end of the chain. Very helpful.

Setup and Configuration
The G-RAID 2 comes with all the necessary cables and power cords you need to connect to your computer with Firewire 800. If you want to connect via USB 2 (why?), you’ll need one of those USB cables with the squarish end for the drive port. The first thing you’ll likely notice upon unpacking the drive is the large power brick. That is one of the minor annoyances of the G-RAID, as the power brick is nearly half the size of the drive. The other think you’ll probably notice upon connecting and powering up your drive system is the G-RAID’s internal fan. Heat is the mortal enemy of hard drives, so G-Tech includes a small fan in their enclosures. This adds a bit to the noise level of the drive system, and I suppose is a necessary evil. I’ll trade a little ambient noise for increased reliability any day. Setup is quick and simple, as G-Tech ships drives pre-configured to work with Mac OSX. Windows users will want to reformat the hard drive before use. Beyond that, there’s not much else to report. Setup is simple.

Drive Performance
In testing with AJA’s drive System Test utility, I was able to obtain 77.2MB/s read and 65.7MB/s write speeds. At the time of the test, the drive was 1/3 full. I also tested the drive when 3/4 full, and saw the read and write speeds drop slightly to 76.9MB/s and 63.2MB/s, respectively.

Reliability
G-Tech is a well-respected name in the industry, and I know a lot of production users who swear by their drives. But every good name is not without the occasional issue. In my case, about 6 months after acquiring my G-RAID system, I started noticing a clicking noise when powering up the drive. Soon thereafter, the drive would occasionally refuse to mount on my computer. After sending the drive in for replacement, I’ve been running this G-RAID 2 system for about 18 months with no other such issues. I use the drive as my editing scratch, for captures, renders, encoding and such. So it gets used on a regular basis on a variety of HD projects, mainly various ProRes flavors and some RED R3D sources. The only other issue I’ve run into recently is the fan on the enclosure is starting to get loud on occasion, and will need to be replaced. It’s my understanding that this is a user-replaceable part, and it’s simply some maintenance that I need to make time for in the near future. happily, our 2nd G-RAID 2 system has not experienced any such issues, and continues plugging away on a daily basis in heavy production use.

Summary and Conclusions
I’ve been very pleased with my G-RAID system for the past two years. With the exception of the above-noted issues, it’s been a rock-solid post-production companion, it’s white glow illuminating my steaming coffee mug on late-night editing jobs. We’ll be leaning heavily on a few G-RAID systems for our NAB 2010 coverage and post-production tasks, and I’ve gotta say that it’s nice to go into a stressful production schedule like this without having to worry about your storage solution.

Current G-RAID models are available in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB storage capacities, and pricing starts at $229. Find them online at your favorite retailer. Happy editing!

DV’s got a review of the Convergent Design nanoFlash. Haven’t seen a ton of reviews on this little device (maybe because it’s so pricey). Check it out.

 Mike Mihalik on Hard Disk Backups and Reliability [44:30m]: Download

With the advent of affordable solid-state flash media and high-quality HD cameras, production companies small and large are taking another look at their backup processes. Without an original video tape or film stock to go back to, disk storage and backups are more important than ever before. Now in addition to storing project files and media assets used in productions, disk storage IS the original backup media. What is your backup strategy? How are you protecting yourself and your business from the myriad number of ways a hard disk can fail?

To offer a little perspective on the subject of hard disk reliability and backups, we spoke at length with Mike Mihalik, Product Manager at LaCie. I had initially heard Mike mention a few quick thoughts on disk backups on an episode of the Digital Production Buzz with Larry Jordan. Part of the reason for our conversation was to clarify those comments, and part was to also delve a little deeper into Mike’s recommendations for backup processes and best practices.

If you’ve not yet experienced a catastrophic hard disk failure, this podcast may unsettle you a bit. And I’m glad if it does…all too often we hear the horror stories of hard disk crashes where the user has no backup. It only takes one such crash for most people to learn their lesson. Mike speaks at length about the many different ways you can lose hard drive data, and hopefully you’ll come away with a little more concern for your own backup processes, and take time to protect yourself properly in the event of a disk failure.

Subscribe to FreshDV’s free podcast feed to listen in iTunes or on your portable music player.

 Focus Enhancements NAB 2009 Video [8:47m]: Download

At NAB Focus Enhancements NAB booth they were showing off their FS5 direct-to-edit recorder, as well as an archiving solution for solid-state shops. Watch the attached video below, subscribe to our podcast feed, or watch all of our current NAB 2009 videos in one playlist here.

 AJA NAB 2009 Video [12:51m]: Download

Prior to day one at NAB, there was a ton of pre-show buzz about AJA’s new Ki Pro unit, a unique solid-state + hard disk capture device that also serves as an I/O box for camcorders of all flavors and formats. The online community was also buzzing about the Io Express, the younger sibling of the Io HD ProRes device that AJA came out with some time ago. So we got the low-down on both products at the AJA booth, check it out. Watch the attached video below, subscribe to our podcast feed, or watch all of our current NAB 2009 videos in one playlist here.

Convergent Design’s unique Flash XDR unit is a solid-state recorder for HD cameras. It accepts uncompressed video via HD-SDI, and records it to CF card using a “visually lossless” codec or one of several high-bitrate Long-GOP or I-Frame only options. Shipping with the latest firmware update, it now supports QT and MXF files, offering near-universal NLE support. So if you’ve got about $4800 you’ve been itching to spend, this one looks like a good option for high-quality capture in the field. Learn more here.

Spec’ing a new NLE system? Want to know recommended best practices for your existing computer? Videoguys has an great Video Editing Storage Frequently Asked Questions article that covers the bases well. So if you want to know why you shouldn’t configure your computer with just one huge RAID-0 array for storage, or simply don’t understand RAID and what each level offers, check this article out. There’s also a handy chart that indicates disk space requirements for the various flavors of HD and SD.

While you are over there, make note of Videoguys Specials page, currently offering $25 off any order of $500 or more.

Focus Enhancements is (no longer) running a short promotion on the new MR-HD100 hard drive recording device for JVC ProHD users, the first fifty people to purchase the device and fill out a survey will get it for 60% off retail price; $999, instead of $2,495. I just got the e-mail this afternoon, so I imagine there is still time to jump on this deal.

Restrictions:
Purchasers must reside in the United States
Only NTSC models available for special discount
Only 50 units available for this price
Purchasers must agree to fill out a Focus sponsored survey 60 days after purchase
Reseller, dealers, distributor not eligible for special promotion

Focus MR-HD100
Defining a new class of Native File Recording, the MR-HD100 Portable Media Recorder weighs only twelve ounces, brings Native File recording technology to your JVC ProHD camcorder, and enables you to add custom metadata while you’re recording. The Focus MR-HD100 comes with a backlit color display, an easy-to-use menu system, a 100GB hard drive, and a removable, rechargeable battery, it is the perfect Native File Recorder companion for your JVC ProHD camcorder.

Audio, video, timecode, and control information is passed through a single FireWire cable, allowing you to record to disk or to disk and tape simultaneously. With the MR-HD100, you can personalize and optimize workflow—while you shoot. With your wireless handheld device or laptop, you can access the MR-HD100 through a browser, define metadata, and assign it to video while you’re recording, eliminating the need to tag footage when the shoot is over. During postproduction, simply transfer clips—complete with metadata—from the MR-HD100 to your NLE system or PX Media Server. All of the information that you assigned during the shoot goes with the clips, saving you hours or even days of logging time.

Here at FreshDV we’ve written and talked at length about the Sony XDCAM EX1 and XDCAM EX3. It’s an absolutely brilliant HD camcorder series, well suited to use stock, with a 35mm lens adapter system, and now with interchangeable lenses on the EX3. However, one common complaint about these cameras is the cost of the SxS solid-state media. This complaint is the same one that has always dogged the Panasonic HVX200 and other P2 cameras. Solid-state media simply isn’t cheap, and no real generic, non-oem solutions have been available. Until now…

Guy Barwood has been researching this issue for a while now, and recently wrote at length about a new SxS media alternative. You see, SxS cards are really just high-performance Express Card 34 (SSD) media. However, two variants of this standard exist, USB and PCI Express internal interfaces. USB is cheaper to make, and therefore most generic SSD cards use it. Sony happens to use the PCI Express variety, and the shipping EX1 firmware didn’t support the USB SSDs. However, with the recent release of the EX3 and Sony’s EX1 1.11 firmware update, these cameras now accept both USB and PCI E media, with some exceptions:

“So not long ago someone tried to test the Lexar cards again. Low and behold, with the EX3 (from day 1) and EX1 with firmware 1.11 the cameras suddenly recognise the media. This seemed pretty amazing as these cards are really low cost compared to SxS. Unfortunately their write performance did prove to be their undoing. While they work most of the time in SP (25Mbps), in HQ (35Mbps) they don’t fair too well with media errors happening from a few sec to a few minutes of recording :-(

So then the quest for other options continued. People started testing other Express Card card readers. CF cards are actually wider than Express Cards so that was never going to work well (CF cards would be hanging out), so other card reader were tried. I tried the Sandisk Express card reader without success (unrecognised media) however others found an one obscure card to be showing promise. This card is the Kensington 7 in 1 Express Card reader (credit goes to Alister Chapman for first testing this adaptor). No other reader has been found to either work, or work as well.”

Guy goes on to list the unique reader+card options that seem to work best. The reader is the Kensington 7-in-1 ExpressCard Media Reader ($40), and test-proven cards include the Class 4 Sandisk Ultra II SDHC cards ($25-$75) and Sandisk Extreme III 30MB/s Edition SDHC cards ($48-$120). Technically speaking, all Class 6 SDHC cards should be fast enough to handle the EX1’s 35mbps bitrate…however, like hard drives it is the sustained write speed that matters. So I suggest you consult Guy’s article for notes on Transcend and other card compatibility besides the ones just mentioned. There are also some issues with overcranking, etc. So caveat emptor.

It’s overstating it a little, but bear in mind that a 16GB SxS card will set you back $850. A 32GB SxS is $1500. A 16GB SDHD card and reader is under $115! That is an amazing disparity, and may be well worth it for you to deal with the above-noted limitations. Beyond price, the beauty of this DIY solution is that you don’t have to own multiple readers, just bring a wad of SD cards with you when you shoot. In fact, you can leave the card reader in the camcorder media slot and just swap cards in and out (this does not work with two readers installed, you must be using one SxS card in the other slot to enable KxS hotswap). You’ll want a safe storage case for your smaller media now, consider something like the Pelican Memory Card case.

Back at NAB 2007 when Sony announced they would be supporting an open solid-state media standard, we cheered them on. It’s great to see that promise finally coming to fruition. And now that the EX1 and EX3 camcorders offer increased media compatibility, I fully expect third-party companies to start coming out with better-integrated SxS media alternatives. It’s a good time to be an indie filmmaker!

(Via Bruce Johnson)

Amex Digital has announced an external Blu-ray burner for Windows and Mac computers. The drive is USB bus-powered and can burn 1x and 2x BD media, as well as functioning as a standard DVD burner. MSRP is $289 for the player-only version, and $389.00 for the burner. (Thanks for the correction, Joel!)

(via Engadget)

Bruce Johnson has reviewed the Vantec Nexstar Nst-D100Su Hard Drive dock over at PVC. This is a sweet little solution that allows you to quickly and easily mount and unmount bare hard drives for use with editing and backups. Even before I read Bruce’s review, another editor friend recommended it. The D100Su sounds like handy little solution, and with both USB2 and eSATA connections available, what’s not to like? Amazon has it for $41.13 with free shipping.

Last month at the IBC show in Amsterdam, a small Swedish company named Ikonoskop launched an exciting new digital cinema camera called the A-Cam dII. The dII offers nearly 2K resolution from a 16mm-sized CCD imager, records uncompressed DNG sequences to high-speed solid-state media, and can be overcranked up to 60fps. With a number of lens mount options that include PL, C-mount, and still image lenses (via the IMS mount), the dII has a lot to offer to those with an existing lens investment. Perhaps one of the greatest attractions of the dII is it’s compact, integrated design that thoughtfully includes a viewfinder tucked into the side of the body.

I wrote 1200 words on this new camera shortly after it was announced, comparing it to the Red One and Red Scarlet. You can read that article over at ProVideoCoalition. It’s an intriguing offering from both a price and performance standpoint, and since the announcement I’ve heard more speculation and questions about the dII than answers. So we got in touch with the Ikonoskop crew to try to get some of these burning questions answered.

The following 30-minute podcast is a frank and open discussion about the dII that should clear the air about what it does, and doesn’t offer. If you’ve got questions about this new camera, we hope this interview will answer them. Listen to the podcast by subscribing to our podcast feed.

 Ikonoskop A-cam dII Interview [30:21m]: Download

Imagine Products, makers of ShotPut Express for SxS media management, announced ShotPut Red Edition, a tool that automates and simplifies the offloading and transfer of CF and RED Raid media on a production set. Here’s a few key features:

* Fast Copying: Perform copies at top speed without the overhead of Finder or Explorer.
* Automatic or Manual Copies: Manually select one or more drives to copy. Or use the auto offload mode to sequentially copy RED volumes or cards upon insertion.
* Easy Folder Naming: Save time and improve consistency and organization by auto-naming the copy folders.
*Improve Workflow: ShotPut’s multi-threading technology makes up to 3 simultaneous copies at the same time.
* Reformat Cards: After offloading is finished, automatically reformat the CF card so it’s ready to return to the camera.
* Security: Verify byte-to-byte comparisons of your media copies to ensure integrity of the files.
* Verification Report: Create a record of file transfer activity, how the copies were named, time, date, etc. Save complete details for project organization and billable time.
* Print Offload Log: Offload results are presented in a text file, printable with the click of a button.
* Session Error Checking: Prevents overwriting of existing folders and duplicate offloading of the same media volume.
* Progress Bar: Displays overall percent completion and file-by-file progress during the copy process.
* Copy Cards or Disks: The contents of any mountable volume (drive) can be copied including CF cards, RED Raids, etc.
* Compatible with Your Camera: ShotPut RED works with Build 15 and Build 16 file formats. Copies any volume containing R3D files.

The software is available on Mac and Windows, a single license will set you back $49.00. More info here.