Hi there,

Would somone kindly confirm... I've done the math, and it seems to me that if I transfer all one hundred of my old mini-DV tapes (NTSC) to hard drive, via Avid, I'd need 1.36 TBytes.  

Before I invest in, say, a 2 TB hard drive (they're not that expensive), and the time it'll take to transfer it all, I'd love confirmation.

thanks, Malcolm

DV 25 is about 5 minutes per Gigabyte.  12 GB per hour times 100 tapes is 1.2 TB or so.  But get more, especially if you have more than 2 track of audio.

Remember, if you have a mojo, you cannot connect firewire and the mojo on the same bus (that means the same connection.)

Thank you Doctor.  I might look for a 2TB model.

(no mojo worries).

Cheers, Malcolm

Bookmark this

http://www.avid.com/dnxhd/widget/storage_calc_widget.html

Thanks Todd... I guess the "gauge" and "footage" fields are for film buffs.  If I leave them alone, and go with DV25, I get 922GB, which is less than my other calculation.  Maybe this Avid calculator (is it an actual widget, by the way?  If so, I'd like to add it to my widget collection) isn't taking audio into account...

Regards, Malcolm

Make sure that you have the right framerate selected.  100 hours of DV25 is 922GB at 24fps, but DV is 30fps natively, which works out to 1174GB.

thanks for the correction.   I was using my current frame rate (with Sony EX1).  The new math makes more sense.  Malcolm

Be a shame to loose 100hrs of video with a failed drive so might be worth keeping the tapes!

Also how much is your time worth to re digitise all that footage again, it could be worth buying  2 X 2 TB drives and using 1 as back up.

Oh also worth checking the first tape to see you have the correct settings rather than find out after 100hrs.

Nick - - I love the advice.  Your last line made me laugh - - because it's so true!  (I'll come back to it in a moment).  

I'll keep all the tapes... I'm hoping that means I won't have to back up onto a second 2TB hard drive, but you've got me thinking.  Too expensive to get a second drive if I go for something like a G-Tech, but I probably could afford to get a couple less expensive drives.  Conundrum.

Now, re your last point:  they're mini-DV tapes, mostly from the nineties.  There aren't too many settings I could screw up, are there?  30fps... anything else I need to know?  One thing I'm hoping i can do, by the way, is correct all the footage I shot with a wide-angle lens (barrel-distortion city).  I think I heard there's something you can do to it to stretch it back to normal.

Cheers, Malcolm

"There aren't too many settings I could screw up, are there?"

True, but still, it's good to spot-check during the process.

Recently, at our facility, an Assistant Film editor was tasked with doing an uprez for a screener (against our advice).  It wasn't until "every" tape had been batch captured before it was discovered they had mostly missed the "A" Frames.  Oh well.

I'll be sure to spot-check, Randall - - that kind of thing has happened to me too.

Cheers, Malcolm