Capture and Storage Systems

Regardless of whether you configure your own system or purchase one ready-made, it's helpful to think about capture and storage before you get started. Decisions you make during the process of importing material to your computer from your tapes shape the outcome of your project. If you employ an organized capture and storage system, you'll have a much easier time finding and keeping track of your footage later on.

Capturing DV footage involves playing the material on your deck or camera (Figure 10-1), and then digitally importing the material to your computer via FireWire, also known as an IEEE 1394 connection. It also involves repeatedly fast-forwarding and rewinding through the tape to select the individual shots you want. Video decks were made to fast-forward and rewind without breaking down; cameras were not.

Rewinding a tape in your camera can lead to accidentally damaging the tape as it runs through the

camcorder at high speeds, and continually fast-forwarding or rewinding can burn out your camera's internal workings (see "The Vulnerability of Any Recorded Media" in Chapter 1). DV decks aren't cheap—they can easily cost more than $1,500—but if using one extends the life of a camera you recently paid $3,000 or

$4,000 to purchase, it's a good investment.

Figure 10-1. A computer connected to a DV camera and a computer connected to a DV deck.

SIDEBAR

Configuring Your Own System Versus Buying a Turnkey Setup

When you purchase a new editing system, you have the option of purchasing each component on its own (including editing software, a computer, and associated peripherals such as a deck and displays) or buying a ready-made configuration of hardware and software called a turnkey system. Many video equipment retailers allow you to choose between mixing and matching individual components on your own or opting for a turnkey system they configure for you. Each has its own set of pros and cons.

The advantages of building your own system are:

 You buy only what you want. Since you're configuring the system yourself, you don't have to buy all the elements of someone else's preselected package (which may include things you don't need). You may even be able to use your existing computer, instead of buying a new one.

 You can shop around and contact multiple vendors to find the best price on each individual component. Because you're not buying everything from the same place, you might save money by purchasing different pieces from different retailers who offer competing prices, especially if you buy some online.

 Custom-built computers are modular, and small parts are easy to replace. In contrast, cheaper turnkeys (like some Compaq-HPs, Acers, etc.) have components soldered to the motherboard, so if you need to change a chip or something, you have to buy a whole new motherboard, which is very expensive.

The disadvantages of building your own system are:

 If you're building your system from scratch, it's your responsibility to ensure that everything works. Not everyone likes connecting devices and testing configurations, and if you don't, this probably isn't the route for you to take. If you have trouble

assembling the different pieces into a working system, you can't simply call the company who sold it to you for help, because you bought each piece from a different vendor. (A relative once purchased a Sony mini DV camera and Dell computer with video editing software.

He was unable to capture video to his computer from the camera, and at his request, I called the tech support line for both companies. Dell told me they couldn't help me and suggested I call Sony. Sony said they couldn't help me and suggested I call Dell.)

 Searching for the best price and making a series of purchases from multiple vendors takes time and effort. If you're in a hurry to start editing, you may view the time you spend assembling your system as time that you're not spending on editing your film.

The advantages of purchasing a turnkey system are:

 With one purchase, you can bring home a fully functional editing system. The retailer does the work of selecting all the components and delivering them to you as a package deal. This can get you started much more quickly.

 Because you purchase the entire system from one vendor, you have only one merchant to call if there's a problem.

The disadvantages of purchasing a turnkey system are:

 A turnkey system can sometimes cost more than purchasing the individual components from competing retailers (some vendors might charge you a fee for the convenience of buying everything in one easy purchase). I once worked with someone who said everything has an economic value. In this case, the time and effort you save by not having to make multiple purchase decisions may or may not make up for the increase in cost.

 Your turnkey system may include components you don't need and don't use. Because someone else is making the decisions for you, the turnkey system may contain equipment you wouldn't otherwise purchase (it's like the "money saving" option packages on a car).

 They don't always work right out of the box. Your turnkey system may still require varying degrees of assembly and effort before you can get started on your editing project.

As you set up your capture system, it's helpful to think about your storage system as well, since you'll be using the two together. In recent years, the price of storage has fallen considerably. Independent filmmakers can now buy affordable hard drives that store 120 gigabytes of information or more (which translates to well over 10 hours worth of DV footage) and cost less than $200. Depending on your computer system and how you plan to edit, you can purchase additional internal hard drives that mount inside your computer or external drives that connects to your editing system via FireWire (Figure 10-2). Working with multiple hard drives expands the storage capacity of your computer and helps improve performance. Even if your computer shipped with a very large hard drive, working with an additional drive that you use solely for storing media helps avoid disk fragmentation (see the sidebar, "The Problem of a Fragmented Drive") and places less of a strain on the drive running your computer's operating system.

Figure 10-2. Internal and external hard drives.

Note: If you're just editing some home movies, there's nothing wrong with connecting your camera directly to your computer. (Some people use an older camera as a deck after they upgrade to a new camera.) If you're embarking on a footage-intensive editing project, or going into business as a video editor, a dedicated deck becomes an important investment. Using a separate DV deck extends the life of your camera, and helps you look professional when clients drop by.

A good external drive should cost about $1 per gigabyte of storage. This means a 120 GB drive should cost in the range of $120. Two good brands are Maxtor (www.maxtor.com) and LaCie (www.lacie.com).

Internal drives should cost slightly less. A web site called dealnews (http://dealnews.com) lists the lowest prices on various computer equipment and media, ranging from drives to recordable DVDs. I like this site and their Mac-oriented site dealmac (http://dealmac.com), because they don't sell equipment themselves—

they just list the lowest prices advertised by other retailers.

10.2.2.1. Using internal drives

Internal drives often cost less than their external counterparts, and because they reside within your computer, they create less noise. Internal drives can also provide faster data transfer rates than an external FireWire drive, which means they can more quickly transfer information from the drive to your computer's processor. For most video applications, good external FireWire drives are fast enough for storage, but I've found that when burning DVDs or encoding material for DVD production, I get better results from media stored on an internal hard drive. For more on DVD production and encoding, see Appendix A.

The main drawback to internal hard drives is they can create substantial amounts of heat. Although desktop model G4 and G5 computers have room to install several internal drives, the documentation for Final Cut Pro advises against installing a total of more than three drives inside a single computer enclosure.

According to the documentation, heat build-up can cause problems during capture and playback, and can ultimately lead to the failure of one or more of the drives.

Note: Working with an internal drive means someone needs to install it. It might be scary the first time you open your computer and start reconnecting components, but it saves you tremendous amounts of money as opposed to bringing it to someone else to do it for you. (Interestingly, many internal drives will work in either a Mac or PC so long as the system is correctly configured. Still, be sure to check that any drive you buy is compatible with your system before you open the box.) Of course, if you aren't computer savvy, or good at putting things together, get someone else to do this. Both for your own safety, and that of your

system, don't try to open your computer if you don't know what you're doing.

The Problem of a Fragmented Drive

Hard drives store files in chunks of information. When there's room on a disk, a computer can place large chunks of information close together, which makes them easy to read. When the drive starts to run out of room, the computer places smaller chunks of information wherever it can find space on the disk. If parts of a file are scattered throughout a disk, instead of stored near one another, the file becomes harder to read and takes longer for the computer to process. When this happens, the disk has become fragmented and the computer's performance suffers. Video files are notorious for fragmenting hard drives, especially as you delete older files and record new ones.

Two software applications you can use to help maintain and defragment your drives are Diskwarrior by Alsoft (www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior), and Norton Systemworks by Symantec (www.symantec.com/sabu/sysworks/basic). DiskWarrior runs on Mac; Systemworks is now a PC-only product, although earlier versions were cross platform.

If you're running Windows XP on your computer, the operating system includes software called Disk Defragmenter, which can be scheduled to perform periodic maintenance on your PC.

10.2.2.2. Using external drives

External hard drives usually don't have problems with heat build-up, since they're housed outside the computer. External FireWire hard drives are also great for working with laptops, as opposed to extra internal drives, which are generally too large to fit inside a portable computer. Because FireWire drives are hot-swappable, meaning they can be connected and disconnected without restarting a computer, they make it easy to organize potentially overwhelming amounts of footage or to separate footage from different projects. You can divide the footage for a large project onto several different drives, and then connect each drive to your computer only when you need it. You can also use the same external drive with more than one computer, which makes editing portable. I have several friends who edit on sophisticated systems in their home studios, and travel with an external drive connected to a laptop so they can edit on the road when time allows or inspiration strikes.

The main downside to external drives is their higher cost, as compared to internal drives, and the fact that you can hear them operating because they're outside your computer's enclosure (if you use a few together, they get really loud). Another potential complication is that external drives generally require a power source to operate, so you have to plug each one into an outlet. This can be an inconvenience if you find yourself running out of available plugs, or if you feel like you already have too many cables and power cords streaming out from your computer.

If you're working with extensive amounts of footage, you might consider setting up a RAID, or redundant array of independent disks. A RAID is a set of disks used to mirror copied data to multiple locations. While these can be very expensive, depending on the capacity of the drives, there are new external FireWire RAIDs that are both reasonably priced and very fast.

10.2.2.3. Why removable media is not an effective choice

Instead of purchasing an external hard drive, it may be tempting to work directly from footage stored on removable media, such as a Zip disk, a data DVD, or a CD. This is a bad idea. A computer won't be able to read the information off these discs fast enough to play the video you store on them. You can archive media onto a Zip disk, data DVD, or CD, and then copy the files to your hard drive to work with, but otherwise,

removable media just won't work. To meet the needs of a video editor, any storage device needs to transfer information to and from a computer at a consistently high rate. Final Cut's documentation recommends using drives, either external or internal, with sustained data transfer rates of 8 MB per second or more (this recommendation also applies if you're running another editing program, such as Avid Xpress or Adobe Premiere). The documentation also recommends using a disk that spins at 5,400 revolutions per minute or higher (many editors recommend an even higher 7,200 rpm) because the faster a disk spins, the more quickly it can transfer information and access individual files on-demand. CDs and Zip disks don't make the cut because they just aren't fast enough.

Note: Make sure you plug the correct power supply into your drive. Most power supplies look similar, but if you plug into one that has a higher output voltage than your drive takes, it will fry the drive. To avoid confusion, you can color-code your drives and power supplies with colored tape, or even label them. If you're working on a project that is your life, you might consider getting an extra drive, periodically backing up the data and project files, and keeping it at a friend's place, in case something happens to your house (fire, flood, earthquake, etc.). If you have more than one external drive, especially if they are all the same model, you can label each with the name of a project, or a project name and a number, to avoid confusion.

Once you've got your capture and storage system set up, it's important to establish and maintain a tape numbering system. The inexpensive nature of DV footage makes it easy to shoot hours and hours of footage, so before you know it, you may have a shelf full of tapes.

Professional cameras enable a filmmaker to manually set the start timecode that appears on a tape.

Filmmakers often use this to organize their footage. For example, a filmmaker might set the start timecode of the first tape to 01:00:00;00, the second to 02:00:00;00, the third to 03:00:00;00, and so on. As a result, each tape will have a different source timecode. This enables a filmmaker to set different timecode on up to 24 different tapes (after 23:59:59;29 the timecode recycles to 00:00:00;00).

Unfortunately, most prosumer cameras don't offer a function like this, so each tape will have timecode that's identical to the others. This is a potential problem once the footage has been imported to the computer, because if two clips share the exact same timecode, it can be hard to tell them apart in later stages of postproduction.

An easy solution to this problem is to number each tape (place the same number on the tape label and the box) and use the same number to identify the tape as you capture the footage to your editing system.

Project and pointer files store not only the timecode information for each edit you make, but the tape source of all the material in your film. This source information is especially important if you need to recapture your footage in the event of a system crash, or if you decide to output an EDL and bring your project to a high-end post facility to do something beyond the ability of your system (see Appendix A).