Entries in Formats (1)

Monday
May022011

Recording media - which do you prefer?

I recently made the switch between mini-DV tape and XDCAM solid state SxS cards.

While I thoroughly enjoy shooting with the Sony EX3 camera, there is something about not having a tape in my hand at the end of a shoot that makes me nervous. Am I the only person who has this feeling?

As a solo video journalist, I'll often be working while carrying cards in my pocket with footage on them that I have just shot. That makes me a bit concerned.

Then there is the archiving issue. Shooting in HD formats such as XDCAM EX results in very large video files. When shooting on tape, archiving wasn't such a big deal - you could just put your tape in a library.

Now with a disk - not only do you have to back up your footage at least a couple of times - you use up astonishing amounts of space on your raid drive to archive each story you shoot.

I'm interested in how my fellow one-man-band reporters view the move from tape to digital file recording media.