Tape is dead.
Long live tape
by Peter Jones, Managing Director FOR-A (UK)
A
n area that has
been a vital part
of television –
defining much of ‘how’ and
‘what’ things are done – is
recording. At first film was
the medium, then in 1956,
Ampex invented the video
tape recorder with the prime
aim of providing delayed
programmes across the USA.
Soon video tape editing, and
other applications rapidly
expanded and the 2-inch
quadruplex VTR standard
reigned supreme for nearly
two decades. Then, spurred
by the availability of larger
(than analogue) digital
storage that revolutionised
timebase correction, cheaper
and far more versatile 1-inch
open-reel formats emerged
and ‘format wars’ began.
Hostilities escalated with
the arrival of smaller digital
cassette formats. However,
with videotape being the
only storage medium it had
to do everything – recording,
editing, replay, slo-mo, and
archive. It fitted some areas
better than others but its
linear access, durability
and running costs were
limiting editing activities,
and for archives bulk,
weight, cost and multiple
formats were far from ideal.
In the mid-1980s hard disk
drives started to be used
as short-term storage for
high-end short-form editing.
Then the total storage was
a few minutes but now,
after 25 years of non-stop
development and 1 or
2TB drives commonplace,
capacity is no longer an
issue for online editing
storage (and if development
continues at the current rate,
in 10 years 64 TB drives
will be readily available and
we’ll all be watching SHV!).
This, and the rise and rise
of computer power, means
that editing is now non-linear
and the video is held as
files. At the same time, the
meteoric rise in SD solid-
state memory capacity has
meant that camcorders are
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becoming ‘chipcams’.... that
record files. ‘File-based’, also
called ‘tapeless’, operation
has become the aim for
many workflows. It has
many advantages – from
‘chipcam’ through to editing
and transmission – hooked
together mainly by Ethernet
and shared storage. But in
live production SDI rules
and there is little movement
towards file-based operation.
Here SDI and its associated
production equipment is
very efficient and reliable,
so why change? At the
same time ‘format wars’ is
back with a vengeance, as
various codecs, file wrappers
and bit rates proliferate in
the file-based world. This
leaves two big questions,
how do you distribute hours
of HD video between areas
not knowing it will work;
and how do you archive?
It is ironic that, after years
seeking ‘tapeless’ operation
suddenly tape is back in
demand. But this is not
videotape; it’s file-based
tape. For years the IT industry
has been using tape for
backup and archive and so
too has some of the video
and digital film industry. The
LTO-1 data tape system,
with a cassette capacity of
100GB, became available in
2000 and has been used by
many as an in-house back up
and archive. This year LTO-5
was released offering 1.5TB
on the same sized 102.0 x
105.4 x 21.5 (mm) cartridge.
With a maximum data rate
of 140 MB/s this goes faster
than real time. So far, so IT!
However LTO-5 offers much
more than an expected
greater ‘bang for buck’ from
successive generations of IT.
The real benefit of LTO-5 is
the associated LTFS (Linear
Tape File System), an open
source file system software
from IBM which makes
loading and unloading data
from a tape drive as easy as
dragging and dropping files
from a USB stick or a hard
disk. Successive generations
of LTO- tape will be able to
exchange data from LT0-5
between different devices,
making it a truly open system.
Up to now those working
with LTO have used relatively
IT-based interfaces and they
have also had to negotiate
various file formats. FOR-A
saw that the LTO family
has all the makings of an
excellent archive format but
working with it would not suit
most TV production people.
So the new LTS-100HS Video
Archiving Recorder was
designed to offer the best
of both worlds, using LTO-5
as the archive medium and
building a front-end that is
familiar to TV operational
staff. It bridges the gap
between pure TV and pure IT
by accepting SDI video and
recording on the file-based
LTO-5. The LTS-100HS is
housed in a compact half-
width 3RU unit that includes
an LCD video monitor,
two terabytes of hard disc
storage, familiar VTR-style
controls and an LTO-5 data
cassette drive along with
HD/SD-SDI video and audio
connections. It records and
replays file-based MEPG2
MXF at up to 50 Mb/s that
has a video running time
of 50 hours on one LTO-5
cartridge. With the LTFS
being open technology, it
enables reading and writing
files on PCs as ordinary
external storage and is widely
supported by many major
companies in the IT industry.
Users can store programmes
or unedited footage onto
LTO-5 cartridges, place
them on the shelf, or take
a pack of material on site
to support OB or other
remote operations – all within
the file-based domain.
Back in the ‘quad’ VTR
days broadcasters archives
rapidly became a physical
problem, the weight and
volume of the 2-inch reels
meant that valuable shelf
space filled too quickly and
probably contributed to some
ditching of old programmes.
Yes, size matters, and small
is best, both for long-term
storage and for transport.
Also, with the LTO project
currently mapped to the 12.8
TB LTO-8, it will be live for
many years yet and endure
for years beyond that. The
LTS-100HS allows recording
file-based tapes from SDI
video that can still be easily
read in many years time.