Panasonic P2 Handheld Camcorder Understanding P2 Workflow: Final Cut Pro - Page 14

MXF Aware DLT Digital Linear Tape (DLT) has been used to backup computer data since the early 1980s. Quantum offers a special DLT drive, Model 600A, that offers MXF data support and an easy to use Ethernet connectivity. Simply drag your files from your local drive to the DLT, just like an FTP upload. DLT tapes can currently hold up to 300GB of data on magnetic tape that costs around $100. The tape has an archive life of 30 years guaranteed. Transfer times will average about 16 cards per hour or about 4 minutes per 8GB P2 card. It is important to consider how you wish to handle the archive. If you archive only your FCP project and associated capture scratch locations, you will lose the original MXF metadata since FCP does not work with it natively. This may not be an issue for some, but if the work may be moved to another editing platform or to an asset management program, preserving the native MXF files will be important. The files archived on the P2 Store are in the native MXF format. You can mount the P2 Store to your desktop and copy the volumes to the media of your choice such as Blu-Ray or hard disc or DLT (see below). If you wish to archive P2 cards in their native format and you are not using a P2 Store, an extra step must be taken to preserve that data before the cards are erased. Optical Disc Backup To backup using an optical disc format, I recommend Toast 8 from Roxio (http://www.roxio.com/toast). First choose the Data category on the left to tell Toast what type of data will go on the disc. Next, decide whether the disc needs to be PC compatible. If so, choose ISO 9660. If you only need Mac compatibility, choose Mac Only. This will allow you to create a backup that can span multiple discs without you guessing how many discs are needed, Toast will figure it out automatically. 14