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These look sweet. THIS is a perfect example of "understated good looks and elegance"—as opposed to that hideous Lenovo POS you featured in a front-page review. DELL should be applauded...very nicely done (despite the "protecting the environment" marketing BS).

BTW, where are all the stickers advertising the operating system and processor? Did DELL finally wise up?

Those are very nice.  I particularly like the bamboo one.

lotsamystuff: I had the same reaction to that Lenovo.  I thought it looked like a piece of industrial test equipment I might find in the lab at work, only not quite so elegant.

These Dells, OTOH, are the sort of thing you definitely wouldn't mind having in your living room.

Is this the Dell version of the Mac Mini?

whats interesting is that you can get a blu-ray and it has hdmi so it might just make the perfect home theater PC and a great advanced media center extender.......

I was a bit disappointed by the price. I think Dell is trying to cash in on the "Green" movement a bit. They would have to come up with some hard ROI numbers to justify that price premium.

@jeffhex

"Is this the Dell version of the Mac Mini?"

Not really, you actually have a lot of configuration choices here including some modern components. (The Mac Mini is WAY overdue for some updates)

And if you configure the Dell down to be the same specs as a high-end Mac Mini (Vista Home Premium, 2GHz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB Disk, keyboard, mouse, no monitor) it's 40% less expensive. $629 for the Dell vs $1047 for the Apple.

Veeeery sweeet thing. That's the right trend and I wish I could see more of these on corporate desktops instead of hideous, loud and energy hungry boxes. I might snap one of these for my Home theater PC. The connectivity is just amazing for that form factor.

Their Studio laptop lines is where its at.. Inspiron vs XPS used to be no brainer...not so anymore. Can't wait to upgrade.

Hmmm.  It says WiFi is optional, but I can's see where you add it in the configurator.  I must be missing something.

And no bluetooth or firewire as far as I can see.  That dampens my enthusiasm a little bit.

The picture of the back panel shows a 1394 firewire port. A tiny BT USB adapter would seem to fit well in the one of the 3 USB ports. I dunno guys, but if it performs well with Vista, this seems like a good deal for the kids, since I can use a bigger screen of my choice. I'll wait until they are a little older to pick what they want, but if I need a replacement for one of their computers, this would be a contender for a Mac mini running Windows for them.

One quick story. here's what my wife did to sneek an iPhone to me. She claims that her RAZR is giving her an error message about her sim card again and could I use it for a few days, and just bring my old Palm T3 to work since I just replaced the battery. I put my Treo SIM card in my old RAZR for her to use. She knows where I keep my Apple gift cards and that I am anxious to get rid of them [Peripherals at the Apple store are [much] more expensive than many [every] other places. She stands in line for 45 minutes and gets the 16 GB black iPhone, as she planned this with one of my best friends who was also buying one. So she spent less than $70 as she got the Apple care plan. However, since this was successful deception, what else is she doing?<:O

@WebGuy3000

802.11n is in the Wireless Networking configuration panel. It's $70.

5 USB 2.0 ports (3 back/2 front) and a IEEE 1394 port (the non-Apple name for Firewire) are standard as is Gigabit Ethernet, Digital audio out, analog audio in/out and an 8-in-1 card reader.

@WebGuy3000

What you're probably missing is that to get to the configuration panels not visible on the screen you either walk through the pages one at a time or scroll using the little right-pointing arrow toward the bottom right.

Remember that Firewire is Apple's proprietary name for IEEE 1394 as is Sony's i.LINK.  You won't see it called Firewire except on Apple products and you won't see it called i.LINK except on Sony products but they're all the same thing.

For Bluetooth, you can find Bluetooth USB dongles for about $10 these days and the software support is built into the OS so that's probably not much of a show stopper.

Very slick looking, and a nice range of connectivity offered.  It would be nice as a desktop as well, though I have a feeling dual-monitors are not supported (can't live without it now...).  Wish they had UWB for wireless video--that would make for a very sweet setup.

Yeah, I missed that 1394 in the specs.  My bad.  Oh, and I do know what IEEE1394 is :-)  Like I said, this looks like a nice little system.

Much nicer looking than the Lenovo StinkCentre.  Those IBM/Lenovo desktops have always been hideous looking

My only question is how is Paul going to review this????  In the Lenovo review he dropped this Apple bash.... "Yep, this is a real computer, not an overpriced glorified notebook like a Mac mini".  This Dell is uses notebook parts, newer than the Mini in a few respects (video, wireless N), which is to be expected since its just coming out now.

@DRWAM "I dunno guys, but if it performs well with Vista, this seems like a good deal for the kids".

If they play games that require 3D support the video is not going to cut it.  It will run Aero with out a problem, but not any modern PC games.

"Remember that Firewire is Apple's proprietary name for IEEE 1394 as is Sony's i.LINK.  You won't see it called Firewire except on Apple products and you won't see it called i.LINK except on Sony products but they're all the same thing."

I guess Apple figures they can call it whatever they want since they invented it. ;-)

Mike, you're wrong that you "won't see it called Firewire [sic] except on Apple products". Apple licensed the FireWire name back in 2002. From the press release:

"The 1394 Trade Association (TA) and Apple® today announced that the FireWire® trademark, logo and symbol have been adopted as a brand identity for the IEEE 1394 connection standard in a no-fee license agreement between the TA and Apple. In addition, Apple has granted the TA the right to sub-license the FireWire Trademark for use on products, packaging and promotion of the standard."

Ten seconds of research will lead to plenty of products displaying the FireWire name and logo.

I'm assuming DELL's FireWire is of the "A" variety. Does Vista support 1394b natively yet? I know that it didn't at its introduction (and FireWire support was dodgy at best. Supposedly this has been fixed with SP1, but I can't find anything that indicates if "b" speeds are natively supported.). All I could find (I gave up after 15 seconds of research) was this:

unibrain.com/.../ubcore.htm

Thanks for the info  Snake, but I heard you were dead ;)

Another MoDT design.  Not a bad shell, but I build systems with these motherboards:

www.intel.com/.../DG45FC-overview.htm

....in a similar style of system.  There are some key benefits though:  namely, better graphics, desktop processor support (no Quad or Extreme support though, but faster speeds all around), support for 5 internal SATA drives if installed in an appropriate chassis (and desktop drives too...what? no 7200rpm HDD support Dell?), RAID options, and is quite a bit cheaper.

Still, Dell has them in pretty colours....

"I'm assuming DELL's FireWire is of the "A" variety. Does Vista support 1394b natively yet?"

Nobody cares about 1394b on Windows anymore with eSATA having replaced it.

"support for 5 internal SATA drives"

should say 4.  typo on my part.

Waethorn;

I think you're kind of missing the point of a product like this.  It's meant to be small, quiet, stylish and attractive, with features and expandability deliberately constrained to the needs of the target audience.

While the appeal of such a device is probably lost on the white-box DIY set, I suspect a lot of consumers will rather like it.

@lotsamystuff

You typically will NOT see the FireWire(R) or i.LINK(R) name or logo on computers not made by Apple or Sony. While the two logos and trademark texts can be sublicensed from the trade association (Note, NOT the IEEE) upon passing separate certification processes for each logo including recertification on any change, that is not needed to just use of the IEEE standard compliance statement.

Also note that even this wasn't even possible between 1995 (when IEEE 1394 became a public standard) and 2002 when the trade association was allowed to sublicense the use of the Apple branding in some cases. Of course, by that time USB 2 had effectively won the 1394/USB war and became the much more common standard in all but specialized cases. (Whether that's good or bad is a different issue.)

So, effectively, the rule still applies.

Sony = i.LINK

Apple = FireWire

Everybody else = IEEE 1394

"If they play games that require 3D support the video is not going to cut it.  It will run Aero with out a problem, but not any modern PC games."

I'm not placing any bets on the Intel GMA X4500HD either.  Luckily Intel has a cheap but still-smallish microATX board that's one up from the DG45FC that adds Core 2 Quad support, and a necessary PCI-e x16 slot for a discrete graphics card, as well as a few additional ports (the core features are identical otherwise):

www.intel.com/.../DG45ID-overview.htm

"While the appeal of such a device is probably lost on the white-box DIY set, I suspect a lot of consumers will rather like it."

You'd be surprised how many people will find non-upgradeable systems much less appealling than appliance systems - even those that don't upgrade.  Constrained hardware platforms make the user feel the same way.  Look at most of Apple's products and you'll know what I mean.  This is a niche product.  Just like the Macbook Air.  Just like the Eee PC.  Now this one is at least more full-featured than either of those, but still, history has shown that products like these don't see mass adoption.

@mike galos

Then there's the whole OHCI standardization process too (when 1394"a" was ratified).

Remember those non-compliant cards that only worked at 100Mbps, only with camcorders, and only with special host software as a plugin in Adobe Premiere?  I do.

Q.E.D.

Most Sony Vaio computers back around the 98SE/ME days had one of those non-OHCI cards that required a special driver stack, and wasn't compatible with most software - except Sony's and Adobe Premiere with a plugin.  Pinnacle cards were the same too.  Some of the Pinnacle cards did additional work though, like effects processing, or analog capture.  Most of the non-OHCI chipsets were made by TI.  They were a mess.

One of the main reasons Windows Me was far superior to Windows 98 was because of OHCI controller support out of the box.  Back before USB 2.0 was a standard, I had a couple of 20GB ADS Tech hard drive bays daisy-chained using 1394 on Windows Me.

How much is it to add sound to this little system Mike?

"How much is it to add sound to this little system"

Ummm, nothing?  Sound is included for free.  You may need speakers to get the full experience, though :)

@ Waethorn

"Nobody cares about 1394b on Windows anymore with eSATA having replaced it."

People who use Windows and have halfway decent video cameras care very much about 1394 and 1394b.

@ MikeOFFONATANGENTGalos sure its called lots of things, but I have overwhelmingly seen it called FIREWIRE.

But hey brother argue away if it makes you feel better.

This is a great little device for Windows users, good for SB crowd for sure.

SnakeDon'tCareWhatTheTopicIsIWantInDoctor1

The point is that people often see IEEE1394 and don't know it's the same as FireWire. Or vice versa.

It makes it confusing for people comparing Apple computers with everyone elses. (For the few people who use FireWire in the first place)

Check out the Microsoft anti Apple FUD. I guess that they are striking back with a kick to the groin. Here's from a Microsoft's MSN Video web page:

"The message, verbatim, reads: "We recommend the following browsers: Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and FireFox 2.x on Windows XP SP2, Internet Explorer 7 and FireFox 2.x on Windows Vista, FireFox 2.x on Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger".

Here's the source: Microsoft tells Mac users to get Firefox

www.theinquirer.net/.../microsoft-tells-mac-users-to-use-firefox

@DRWAM there are many pages on MS sites that require IE only.............WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE......as Paul would say.

Many of their products work best with IE, not because IE is better, but because they want to keep the IE/MS lockin. (Exchange OWA/Sharepoint...etc)  One of the many reasons they are so loved and have an excellent image.

Funny thing about the MSN Video page - it works just fine in Safari.  I just tried it.  I set Safari's User Agent to Firefox 2.0 ( so the site thinks that's what's connected) and it works like a charm.

Seems they block Safari just because they can.  Which is their perogative, I suppose...

"People who use Windows and have halfway decent video cameras care very much about 1394 and 1394b."

People who have halfway decent video cameras and are even halfway serious about video editing will buy a Mac anyway.

"The point is that people often see IEEE1394 and don't know it's the same as FireWire."

Usually it has both monikers. I just checked, and every FireWire peripheral I own (including several hard drives, a hub, and four video cameras) had the name "FireWire" and the FireWire logo on the box or packaging*. A couple of the cables even have the logo imprinted on them. Go figure. YMMV, as I'm sure you'll point out.

"For the few people who use FireWire in the first place"

I'm sure that in certain camps (including basement computer shops in Canada, and some cubicles in Redmond), FireWire is largely irrelevant. Certainly, Vista's dismal support for the standard requires the good WinJihadist to dismiss it as such.

* Yes, I do keep the packaging. And the (non-Apple) FireWire hub I use has the logo imprinted directly on the box itself. Even the FireWire PCI card had it on the packing, IIRC. Certainly, it was called "FireWire".

Firewire external drives blow away USB.....big time.  Hopefully USB 3.0 is better.  eSATA...eh 100% hardrives only and buggy between vendor products right now.

I've seen more Firewire camcorders than USB 2.

"Many of their products work best with IE, not because IE is better, but because they want to keep the IE/MS lockin. (Exchange OWA/Sharepoint...etc)  One of the many reasons they are so loved and have an excellent image."

I'm sure Apple is well known for its compatibility. Right?

That is honestly an amazing looking computer and an inspired design.  Looks like Dell is taking a page from the Apple playbook in a very positive way.  Awesome work.

"Looks like Dell is taking a page from the Apple playbook in a very positive way.  Awesome work."

I am not a big fan of Apple, but I do credit them with forcing PC makers to improve designs and remove crapware. Hats off to Dell for coming up with a good design without copying Apple. I think Microsoft's Zune team would do well to take a leaf out of Dell's book.

@jp - "Looks like Dell is taking a page from the Apple playbook in a very positive way."

Why not end your comment with the first sentence. This PC has nothing to do with Apple or any of their designs. No need to plug Apple in every post.

@waethorn - No need for a snide response from you on my question to John, either.

--tayme

I will say this.  The styling is nice, but this doesn't really change anything about the machine beyond their former SFF PC.  The mini is tiny and silent.  If that's what you want, I'm not sure if this quite fits the bill... but I'll need to see one.

In other news, Dell has hired moron-hack-hall-of-famer Rob Enderle of "the Enderle Group" (also known as Rob and his Wife) to consult on their sure-to-fail iPod+iTunes competitor.  Man, they sure are getting taken for a ride by this idiot.

"People who use Windows and have halfway decent video cameras care very much about 1394 and 1394b."

I said specifically 1394*B*.  Show me a consumer camcorder that supports it exclusively and we'll talk.

"eSATA...eh 100% hardrives only and buggy between vendor products right now."

You're smoking crack.

"I've seen more Firewire camcorders than USB 2."

Not I.  1394 is used mostly exclusively on aging DV tape camcorders (ie. MiniDV and the few Digital 8 tapes left).  MPEG-4 camcorders (MicroMV, flash, HDD, Bluray, etc) and DVD camcorders use USB because they set the camcorder up to look like a drive letter or require special drivers or capture software.  1394 was designed for streaming pre-compressed MPEG-2 DV streams without in-line processing.  Since newer camcorders don't use MPEG-2, and USB is more prevalent, manufacturers have chosen it as the connection of choice for consumer models.

All I've got to say is (Think Will Smith) "CHING CHING". It is officially on my 2008 Christmas List. Eloquent design, multi-configurations, and some sweet colors. I wonder how it would do as a Media Center PC? What I mean is in terms of actual performance, because that would make an excellent living room PC.

"Dell has hired moron-hack-hall-of-famer Rob Enderle of "the Enderle Group"..."

I thought you were joking. Really. But no, it's true!

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Rob Enderle, an industry analyst whom Dell hired to consult on the new entertainment strategy, said he is still discussing with Dell whether profits would come mainly from the subscription service or from devices tied to it."

That's astonishing. Michael Dell must have a screw loose somewhere. It could be a good thing, though, in the sense that it might shut down the "Enderle Quote Mill" that consistently spews out the most incorrect propaganda the Interwebs have ever seen. Who's going to go to him now? If he's on the DELL payroll, how can he pretend to be objective in his "anal-ysis"?

Enderle. DELL. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

"manufacturers have chosen it as the connection of choice for consumer models"

Yes, "WaePain", you're right...the best-selling "camcorder" today is the Flip, and it uses USB. Now if you're seriously going to argue that these fall under the category of "halfway decent video cameras", then YOU are clearly the one enjoying crack with your moosemeat, eh?

I must say that this Dell does also demonstrate the limits of Apple's upgradability with the Mini.  Wouldn't it be great if you could get a mini that's more powerful with more ram and disk?  This speaks, once again, to Apple's lack of a mid-range headless tower.  Not a gaming PC, since who cares about that on a mac, but just a powerful desktop not tied to it's monitor.  It's a hole in the lineup given that the Mac Pro is a workstation-class monster that can only be honestly compared to Boxx systems or Precision workstations (and compared very well at that).

The PC world beats the mac on choice.  This we can't deny.

As for firewire vs. USB vs Firewire 800 vs. eSata...

Come on people.  USB is the consumer platform.  No question. Apple, has dropped firewire from the ipods for that very reason.  Firewire 400 outperforms USB 2.0 in harddrives.  That's simple, indisputable fact.  Firewire 800 beats both of those and has connectivity on all pro macs, but virtually no PCs, making it less useful for PC users but awesome for Mac users.  

Now, given that Macs are very strong in content creation, and massive drives are eaten up in large part by content... firewire 800 actually has a quite large and sustainable userbase.

Still, it's not as fast as eSata, which offers native speeds, but I'm unaware of any mainstream PCs or notebooks that ship with eSata ports... making it's userbase likely smaller than Firewire 800.  But it's a great standard that's in heavy use among Mac pros for low-cost RAID solutions in pro content systems with miniSAS enclosures and cards like the Rocket Raid.

Firewire is undisputably the digital video interconnect standard for tape.  Still, we are moving to solid state where that matters less.  I've been shooting commericals with the Red camera to compact flash cards for crying out loud.  Of course, the fastest compact flash card reader is.... firewire 800 from sandisk.

I tell everyone I know to buy tape-based camcorders for their home movies.  I have the Canon HV20. It's great.  And those tapes aren't going to crash and lose all the video I've taken of my son growing up.  Tape still has it's place (even though I hate it).  

Tapeless consumer cameras + low rates of consumer drive backup = a horrible nightmare of digital memories lost forever.

Still... None of the connectivity stuff is worth even a moment of hemming and hawing.  Pick the connection that works for your hardware and enjoy.  I have Firewire 800 drives and can cut 1080P full raster 10bit HD thanks to Final Cut's amazing prores codec.  I could do the same with eSata but it would require an third party card (as it would on most PCs).  Whatever.  Use what works.

Enderle is a hack shill whose "quotes" are blatant propaganda for the companies that employee him as a consultant.  He's also clearly an obsessed Apple basher that doesn't mind outright lies (such as claiming that Microsoft wrote large portions of the original Mac OS).

"I tell everyone I know to buy tape-based camcorders for their home movies. "

As do I. Tape is cheap, durable, and proven.

John,

"The PC world beats the mac on choice.  This we can't deny."

Right. It's not that Macs are inherently that expensive anymore if what you want is exactly one of the models they offer, it's that given the tiny number of configurations, for almost any configuration you're going to have to buy a lot of things you don't need to get the ones you want.

Mike, the MacbookPro is still more expensive than a similar equipped Vista laptop, even at the base configuration [since upgrading anything Apple makes it even more costly], even adding DVD creating software. I'm not a big fan of the Macbooks as well, but did not compare their prices to a Windows laptop. You all know that I really don;t care for laptops to anyway, but own two.

"Now if you're seriously going to argue that these fall under the category of "halfway decent video cameras", then YOU are clearly the one enjoying crack with your moosemeat, eh?"

"I tell everyone I know to buy tape-based camcorders for their home movies. "

"As do I. Tape is cheap, durable, and proven."

BWAHAHAHAHAH!!  That's the funniest thing I've read all day.

"And those tapes aren't going to crash and lose all the video"

No, they just degrade.  While sitting on a shelf.  All by themself.  Not making a backup is just stupid, and well-stored optical media is the best option.  Archived hard-drives are either second, or first, depending on your belief of "optical disc rot".  I would place tape last on my list of choices for archive media.

Well let's just take a look here....Sony has exactly 2 tape high-definition cameras with i.Link, and one is a pro[sumer] cam over $3000.

www.sonystyle.com/.../CategoryDisplay

Hmm....only 2 decent cameras with "i.Link".  Guess that blows your theory all to horseshit, losta.

"Still, it's not as fast as eSata, which offers native speeds, but I'm unaware of any mainstream PCs or notebooks that ship with eSata ports..."

Sorry, but you need to get out of your Mac shell.  eSATA is shipping on PC's as standard gear nowadays.

"Of course, the fastest compact flash card reader is.... firewire 800 from sandisk."

Sorry, but it reads at a sad maximum of just 40MB/sec.  That's only Firewire 400 throughput.  Just because it has an FW800 port doesn't mean it actually uses it.  Methinks the only reason they put a 1394b port on it is just to support connectivity to those ports (which as you know, is a different plug type to 1394a).

eSATA is 3.0Gbps maximum.  eSATA is just an external version of SATA2 (NCQ and all).  Hard drives already far exceed the maximum 45MB/sec speed of Sandisks matching CF cards to that FW800 card reader you spoke of.  RAID is even faster, since host controllers run SATA each as a separate channel.  If you really want to argue speed, you should do your homework.

"I would place tape last on my list of choices for archive media."

Sorry Waethorn, but I don't believe that is smart.  Digital Feature films require proven tape backup workflows in order to be bonded by a bank because tape is the most reliable digital archive.  Period.  Drives apparently can go bad pretty quickly if left on a shelf for years.  DVD-R is obviously a ludicrous backup when you're talking about hundreds of gigabytes... and their shelf life is very much in question.

The pros use LTO-3 tape.  Consumers should shoot tape.  You can't change the fact that most consumers don't backup gigabytes of home movies.  It may be dumb, but it's just a fact.  Hence my recommendation.

As for firewire on video cameras... isn't firewire the main transport for all DV and HDV camcorders?  Those are the two strong standards for consumers and low-end prosumers.  Whatever.  That debate is lame.  Use whatever suites the work you do.

As for the sandisk... I believe that firewire 400 effectively peaks at around 35MB/sec in the real world, hence the sandisk move to 800 for their high performance reader.  USB 2.0 effectively seems to cap at around 25MB/sec in the real world... hence the reality that spec sheets and bull$hit.

"Whatever.  That debate is lame.  Use whatever suites the work you do."

I was amazed at how the Mac bashing crowd cheered in joy when USB2 came out because, on paper (and only on paper), it was speedier than Firewire. I mean, who cares about stupid ports enough to either hate or love them?

"Archived hard-drives are either second, or first, depending on your belief of "optical disc rot"."

Disc rot is really not a question of belief, as isn't the high price of dvd storage (they require a lot of space and time).

"If you really want to argue speed, you should do your homework."

standards.ieee.org/.../ieee1394.html

eSATA speeds with FireWire. Nice.

"The pros use LTO-3 tape.  Consumers should shoot tape.  You can't change the fact that most consumers don't backup gigabytes of home movies.  It may be dumb, but it's just a fact.  Hence my recommendation."

Amen.

"The pros use LTO-3 tape"

....and that's why Red uses it eh?

....or rather, that must mean you're not a pro.

"isn't firewire the main transport for all DV and HDV camcorders?  Those are the two strong standards for consumers and low-end prosumers."

Yes, and since when have you seen any HDV consumer cameras lately?  DV is on it's way out.  HDV is extremely inefficient too with other formats using higher-efficiency codecs.

"firewire 400 effectively peaks at around 35MB/sec in the real world, hence the sandisk move to 800 for their high performance reader"

For 5MB/second more???  BWAHAHAHAHA.  Sorry, but in the "real world" nobody would buy that story.

*REAL WORLD* SATA2 hard drives operate at double that.  RAID 0 is even faster.  1394b can't keep up with that.  Sorry.

"standards.ieee.org/.../ieee1394.html"

USB 3.0 already trumps that at 4.8Gbps, and SATA 6Gbps is just around the corner.

I hope that you are all still reading because I have a question. I have our family camcorder stuff on DVD's made from iDVD. Is this OK? I have had 3 older har drives die in the past year. But I have a real sad story. My twins were born 7 weeks early and I had miniDV tape of them in the hospital, such as the first time my wife and I held them in our arms...  two babies at a time. The tape got destroyed during a playback. I opened it and spliced it, but lost myself holding our twins for the first time, and some of my wife too. It was heart breaking. That's when I started making DVD's. I purchased iLife 3, then bought a compatible DVD burner and swapped out the stock DVD player in my G4. Back then, iLife only worked with [supported] certain players, but hacks came out shortly thereafter.

As a curious aside, DAT tapes tend to "stretch", for want of a better word.

Because professional DAT players use a helical scan method, and consumer DAT players use an axial, or radial scan, I forget the correct term, consumer players therefore have a better chance of playing stretched old DATs than professional machines.

Which is why lots of professional studios used to spec consumer HiFi grade DAT machines.

Also, the best archiving method for professional audio was analogue tape. As long as they're stored sensibly, you can still play very early tapes even today.

The trouble with modern digital workstations is that there's doubt over their file formats.

Will we still be able to open Protools sessions in 50 years time, for example?

anyway, sorry to interrupt the insane arguments.

carry on.

Oh, and DRWAM, I can't shed any genuine light on the subject, but if it helps any, we were once advised to archive onto DVD-RAMs, because of their greater resilience, being cartridge-based disks. They don;t get any dirt or whatever on the actual disc themselves.

However, we have been told since, that standard DVDs were a better choice, because DVD-RAMs were too prone to being erased by environmental factors.

However, more recently, we were advised that the best storage method was MO discs, because, again, they're a cartridge design, so are safe from dust, and are much less likely to deteriorate over time than either DVDs, or DVD-RAM.

Just about the only thing everyone concurred was that digital tape is bad new for long-term archiving.

And, as if to back that up, we have several digital tapes from the 80s, on F1, DAT and Exabyte, that refuse to work.

However, on the flipside, all our analogue tapes from as far back as the early 60s, still work fine.

Sure, we have to 'bake' them before playing them back, but they still sound as good, or bad -subjectively! - than ever.

right, NOW you can all go back to arguing and moaning at each other.

"....and that's why Red uses it eh?

....or rather, that must mean you're not a pro."

Um... RED makes cameras (which shoot to compact flash or hard drive).  They don't use them in the field beyond testing, so what are you even saying?  But their premiere production company partner, Off Hollywood Digital, who received their first two cameras out of the gate and I've been using to run the productions on my commercials archives all their projects to LTO-3A tape.

And that's the point.  Long term archival is best done with tape right now.  Not drives.  Not optical media.  Tape.  Period.  And I hate tape... but it's just the reality.

"For 5MB/second more???  BWAHAHAHAHA.  Sorry, but in the "real world" nobody would buy that story."

It's actually more like 10MB/sec moving from Firewire 400 to 800 on the card reader.  That's a 30% speed boost in the field.  So... a 16GB flash card will take 7.6 minutes at 35MB/s and 6 minutes at 45MB/s.  When you're on the set, a set that costs $100K for one day of shoot, cutting transfer time by 30% is worth $80.  That you claim that "nobody" would buy that is just arrogance compounding ignorance.

"*REAL WORLD* SATA2 hard drives operate at double that.  RAID 0 is even faster.  1394b can't keep up with that.  Sorry."

At what point did I dispute SATA2 being the fastest connection?  Oh, that's right.  I didn't.  And blather on about USB3.  USB2 doesn't even come close to it's 480Mb/sec and is much slower than Firewire 400 in reality.  Reality is all that matters, not vaporware spec sheets.

thanks

I agree the new Dell Studio Hybrid seems like a viable solution.  Even in the workspace.  We're looking at it as a replacement to our desktops.  It's just dual monitor support is lacking.  Then again Dell didn't design this to target business.

"It's actually more like 10MB/sec moving from Firewire 400 to 800 on the card reader."

Sorry, but their specs claim 40MB/sec on the card reader.  MAXIMUM.  That's FW400 specs.  They aren't even using FW800.  To argue that 5MB/sec increase is a 30% increase in productivity is just plain stupid on your part.  And BTW:  Sandisk's cards are rated at 45MB/sec, but the reader isn't, so for you to say that the card can automagically make up for it means you don't have a clue.