AIC recompression query

[David Roth weiss]

Without knowing how much material you’re dealing with no one can really give you an educated answer, because what you’re proposing to do could be a monumental effort in exchange for a relatively tiny benefit, or maybe not. The best answer will weight costs vs benefits, and that can’t be done without additional information.

I will say this, while the AIC codec is not the best, and is comparitively large in terms of file size, hard drive space is so cheap now that it should not be a factor, and the quality issue is also relatively miniscule, unless your video was shot and lit by a master. So, I guess I’m suggesting that you might consider just continuing to edit.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Gregory Brosnan]

Thanks David, well I have about 800 G of footage stored so far, and that’s after plenty of whittling down. It’s an independent, mostly self-funded doc I expect will eventually run to about 45 mins. What I have is the stuff I’m definitely going to use, and stuff that I still might use. My project is about a third of the way through in terms of capturing, so I’d be pushing my 2 TB drive to its operating boundary if I carry on capturing using AIC. Additional hard drive space might be cheaper these days, but still not cheap enough for me to spend any more cash on it for now!

One of the reasons I’m doing this is because I have to recapture much of my footage anyway following a desktop drive collapse, when I had no back up disk. That’s mainly why I’m considering the format change. Maybe I could import everything from now on using HDV instead of AIC. The two formats seem to work fine side by side in the timeline? If anyone sees any potential issues with that in the export/delivery stage, I’d love to hear from them.

I’m still also very keen to hear any additional feedback from anyone on the technical process of converting from AIC to HDV using the media manager, and of the pros and cons of capturing/editing/delivering in HDV vs AIC.

Thanks again, any help very much appreciated, Greg

[David Roth weiss]

Greg,

Neither AIC nor HDV are delivery formats, both are intermediate formats, meaning that, 99% of the time, both will need to to be transcoded to a professional tape format should you get a broadcast slot for your project. Also, the only real difference between the native HVD and AIC is file size and a marginal loss of some color information in AIC that you would be very hard pressed to notice.

As far as the hard drive issue is concerned, I’ll leave you with one thought, at just $100 per terabyte these days, you would have a very hard time convincing me that the cost of adding an additional hard drive is more valuable than your time. As a professional with many, many years of experience I suggest to you that cost-benefit analysis is one of the most important aspects of this business and one of the most important aspects of life.

Meanwhile, David Batistella has a very good article on the Cow about recapturing HDV. I suggest you read it.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Gregory Brosnan]

Hi David, thanks very much for the time and advice, that clears things up a lot and the time/money trade off is definitely something to mull.

A follow up question – maybe I’m a dummy who’s swallowed the market spin, but i was led to think that quality, reliable hard drive space cost a lot more than 100 bucks per TB – that’s why i bought two expensive 2TB G-Raid disks, at about $400 each. Am I a sucker? Any recommendations on brands, types?

Also, If HDV and AIC are both intermediate codecs, that must be changed at delivery, is there any industry preference at the moment for one or the other? For most broadcast output, would the tv station, etc convert itself, or would you be expected to convert to a broadcast format? What formats? How would you do that?

I will read that article you pointed out straight away, thanks very much.

I would still like to hear from anyone about mixing AIC and HDV together on timelines. Would that complicate export to a high-quality streamable format or eventual transcoding into a professional tape format? Right at this moment I can’t afford even an extra $100 of disk space, so have to make the best of the disk space I have for capturing the footage I have right now.

Regards, Greg

[David Roth weiss]

The G-raid drives you bought are very good, but you do pay a hefty premium for that type of pre-manufactured drive system and you can neither replace nor upgrade the drives inside those enclosures, you’re left only with the option of buying more of the same expensive pre-manufactured drives in the same enclosures.

Enclosures with swappable hard drives are much more cost-efficient in the long run and offer much more flexibility, but of course the initial outlay is greater.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Gregory Brosnan]

thanks David, will add one to the wish list, regards, Greg

[Jeremy Garchow]

I don’t know anything about working in AIC or Final Cut Express, but you should make sure that your footage is going to be recapturable with timecode in case you need to go to an online at some point. I am not sure if an AIC workflow will support this, but you better be certain before you finish this out.

Jeremy

[Gregory Brosnan]

Thanks for the tip Jeremy, i just tried a batch recapture of a tape of the AIC stuff and FCP couldn’t find any timecode. Hoping to have more luck with native HDV! Greg