Best File Settings To Archive DV Footage?

[David Roth weiss]

When capturing via FireWire you generate files that are identical digital copies of the original at 13gb per hour. There’s no compelling reason to capture to any other codec or format.

BTW, I love your music…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[Jeff Greenberg]

David is dead on – there will be no advantage to do anything beyond capture as DV files.
But you should make at least a duplicate copy of the work; hard drives are fragile (over the measurement of a couple of years.)

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer
Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
Compressor Essentials Lynda.com

[James Taylor]

“BTW, I love your music…”

I wish I had his money 😉

Thanks for the reply. OK, I’m obviously new to Final Cut – I’ve only worked with clips from my 5DMKII. When I capture footage into Final Cut it will default to the correct Apple settings? I was under the impression I could choose different flavors of ProRes? There is only one automatic choice?

JT

JT

[James Taylor]

Thanks, that answers my question then.

Let me ask another…

This video is not for a job, just home movies of the kids for the last six or seven years. It’s just for our enjoyment. Is there a compressed codec that would keep the files smaller but still maintain a high enough quality to edit in FCP and still enjoy? I know that’s a loaded question, just wondering what your thoughts are on this. Is some form of H264 good enough?

Thanks,

JT

[David Johnson]

The native codec your foootage is in (DV25) makes reasonably small files as it is and hard drive space is so cheap now (and will continue to get cheaper) that there doesn’t seem any reason to throw away image data by transcoding to a delivery codec like H264 (as opposed to and editing codec like DV25).

Just a slightly different way of saying the same thing others have said … I would:
1] capture the footage from the tapes and see how much it adds up to
2] buy two hard drives of that capacity and an external enclosure, copy all the DV25 files to both drives, put the drives in static bags and sit them on the bookshelf
3] keep the original tapes … you may be parting with yours, but DV cams and decks will still be floating around out there for a few years

[Jeff Greenberg]

I get it- you’re trying to save money. Nope, there isn’t a codec that will let you (reasonably) save space and still be editable in FCP. Drives are really, really cheap at this point. Figure 13 gigs/an hour. 1 TB drive is less than $100; so ~75 hours? that’s about $1 per hour ($2 if you grab a second drive.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer
Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
Compressor Essentials Lynda.com

[James Taylor]

Thanks,

That’s what I will do!

JT

JT

[Jes Webb]

OK…but let’s take this up a notch….I am archiving footage for a fire department….I have VHS, VHS-C, 8, Hi8, SVHS, and D8, and DV footage som as 20 years old. All the analogue footage is caught on a Black Magic card and the files are huge. So what is a good Codec compromise for footage that I can store everything on? I was going to go H.264.

[David Roth weiss]

[Jes Webb] “So what is a good Codec compromise for footage that I can store everything on? I was going to go H.264.”

Really lousy choice Jes, as h.264 is not an editing codec in FCP. DV at 13gb per hour is the lowest common denominator for you.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[Jes Webb]

Fair enough….but disappointing as this footage is destined for nothing but reunions and funerals, and there is about 250 hours of this stuff.