Exporting QuickTime Movie reference file generating v large file

[Eric Johnson]

Well if you’re working @ 1080, then your file is about 10GBs light…. How big are you expecting it to be? Pro Res 4444 is pretty dang big…. take a look:

https://www.digitalrebellion.com/webapps/video_calc.html?format=prores_4444_1080&frame_rate=f29.97&length=10&length_type=minutes

[Kerry Mcleod]

Thanks for your response Eric. My understanding was that if I’m not exporting a self-contained movie file then it’s only referencing media, and so shouldn’t be so big?

I’ve exported exactly the same sequence without the watermark and it’s 103MB, which is roughly what I’d expect.

Any help much appreciated as I’m meant to be delivering to the client this week!

Thanks,

Kerry

Kerry McLeod
Producer | Mosaic Films

[Eric Johnson]

Well, reference files tend to hold render files…. so they are generally variable in size.

Also, if you are planning on delivering a reference file to your client, then you are potentially walking into a bad situation.

If that file is moved to a location where the referenced media can’t be found, the file will be unusable.

You need to deliver a self contained file to your client. Unless they are savvy enough to know the restrictions of a reference file, in my experience it is beneficial to assume that the client doesn’t know how to turn their computer on, and you are giving them the drives that all of the work was done on and those drives contain all of the render files.

It is also so cheap to store a 20-30GB file, that there is no excuse for trying to save them the space. That said, if the space is so important, deliver something smaller than Pro Res 4444, Pro Res (HQ) is 1/2 the size and there is very little difference in the image quality, unless you need and alpha.