Whats the consensus re: editing your camera files?

Adobe Premiere Pro

Whats the consensus re: editing your camera files?

Posted by Chris Borjis on March 10, 2012 at 2:03 am

I’m starting to use Premiere for more client projects
and was wondering what you all are doing with your camera
original files as far as editing is concerned.

Someone suggested making a backup, then only editing
a copy of that backup.

Obviously I’m retaining the file/folder structure same as the sd card
or drive they came from to avoid any future trouble.

Is it at all possible that camera files (avc .mts / red .r3d etc…)
could get corrupted by premiere?

I don’t see how but anything is possible.

what about making the files read-only?
possible corruption would be nearly impossible.

I understand the idea of redundancy, but also not sure
it really does any harm to edit them directly.

Any input much appreciated.

Tom Daigon replied 14 years, 2 months ago 6 Members · 19 Replies
19 Replies

Bala Chandran
March 10, 2012 at 5:41 pm

I always make 3 (three) copies of my originals. I don’t want to take chances. Anything could happen to your drive/disc. Not advisable to have just one instance of your original. When you had the tape you had the tape. When your originals are in files you don’t have a tape to go back to, if you need to.
Bala Chandran
March 10, 2012 at 5:43 pm

PPro doesn’t do anything to your master files, as far as I know. It only reads it.
Ron Pestes
March 10, 2012 at 7:24 pm

I edit with RAID 1 so I always have a backup of everything as I go. This includes project files, stills, original video etc.

ronpesteshdvideo.com
Apple Certified Master Pro FCS 2
Sony EX-3
MacBook Pro
Dell M6600
New convert to Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium
Tom Daigon
March 10, 2012 at 7:41 pm

Ditto Ron. I run a Raid 5 for the same reason. Insurance.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3
Bala Chandran
March 10, 2012 at 9:25 pm

That is good. I mostly use only RAID 0 (for speed) and keep an HD elsewhere for safety because the studio is in my basement.
Jim Wiseman
March 11, 2012 at 5:12 pm

I transfer first to my RAID 5, then backup to at least 2 single HD’s. That way there is at least 1 copy that is not online at any one time. If your original and 1 backup is all you have, and catastrophic computer or power failure occurs, you could lose everything if they are both connected. Usually transfer selects, after CC and titles on the RAID 5, to RAID 0 setup for speed. Take the RAID 5 offline during final edit. I can always recreate from the RAID 5 if RAID 0 crashes. Also, I shoot to SD cards on Sony EX-1 and Nikon D7000 (soon D800!) and they have gotten so cheap I just put them away like tape now.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe
Bala Chandran
March 11, 2012 at 7:27 pm

Triplicates, on different HDs – peace of mind.
Chris Borjis
March 11, 2012 at 8:03 pm

I edit on Raid 5 as well.

Ron & Tom, do you have additional backups of your camera files,
or just edit them directly from your Raid5 then archive when your done?

The gray area is, I’ve always had to transcode for fcp in the past
so having original media (xdcam, nxcam etc..) as backup was a given/requirement.

with being able to edit the camera files directly with premiere and
not having them captured from a tape source…thats what got me thinking.

Tom & Ron, do you edit directly from a copy of your camera files or
just your original set of camera files?

It seems like as long as one was editing on a protected RAID there
would be nearly zero chance or reason to need a duplicate backup
of camera files.

I’m talking about big projects where you have 50GB + of camera files.
Ron Pestes
March 11, 2012 at 8:45 pm

I only have my files on RAID 1. No other backup and I don’t see the reason to because the chance of both drives failing at the same time is to small to calculate. I edit from these drives and it saves an exact copy to the second RAID 1 drive as I go. I do not have a separate archive. When the drives are full of projects and raw media I get two new drives and do another RAID 1. A lot of people will disagree with me but their arguments have not conviced me to change. I keep all media etc. for each project in its own file so it is a complete self contained project. All DVD files, web ready files etc. go into the master file so I know where to find everything for each project.

ronpesteshdvideo.com
Apple Certified Master Pro FCS 2
Sony EX-3
MacBook Pro
Dell M6600
New convert to Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium
Tom Daigon
March 11, 2012 at 9:17 pm

I copy the media from cards / hard drives / or what erever to OWC 500GB hard drive. This is my archive. Then I copy these on to my Raid 5 array. This way the raid will rebuild itself if there are problems. The storage media (cars) always gets recycled for the next project since they are expensive. This is why I back them up to the OWC drive. Most working professionals tend to back up one more time to another OWC drive. This way its in three places. This is SOP for most video production facilities that I have worked at.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

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