Clint Fleckenstein
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Trick question. The answer, in some cases: both.
For instance, I just finished a tour video for a facility…the Quicktime clips that were actually used in the final production fit on one disc. So, while all the raw BPAV folders from the cards were backed up to disc and put in the gigantic fire safe, I was also able to include a disc of used clips along with the regular project archive.
We do two sets of archive discs per project: one for my archives, and one that gets boxed up with project management’s stuff (paperwork, assets, that kind of thing). The raw footage, however, has its own archive in a fireproof location, whether it’s videotape or discs of raw XDCAM EX BPAV material.
Archiving to hard drive is just asking for trouble. Sure, we keep all of our footage available online with a RAID archive, but things happen to hard drives and hard drive controllers. It’s always best to have a non-mechanical version stuffed away somewhere, especially if you’re like us and have need to utilize past footage in current projects. The nature of your work will dictate some of the finer details, just like ours does.
Cf
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It works a lot better for our team here to be able to refer to individual clips instead of timecode slices of a big chunk. Plus, since archiving is such a wildcard these days, I’d rather not have a lot of unusable video taking up disc space.
Cf
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Dang. I hadn’t tried that until right now. I guess a USB SD card reader will have to suffice, of course they’re much cheaper than the Sony readers we have.
I got a pair of MxR adapters and Transcend 16GB cards a week or so ago and, while they certainly are cheap, they’re not suited to any sort of “run and gun” type videography. If I wanted to wait ten seconds after recording to start a new clip, I’d go back to 3/4″ Umatic SP. Maybe for long, drawn out, boring shoots…but for most of what we do, that’s just not acceptable performance.
Cf
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Ditto on B&H. They’re fast, trouble-free, and reliable.
Cf
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It seems to me there are a lot of preview-related issues with XDCAM footage. For instance, I was doing a slow tilt across a lake at a power plant in a beautiful clear blue sky, no wind. When playing my timeline in Final Cut Pro, it looked like the colors were shifting in a way that reminded me of some people’s “rolling shutter” issues. Final output, however, exhibited none of the problem I described. Thank God too, because it was a pretty nice looking shot!
Cf
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Dang…that’s pretty sweet!
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A friend of mine has been experimenting with an EX1 for shooting news. He’s had plenty of complaints about the lens fogging up and that sort of thing. That would lead me to believe it lacks in regards to weather sealing.
Cf
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Second that. Use the free Clip Browser software, it’s fantastic. You can open multiple “Explorer Windows” and drag folders in between them. You can create new folders, combine folders, split them (to DVD or DVD-DL sizes, for example) for archiving, and even make subclips from in-out points. It’s fantastic…and one of the most important features is the CRC error checking when it transfers the files. You won’t get that by simply dragging and dropping folders.
One other thing is that the BPAV structure remains invisible in Clip Browser, which means you don’t have to go through the effort of keeping it intact. Just name folders the way you want, drag and drop your footage, and it will worry about all the files and folders needed to make sense of your clips later.
Cf
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I agree, it’s up to the producer to make good on the promise they made. It’s up to them to deliver. They need to ante up whatever it takes for you to convert the footage. Whether you rent/buy equipment to make the transfer or spend time after the shoot to convert it, there should be a cost passed on.
That’s the kind of thing a producer should have checked on before making promises. I’m sure they were just thinking of getting access to the location, not how they’d actually make the barter happen. Now it’s time to figure out how to deliver what they promised…but that isn’t all on you.
Cf
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How do you make money come into your bank? I haven’t figured that out yet. It seems like it gets converted to diapers almost instantly (I have 1 and 2 yr old boys).
I never thought I’d be happy to start potty-training them!
Cf