Video Editing Basics Question

[newportmac]

I have over 50 Hi8 family videos sitting in a box that I will soon be running through my Sony TRV-480 which outputs the analog tape to digital. I will be using iMovie to edit and probably add music to.

1. I read about a scratch disc? What is a scratch disc?
2. Where do I store this raw unedited video from each tape. I am guessing an hour tape will have a huge file size.
3. Do I save the video uncut just in case my kids someday want to see it at some point down the road? Where do you save these files and will they last a life time on DVD's.. Better off keeping them on an external drive?
4. I think its going to be hard to edit some of this stuff down but I know watching your kid eat baby food for longer than 60 seconds is painful for most.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Cromulent]

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1. A scratch disk is a second hard drive either internal or external. If you get an external drive get a firewire one. 2. Your scratch disk. 3. Store them where ever you want as long as they are safe.

 

[-DH]

1. I read about a scratch disc? What is a scratch disc?

Any drive used for storage of media or temp swap files. Do NOT use your boot drive for this. Use either another internal drive, or if you must use an external drive, use Firewire or eSATA.

2. Where do I store this raw unedited video from each tape. I am guessing an hour tape will have a huge file size

iMovie uses the .dv codec so file size should be a round 13.3gb per hour of footage.

3. Do I save the video uncut just in case my kids someday want to see it at some point down the road? Where do you save these files and will they last a life time on DVD's.. Better off keeping them on an external drive?

DVDs will not last a lifetime. The technology to play/read them won't last that long either. But DVD is a viable short term storage option. You can always transfer to another medium as new technology comes out - just like you're doing with the Hi8 tapes now. You can keep them on hard drive(s), but even that technology will change over a lifetime. Connectivity issues will most likely change the most - Firewire, USB and other current transfer protocols will be replaced several times over during an average lifetime. Remember SCSI, PS2, ADB? All of those are virtually gone now.

4. I think its going to be hard to edit some of this stuff down but I know watching your kid eat baby food for longer than 60 seconds is painful for most

Editing isn't easy ... that's why we get paid the big bucks. But your kids and future generations will thank you IF you edit the footage down to a more reasonable length. It will make it more bearable to watch - otherwise it may not get watched at all.

-DH

 

[Cromulent]

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I would use DV tapes to store your footage. At least then you can keep your footage in its original quality.

 

[newportmac]

Thanks for your help DH and Cromlet..... I will heed your avdvice about editing it down so as to not bore... Very good point.. better to have the clip short and watched than long and not watched... thanks.

Storage.. once the analog tapes are converted to digital, the means to play them might change but the kids will be better off with it being in digital than analog form I am guessing..

As for the original footage I am just going to keep the tapes around for as long as they last... Are you saying Cromlet I should back up my converted footage that will reside on the hard drive back to tape? Wouldnt an external drive store the x's and o's just as well as a dv tape or tape back up drive? Maybe I misunderstood you...