Are you shooting tapes? The simplest thing to do would be to give them tapes. If you wanted to back up the footage to HDD first, more power to ya.

here's a fairly old but Mac-Centric comparison of codecs: http://codecs.onerivermedia.com/. Might help you make a choice.

Rob Mack

JPEG 2000 (Quicktime) seems to be the preferred method at this time. I've used the Component video setting in the past to export for 720p commercials. Both are uncompressed and as Kelly mentioned, take a HUGE amount of drive space.

What are you shooting on? Best option is to turn over tapes or solid state to the editor and let them injest. MUCH MUCH less headache.

cheno

My biggest concern is not knowing who the editor is - all I know is that it will be edited on a MAC. For all I know, it could be the client themselves since while at the meeting, they were finishing up installing their new Mac Pro Desktop and if they are editing the footage, they're probably going to use Final Cut Express or iMovie.

It's a down and dirty project on my end of things - I shoot and ingest footage for them to edit with, but I want to do the best job I can to try and build a positive reputation since I live in a medium sized city, but highly competitive market (population of 130,000) for shooting video.

Word of mouth advertising is the best way to get more work I have discovered - especially in this market and economic climate.

Maybe my best bet is to deliver the native m2t files captured with HDVSplit and let them deal with the conversion process

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

You should give them the tapes.

Before you do, you should ask them if they can capture HDV footage from tape. If they are confused by this, then you should ask if part of your job is digitizing the footage. Pro video folk shouldn't be confused by this question, but you seem to think they're not sure of what they are doing. If you want to build your reputation, it's best to get all the details up front. Take some footage you already have and render a short clip using one the MAC codecs recommended above and have them test it. It will save hassle later. (If you ever deliver for broadcast, it's totally OK to call the station and ask for their preferred format.)

If they're editing with FCE or iMovie, I'd definately not trust conversion to them. Original tapes are the best option if they have a way to injest. I need to try Voltaic - not too impressed about their formula for AVCHD but may work for HD.

All in all, because it's down and dirty, why do you need to capture for them? Why not hand over the tapes? Worse case is uncompressed but then again, you can leave the conversion to them, however based on your comments, they may not be up to this, hence just giving the tapes.

cheno

I got an email back and basically the client IS the editor. He's got this brand new MAC Pro desktop machine and figures he can do the editing in iMovie.

He evidently doesn't want to pay for my time editing the content and he explained he doesn't have an HDV camera to do the ingest himself. Should I just hand over the tapes anyways and call it good? Is this normal for video shoots or is this just a case of someone being cheap???

Seems like this is becoming more hassle than it's worth

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

> why do you need to capture for them? Why not hand over the tapes?

The biggest reason I see would be that they would need the same camera/deck to ingest the HDV tapes since JVC or Cannon tapes aren't going to play on a Sony deck and visa versa (although there are some limited compatibilities). In general, handing over the tapes can be a horror for HDV where there is no tape standard like miniDV.

I would give them a hard drive with m2t files on it and let the Mac editor convert it to whatever format they need. If it is small enough to fit on a few DVD's all the better. FCP might even read the m2t files just fine. Besides, ingest is the editors problem not yours.

~jr

Thanks JohnnyRoy - That's what I think I'm going to do - take a firewire drive over with the files, let the client copy them over, get paid and let him worry about the editing.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

From the sounds of it, the client doesn't have much experience. Maybe that's not really true but that's how it sounds. To me this means that if you just hand over footage on a hard disk there's a fair chance things will go worng and the client will call you a Windows-using schmuck.

In any case it sounds like you can't give them tapes. You *could* bring your camera over and let them ingest off it. Might be a good way to get out of trouble.

I think that some of your payment here is going to be in knowledge gained, so be a hero and follow it through until you know what will work for them. Make a sample disk with several likely candidates for encodes and try to be there when the client tries them. Then deliver the media in the codec that works best.

Don't be shy about asking the client questions. Maybe they actually know what they need but if they don't then you'll probably look good asking smart questions.

What about the drive format? Fat32 always works but there's a file size limit. Any suggestions, folks?

Rob Mack

OS X can read NTFS effortlessly.

If it needs to also write, get Paragon NTFS for OS X.

bluprojekt: Slightly off point here but it's assumed the client/editor wants to input, edit and output interlaced and not progressive, since I don't think either iMovie or Final Cut Express can handle progressive frames (unless going to DVD).

They handle 24F from Canon cameras though.

(Because of the in-camera 24p->29.97i "telecine".)