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General discussion

How much Hard Drive space?

Nov 28, 2005 10:20PM PST

I have a PowerBook and will soon have a Panasonic GS400, both of which I will be taking on a week and a half long trip to Antarctica. It is important to me to be able to store and edit all my video without loss of quality (like compression) while I am there.

I'm trying to evaluate my need for an external HD. Can someone either explain to me (or point me in the direction of an article) how much disk space is typically used (by iMovie specifically, if it's different from others) when storing and editing DV.

Thanks,
David

Discussion is locked

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For full quality DV, about 40GB per hour.
Nov 28, 2005 10:26PM PST

I find miniDV tapes to be less expensive storage. Why not buy a 10 or so pack?

Bob

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I can't leave the footage on the miniDV while editing...
Nov 28, 2005 10:32PM PST

...on my computer, can I?

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Just sharing.
Nov 28, 2005 10:42PM PST

I don't work with more than a few hours at a time. It's also nice to just pull in what I need. You can always go back and get more off the tapes.

Mind you that pulling in full uncompressed DV is fine in theory, but I find most relent and let the editing tools use a compressed format.

Yup, the footage is still on the miniDV. You don't move it, just copy it in.

Bob

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Why use iMovie if quality is at a premium? iMovie is very
Nov 28, 2005 11:20PM PST

limited, and runs on the level of Windows Movie Maker. The version I used last year supported one video track, and, maybe, two audio tracks.

Are you expecting to edit on site, or is that something that will wait until you get home? For the length of time you are talking about, I suspect you cannot fit it all on a hard drive. You'll have to edit it down until you can bring it back together. I'm thinking 200gigs is a minimum. It should be a dedicated drive with nothing else on it.

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iMovie is just fine! Buy external HD
Nov 30, 2005 1:45AM PST

iMovie is WAY better than Movie Maker! The main reason is it's stability (Movie Maker should be called Movie Crasher), it's intuitive interface with iTunes and iPhoto and it is allows HD editing. Yes, it's a basic edit program (one video track with audio and two separate audio tracks), but for what it does, it does it very well. The quality of the imported video and the storage necessary is totally unrelated to iMovie. DV video is DV video, regardless of what edit program you use. My recommendation is to buy an external HD as they are cheap. To help save HD space, why not skim through your footage in iMovie before saving it and delete footage that is obviously not usable.

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My point is that neither iMovie nor Movie Maker is up to
Nov 30, 2005 4:00AM PST

the job. I've used iMovie. I KNOW it isn't. I haven't used Movie Maker, but I would put it in the same class as iMovie.

Get a decent editing program. That's the point. You can't appreciate the need for multiple video and audio tracks until you start editing and find out why you need them. DV is DV, but the power of the editor will seperate the men from the boys.

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Lite reading.
Nov 28, 2005 10:46PM PST
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dv+gigabytes+hour

You'll see another number of 14 or so GB per hour, but in reality that blows up to 3 times that during editing. Again, if you relent a little and let your video editor run at it's default settings rather than forcing "raw DV" or "uncompressed" you can get a lot more hours.

Bob
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Thanks!
Nov 28, 2005 11:15PM PST

You've been a big help... thanks a lot.

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the scoop
Nov 30, 2005 1:04AM PST

These guys are talking about uncompressed DV...that is a pipe dream. True Uncompressed DV is akin to 1 meg/frame. Consider that there are 30 frames/second and that is a huge amount of space (over 90 gigs per hour).

miniDV compresses at 1:5, and there are about 13 gigs per hour of footage. That is coming straight from your camcorder to your IEEE 1394 port.

A general rule of thumb for editing is that you will need AT LEAST twice the footage (in time) than your finished product. This means 26 gigs per finished hour of product.

Do yourself a favor and just use the compressed format. The human eye generally cannot tell the difference.

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13 gigs on the tape does not mean 13 gigs on a hard drive.
Nov 30, 2005 4:03AM PST

The capture files from Sony Vegas, for example, will be much larger than 13 gigs.

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(NT) (NT) AMEN!!!!!!
Nov 30, 2005 6:24AM PST