AVCHD Clip Size

[longshanks]

Hi,

I'm using an Canon HF10 and FCP 6. After I transcode the footage to either AIC or ProRes, I'm surprised how large the clip sizes are after conversion. When I look into my capture scratch folder, I'm averaging about a gig per minute of video. Does this sound right to anyone? Sounds way massive to me, maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[Barry_Green]

No, that's what FCP does. It can actually get a lot bigger if you go with the higher profiles in ProRes.

The next version of FCP won't require transcoding so you'll be able to keep the native file sizes. It remains to be seen whether they'll allow using the native files, or if they'll still force you to convert the files into Quicktime files.

[longshanks]

Good to know, I'm planning on mixing AVCHD with 30p footage I've shot on my DVX. Should I use another program to down-rez these files to standard DV? I figure I could be saving a lot of space but I don't want to have to compress more than I have to.

[dvpixl]

or if they'll still force you to convert the files into Quicktime files.

Barry, do you mean this in that the conversion to QT would take just as long as transcoding to PRO RES?

[Barry_Green]

I don't know how long it will take, I just know that it's unnecessary and that it'll take longer than if you didn't have to do it. It may be a minor issue though, we'll have to see when they get it implemented.

[longshanks]

Barry, could you give me some suggestions for down-rezzing AVC-HD material for a DV-NTSC timeline? Should I do it outside of FCP? or just transcode ->AVCHD->AIC->DV-NTSC->Final Export

It just seems like too many compressions to yield decent results.

[Barry_Green]

I don't use FCP so I don't know how to best advise you on that. Why would you want to edit as DV, once you have an AIC version? AIC should edit quickly, right? And still be in HD...

[longshanks]

Well I'm combing it with some of my DVX footage, so I really don't need to keep it at HD resolution, except for archiving purposes.

[dvpixl]

I dont know about mixing but i myself took an hour's worth of HDV edit- converted to ntsc-dv and brought it back into SD timeline. simple as that. I dont like the idea because of compression, but right now that's the fastest way I think.

but seriously though, the quality you lose is nearly negligible.

[Sikari-Sakari]

Are people getting really huge hard drives to store the footage or what? I mean, with small stuff the prorez is fine but with like documentaries it might be kinda pain. Especially if you're on a tight budget.

[mcsmooth]

1TB drives are easily found for $100 or less, stock up!

You only need to keep backups of the original footage (2 copies is a good idea if you are reusing the card). Transcoded material can be deleted after editing is complete since you can re-transcode if you decide to edit more later.

[Sikari-Sakari]

You're talking about USB drives, right? I'm editing on a MBP and FCP6 and I was under the assumption that you need (or it is recommended) an FW800 drive to edit.

[longshanks]

Are people getting really huge hard drives to store the footage or what? I mean, with small stuff the prorez is fine but with like documentaries it might be kinda pain. Especially if you're on a tight budget.


tell me about! i have a documentary that i am in the process of editing and 30hrs worth of AVCHD that needs to be transcoded and then brought into a DV timeline. im thinking of using Pinnacle or some other software for converting the AVCHD straight to DV-NTSC.

[Thomas Lew]

1TB drives are easily found for $100 or less, stock up!

You only need to keep backups of the original footage (2 copies is a good idea if you are reusing the card). Transcoded material can be deleted after editing is complete since you can re-transcode if you decide to edit more later.

These would all be usb so that's no good

[mcsmooth]

These would all be usb so that's no good
I was talking about internal SATA, thats the only thing I bother with. Then if you need external, the best route is to just get an external enclosure that has eSATA, firewire and/or USB. Then you can easily swap drives as needed, should get you through a few drives. I wouldn't recommend editing with USB, eSATA and FW are much faster.

Newegg has Seagate's 1.5TB drive for $130 shipped right now (was 120 last week).

[sewolla]

I think its viital to get to a place where you can edit AVCHD files natively. Yeah, drives are cheap, but if what you shoot has any length to it, you can find yourself eating up drives like most people eat popcorn. I'm running 9 drives (!!!!!) on my main computer now, and that's mostly HDV files shot with the A1.

A gig a minute would be really insane if you have to kep your files intact for any length of time. Getting an abundance of drives because they're cheap can create an IT nightmare.

[BobDiaz]

While Moore's Law gets all the attention, Kryder's Law is also very important.


(July 2005, Scientific America)
The doubling of processor speed every 18 months is a snail's pace compared with rising hard-disk capacity, and Mark Kryder plans to squeeze in even more bits

...
Over the years there has been a lot of talk about Moore's Law and the way that doubling the power and memory of computer semiconductors every 18 months has driven technological advance. But from where Mark Kryder sits, another force is at least as powerful, perhaps more: the cramming of as many bits as possible onto shrinking magnetic hard drives.



The 61-year-old engineer might be on to something. Since the introduction of the disk drive in 1956, the density of information it can record has swelled from a paltry 2,000 bits to 100 billion bits (gigabits), all crowded in the small space of a square inch. That represents a 50-million-fold increase. Not even Moore's silicon chips can boast that kind of progress.

...
By 1998, when Kryder joined Seagate to form its advanced research center, the DSSC had set an even loftier target: crowd 100 gigabits into a square inch by the early 21st century. In 2005, just seven years later, Seagate began shipping 110-gigabit drives. Inside of a decade and a half, hard disks had increased their capacity 1,000-fold, a rate that Intel founder Gordon Moore himself has called "flabbergasting."


But now current hard-drive technologies are hitting a new wall. Hard disks typically store bits of information using a tiny head that flies across the surface of the disk and magnetizes billions of discrete areas in horizontal space that represent zero or one, depending on whether they are facing clockwise or counterclockwise. The magnetized areas are becoming so small that it is difficult for them to remain stable.


Kryder and his team are reviving a method called perpendicular recording to fix the problem. It flips the charges north to south, permitting the use of stronger magnetic fields in media that can store smaller bits. Seagate's Pittsburgh lab has already prototyped this approach, which should pack in at least 200 gigabits per square inch within the next two years. Ultimately, Kryder thinks perpendicular drives will record 400 or 500 gigabits within four years. Because that is nothing more than a blink in the world of hard drives, Kryder has already set his next goal: a terabit per square inch, and he has tapped the 100 Ph.D.s at Seagate to work up still more exotic recording systems to make it a reality.




The bottom line is that the largest Hard Drives are expanding at a rate that exceeds Moore's Law. In a few years, the large files sizes will be a minor issue.


Bob Diaz