where to download free test 1080 HD footage?

sean90291

Veteran
I want to test my PC Avid Xpress HD system's ability to handle editing HD footage. Is there any place you folks know where I can download a free uncompressed HD clip (1080p)? I just need 15 seconds of anything moving.

Cheers.
 
If you're just testing the ability to edit such footage, and not image quality, then you can grab any clip and reencode it at 1080p. It won't look pretty, but it will test your system.
 
Oh cool. I didn't know that. Re-encode using Sorenson and such? EDIT: I guess using After Effects. I didn't think of that. I'm just so used to working in SD without any switching between resolutions.

I also just realized that the Red sample footage (women drinking milk) is 1080p (and free for download). Don't know if that file is "uncompressed HD" however.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I'm not sure if the milk maids are uncompressed HD or not, but that would be a good clip to use. The term "uncompressed HD" is a bit of a dodgy term. I mean unless it's RAW footage then there's always some type of compression to get it to a digital file. And you could argue that there's some type of compression to RAW footage to get them into a digital realm to. And then your head explodes.

Anyway, just take an SD clip, throw it into Sorenson of AE, and then in the encode settings change the resolution to 1080 and off you go.
 
Well I guess I must admit to not really understanding what "HD uncompressed" is, and from what you say, Krestofre, I guess it's not surprising. HD and all its codecs are really a quagmire. But given that the Women Drinking Milk footage from Red is a QuickTime file, it CANNOT be HD uncompressed, right? Because it's already been transcoded to QuickTime.

In any event, I think it will definitely work to simply test my Avid Xpress HD performance in 1080p.

Krestofre (or other Avid gurus), where do I confirm that the footage in my Avid bins is actually 1080p footage after importing. The timeline is 1080p/24...does this mean that Avid automatically ensures that footage within the bins is 1080p/24 too?

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
sean90291 said:
But given that the Women Drinking Milk footage from Red is a QuickTime file, it CANNOT be HD uncompressed, right? Because it's already been transcoded to QuickTime.

Not necessarily. Quicktime is a container just like AVI. You can have a variety of codecs inside a Quicktime file. DV, DVCPro HD, Uncompressed, etc. You can open a file in Quicktime, then from one of the menu options (can't remember which off the top of my head) you can choose Show Movie Info. This will tell you what codec the video and audio is inside the Quicktime container.

where do I confirm that the footage in my Avid bins is actually 1080p footage after importing

In your bin, choose the Text tab. Then one of the columns should tell you what type of footage the file is.
 
Back
Top