Hello everyone,

I'm a wedding videographer and I have a couple that has paid me to deliver all of their raw footage to them in addition to the edited version. I told them that I'd give them the footage on an external drive for them to keep. I have about 350gb of footage that I'd like to deliver to them. I kept the camera running for the entire ceremony (1.5 hours!) so one file alone is over 100gb. The question is, how do I deliver this to them on a drive? I know they have a mac laptop, but I'm concerned that they may want to view this footage on a pc at some point, so I'd like to give them a drive that's as compatible as possible. If I make the drive fat 32, then I can't transfer files to it over 4gb.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

You simply ask them if they want it compatible with PC or Mac, and deliver accordingly. Pretty simple. Don't complicate it for them, or agonize over it.

Otherwise you would need to give them two hard drives if they request it.

For PC drive why would you not format to NTFS?

I would just let them decide, and try not to worry about it. They can move or have it moved to another hard drive later if necessary.

Make the drive NTFS and copy everything over.

Macs can read NTFS. I do this regularly to send data to a coworker that is Mac based.

If you make it HFS they won't be able to read it with a PC.

Thanks, Chris, that is useful info, didn't know macs could read NTFS.

Hi Chris,

Just curious - which camera records at nearly 1GB per minute? Thats huge!



Hello everyone,

I'm a wedding videographer and I have a couple that has paid me to deliver all of their raw footage to them in addition to the edited version. I told them that I'd give them the footage on an external drive for them to keep. I have about 350gb of footage that I'd like to deliver to them. I kept the camera running for the entire ceremony (1.5 hours!) so one file alone is over 100gb. The question is, how do I deliver this to them on a drive? I know they have a mac laptop, but I'm concerned that they may want to view this footage on a pc at some point, so I'd like to give them a drive that's as compatible as possible. If I make the drive fat 32, then I can't transfer files to it over 4gb.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

Can anyone tell me how to change the permissions on an NTFS formatted external hard disk drive so that a Mac can write to it?

Hi Ed,

That isn't advisable directly under OSx on Mac. It requires editing of system config files and has undesirable consequences.

You will need to install extra software to enable writing to NTFS.

Take a read here and see if this points you in the right direction:
Apple - Downloads - System/Disk Utilities - NTFS-3G (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html)

Hi Chris,

Just curious - which camera records at nearly 1GB per minute? Thats huge!

I believe pana HVX200a full HD is aprox. 1gb per minute....depends...also if shot native 24p or 30p or over 60p. I think...

Unless they are planning on re-editing then isn't just a drive full of clips a bit pointless.
Why not just drag everything to a timeline and create a film of all the raw footage?

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the responses, the camera I'm using is the Panasonic HMC150, I am delivering Prores files after final cut has unpacked the AVCHD files.

How do I format a hard drive as NTFS on a mac? When I go to format the drive on my mac the only options I have are the various Mac formats (Mac OS Extended etc.), MS-DOS FAT, and ExFAT.

Thanks again!

How well will those huge clips will play for a customer on a laptop? Will they need a codec to play them if they don't have FCP? Just sounds kind of intense, but I'm a PC guy so what do I know.

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the responses, the camera I'm using is the Panasonic HMC150, I am delivering Prores files after final cut has unpacked the AVCHD files.

How do I format a hard drive as NTFS on a mac? When I go to format the drive on my mac the only options I have are the various Mac formats (Mac OS Extended etc.), MS-DOS FAT, and ExFAT.

Thanks again!

You will need to format the drive with a PC then install the software from the link above to write the files to the NTFS partition.

Chris - thanks for the pointer to the NTFS-3G info!

Hey guys,

Thanks again for all of the responses, so it sounds like I'm kind of stuck as I don't own a pc and don't plan on buying one simply to give raw files to clients. What do you guys do to deliver Raw Files? I have clients that ask for it all the time and if they are willing to pay for it then I'd like to be able to give it to them. Again, for a typical 8 hour wedding I have around 200-300 gb of footage.

Thanks!

Chris,

If you do a quick search in this forum you'll see that subject well covered with a wide range of opinions already.

The basic thing in delivering raw footage is finding a hardware solution. Newegg has zillions of cheap hard drives. I bought a 80GB portable HD (eagle brand) for $29. You bill the client for it, of course.

I would think you would give them files raw, as they came straight from the camera or encoded as avi. Not a lot to think about. Raw footage is footage as it comes from the camera, not encoded to another format. You need to explain to your clients raw footage as it comes from your camera may or may not be viewable depending on their computer, but you're happy to deliver it to them if they want it.

Hey guys,

Thanks again for all of the responses, so it sounds like I'm kind of stuck as I don't own a pc and don't plan on buying one simply to give raw files to clients. What do you guys do to deliver Raw Files?

If I deliver raw files, they're raw files - not transcoded to ProRes - so I format the drive FAT32.

Is there a particular reason why you are providing ProRes files and not the raw AVCHD files?

What client can view AVCHD files? What would they even use to watch the footage? Unless I'm completely missing something they'd have to have special software to view the footage.

On another forum someone pointed out MacDrive 8 which seems like a great solution, maybe someone here will find this useful as well.

Windows 7 plays AVCHD natively. Or, the files can be watched on TV from a hard drive with WD HD player, cost $100-150.

AVCHD is common now. All consumer cameras record in it. At any rate, if they are asking for raw files, after they are converted they are not raw any longer, they are converted. If you are going to convert the files for your customers what hoops you will have to jump through will vary from customer to customer.

Good to know about Windows 7, thanks! Now I wonder how many people are still running xp or vista!

Some of us never got past XP SP3, but I still have Win95b, and Win2K Pro SP4 running here on various machines, and they still perform their tasks perfectly. Not long ago I was still running DOS 6.22 on a 286 12MHz, and was surfing the net with it.

I generally run XP, Ubuntu, and OSX here to do anything 'modern'.

If you start providing 'raw' footage, you're probably best using .wmv, since virtually any platform will be able to play it as MS ditched its older Media Player (6?), and it's now GPL, so virtually everyone uses it as the basis for video playback, you just need to tell clients that the slower machines might not be able to cope with HD.

The alternative is the timeline suggestion and just putting up to 2 hours on DVD & Blu-ray, leaving it up to the client to sort out playback.

In my own role, I've only had one request for raw footage from the head coach, and either it was for him to check that what I was editing out wasn't worth looking at, or he had something specific he wanted to check on whether it had been caught on video, either way I complied without questioning the reason, putting it onto DVD, and on the next edit he told me to carry on as I'd previously been doing.

Since then the element of trust has increased significantly, and I now provide edited video for a range of other matters, including disciplinary proceedings, and have created and manage the online video streaming service to aid coaching and player development.

Yes, Wayne, some of us may not have moved past XP, but that is much less likely to be true of a consumer.

Most brides were either in middle or high school when XP was out. Most anyone that has bought a PC in the last two years, which is a lot, would have Windows 7.