I just purchased two AG-AC90's for weddings. I shoot raw footage and deliver it directly to my clients. Previously, I just gave them Mini-DV tapes when I was shooting SD. I'm wondering what the best way is to deliver my footage now that I'm shooting HD?

I would like to be able to deliver footage to both Windows and Mac users. I've considered giving them the SD cards, giving them an external drive or giving them DVDs, but I have no idea what's best. I also have to consider that most of my clients are not going to have very fast computers.

I'm using a late 2008 Macbook Pro and the video does not play back smoothly using FCP X. Nor does it play back smoothly using Quicktime.
I really appreciate any help!

Thanks,

James

I just purchased two AG-AC90's for weddings. I shoot raw footage and deliver it directly to my clients. Previously, I just gave them Mini-DV tapes when I was shooting SD. I'm wondering what the best way is to deliver my footage now that I'm shooting HD?

I would like to be able to deliver footage to both Windows and Mac users. I've considered giving them the SD cards, giving them an external drive or giving them DVDs, but I have no idea what's best. I also have to consider that most of my clients are not going to have very fast computers.

I'm using a late 2008 Macbook Pro and the video does not play back smoothly using FCP X. Nor does it play back smoothly using Quicktime.

I really appreciate any help!

Best option would be a external hard drive to be honest. Just price a external hard drive in to the overall cost.

In regards to slow computers etc, unfortunately compared to mini-dv (DVD quality) ... 1080p HD is more intensive on computers. Client's will just have to live with that. As a matter of fact, you should be upgrading your system as well.

With 4K resolution now available ... there is no excuse for not having a system that can't fluently handle 1080P HD files which is basically the equivalent of SD now.

Do you give an edited film at all ?

Welcome to the forum by the way :-)

I'm a little puzzled as to why you would want to deliver raw AVCHD footage from two cameras to your wedding clients. Is that what they get to view their wedding, or are they expecting to edit it themselves? If it is just for viewing without any editing, it would be better to convert to a basic mp4 file as many clients may have systems that are incapable of playing raw AVCHD satisfactorily particularly at higher capture rates.

I have been videoing weddings for 30 years and have always supplied a full edit on a format that they can view on their TV, so what you are suggesting is a little alien to me and probably most others here that do wedding video.

Roger

Thanks for your response, Roger! Yes, I am delivering footage for my clients to either edit themselves or for them to give to someone else to edit. I do not do any editing myself.

Would you recommend I convert everything to .mp4? If so, can you recommend the best way to do that? And, I'm wondering what the best, most economical way would be to give them the footage? DVD, hard drive, etc.?

Thanks again!

I think the simplest way for your purpose would be to batch-convert them into .mov file using ClipWrap and distribute in a USB thumb drive.
P.

Thanks! I'll look into that :)

Hey James (Ryan),

Welcome to the forum. I hope you are finding it useful.

I see you posted this same question here - http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/general-hd-720-1080-acquisition/521646-best-way-deliver-raw-avchd-footage-wedding-clients.html

Just as a FYI - On this forum it is generally frowned upon to post the same question in multiple areas.

+1 For an external HDD like the WD 'My Passport'. (see link)

WD 500GB My Passport Portable Hard Drive, Black WDBKXH5000ABK-NESN (http://www.adorama.com/WDMPERGBK.html?gclid=CP6Aydy_yrwCFUcV7Aod6jwAPg)

A 500 Gig HDD is probably overkill for you purposes, but at the price point, it's a no-brainer.

I'll be doing a family reunion at the end of April and that's how I'll be roll'n.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

J.

+1 for the HDD from me as well. I started doing that even before I was doing HD for corporate clients that wanted RAW footage. Rather than sending tapes I loaded to a hard drive and sent that to them while I kept the tapes nice and safe.
Now that we're all pretty much shooting to some sort of card a load off to a hard drive just seems sensible and frankly about as cost effective as anything else out there. Of course you need to make sure that you have the RAW footage safely put away on a couple of other hard drives just in case but loading this footage to 3 or 4 or more hard drives isn't that big a project.
Anyway that's what I would do.

Duplicate threads merged.

For weddings, I offer all the raw footage on an external 500GB Hard Drive in whatever format it is recorded in (for me, a mix of AVCHD and HDV).

Around Christmas time, Amazon has deals just about every day on 500GB hard drives, and I always buy as many as I can, because they're usually about $30 or $40.

I offer my RAW footage as an upgrade to the package the client buys. If they don't want it, I delete it after a couple months.