BEST QUALITY VIDEO FILE for editing/saving

Tony Davies-Patrick · August 16th, 2005, 01:35 AM

Thanks a million, Mike! I'm sure that the extra wireless lav system is going to be of great benefit in many situations.

Russ Lamkin · August 16th, 2005, 05:19 PM

Personally, I think an external HD is mandatory if you're a video editor, for two reasons. One, they are the 'quickest' way to get a hundred+ gigs of extra storage space. Upon opening my WDC Combo drive, it was only a matter of two mintues before I plugged in the USB connector to my WinXP PC and was alreading writing files to it. No additional drivers or software required!

Secondly, what makes it a great purchase is that you can take it to other crew members homes and quickly upload/download files from their WinXP PC's. This comes in handy for us, since we task-out a lot of special effects editing to different people.

Storing files to DVD is slower, requires extra steps and can require multiple burns, not to mention the occasional 'coaster' issues.

Now, there is ONE frustration that I've had with my WDC drive, and that is that it's formatted in FAT32. For anyone familiar with file systems, FAT32 can only handle a maximum of 4GB file sizes. Sometimes, I'll be working with file sizes much larger than 4GB on my PC (which is set up on an NTFS file system, allowing me 16 Exabyte file sizes). The only way I can get these large files onto my external WDC drive is to use a file 'splitter' program.

Luckily, one of my crew mates is a programmer and wrote a joiner/splitter program to handle this for me. If anyone is in need of it, you can find it for free on our software page (it's called BLJoin):

http://www.yproxy.com/downloads.html

I'm not sure if it's possible to reformat my external HD to a NTFS file system, but if there is a way and anyone knows, please chime in, I would greatly appreciate it.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/produ...64&Language=en

Another great way to knock down file sizes, in case your pinched for space, is to compress them with a lossless video codec like Huffyuv. It reduces the file size as much as possible while still maintaining bit-for-bit image quality. It still requires a lot of hard drive space, but not nearly as much as an uncompressed AVI.

http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley...g/huffyuv.html

(there is a beta version 2.2.0, but i've read bad reviews of it, stick with version 2.1.1)

There is another lossless codec called Lagarith that supposedly beats Huffyuv, however, I have never used it. You can read more about it here:

http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html

Glenn Chan · August 17th, 2005, 08:28 AM

There's a way to format it NTFS. If you google FAT32 to NTFS conversion, there's a way in the command prompt to convert the file systems.

You may need to do a "chkdsk -f" (something like that) in command prompt to check the drive's file system first.

Ask for more detail...

2- The other way is to reformat the drive using the drive managment thing under administrative tools --> computer management. This will kill your data, so back it up.

August 16th, 2005, 01:35 AM	#16
Tony Davies-Patrick Trustee Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Worldwide Posts: 1,589	Thanks a million, Mike! I'm sure that the extra wireless lav system is going to be of great benefit in many situations. __________________ www.WILDCARP.com www.NIKON.me.uk

August 16th, 2005, 05:19 PM	#17
Russ Lamkin New Boot Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Lawrenceburg Indiana Posts: 8	Personally, I think an external HD is mandatory if you're a video editor, for two reasons. One, they are the 'quickest' way to get a hundred+ gigs of extra storage space. Upon opening my WDC Combo drive, it was only a matter of two mintues before I plugged in the USB connector to my WinXP PC and was alreading writing files to it. No additional drivers or software required! Secondly, what makes it a great purchase is that you can take it to other crew members homes and quickly upload/download files from their WinXP PC's. This comes in handy for us, since we task-out a lot of special effects editing to different people. Storing files to DVD is slower, requires extra steps and can require multiple burns, not to mention the occasional 'coaster' issues. Now, there is ONE frustration that I've had with my WDC drive, and that is that it's formatted in FAT32. For anyone familiar with file systems, FAT32 can only handle a maximum of 4GB file sizes. Sometimes, I'll be working with file sizes much larger than 4GB on my PC (which is set up on an NTFS file system, allowing me 16 Exabyte file sizes). The only way I can get these large files onto my external WDC drive is to use a file 'splitter' program. Luckily, one of my crew mates is a programmer and wrote a joiner/splitter program to handle this for me. If anyone is in need of it, you can find it for free on our software page (it's called BLJoin): http://www.yproxy.com/downloads.html I'm not sure if it's possible to reformat my external HD to a NTFS file system, but if there is a way and anyone knows, please chime in, I would greatly appreciate it. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/produ...64&Language=en Another great way to knock down file sizes, in case your pinched for space, is to compress them with a lossless video codec like Huffyuv. It reduces the file size as much as possible while still maintaining bit-for-bit image quality. It still requires a lot of hard drive space, but not nearly as much as an uncompressed AVI. http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley...g/huffyuv.html (there is a beta version 2.2.0, but i've read bad reviews of it, stick with version 2.1.1) There is another lossless codec called Lagarith that supposedly beats Huffyuv, however, I have never used it. You can read more about it here: http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html __________________ -Russ Lamkin Brawny Lads Films www.brawnylads.com

August 17th, 2005, 08:28 AM	#18
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	There's a way to format it NTFS. If you google FAT32 to NTFS conversion, there's a way in the command prompt to convert the file systems. You may need to do a "chkdsk -f" (something like that) in command prompt to check the drive's file system first. Ask for more detail... 2- The other way is to reformat the drive using the drive managment thing under administrative tools --> computer management. This will kill your data, so back it up.