Hard Drive space for HMC150

[Allan Phan]

Hi folks,

I searched but it didn't yield anything. Would some one please tell me how much of Hard Disk space to store 1 hour of HD footage from the HMC150 camera. I don't have the camera yet but will purchase soon.

[Paul Cascio]

About 12GB if you leave it in AVCHD. A 16GB SD card is good for about 90 minutes and you're simply copying the files.

[Allan Phan]

Thanks Paul

[Steve Wolla]

About a gig a minute if you transcode it with Panasonic's transcoder.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Steve Wolla

About a gig a minute if you transcode it with Panasonic's transcoder.

I don't know why anyone would want to throw away 1/3 of their horizontal resolution right off the bat. Surely there's a better way to go about things than this.

[Steve Wolla]

I am not necessarily recommending transcoding over editing AVCHD natively, I am just stating that in my experience, when I had to transcode the ratio was about 1GB / minute of filming when using the Main Concept transcoder from Panasonic's site.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Steve Wolla

I am not necessarily recommending transcoding over editing AVCHD natively, I am just stating that in my experience, when I had to transcode the ratio was about 1GB / minute of filming when using the Main Concept transcoder from Panasonic's site.

I get what you're saying, and I COMPLETELY advocate transcoding because I think editing h.264 is ... well, not the best option. BUT, that said, I'd transcode to something beside DVCProHD given the choice. It throws away so much information...

[Steve Wolla]

Which transcoding option do you favor? How much HD space does it generally require?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Steve Wolla

Which transcoding option do you favor? How much HD space does it generally require?

I use a variety, depending on needs. Generally for coming from AVCHD, I used Avid DNxHD 36. Which requires just over 1/3 the space that DVCProHD does, and looks very, very good for what it is. If I need more quality, I'll work in one of the other flavors of DNxHD, or if I need lossless quality, I'll use Lagarith encoded AVI files, but they require quite a lot of disk space.

Sometimes I use Jpeg2000, and I archive to that format. It can be tuned to use as much disk space as you like. It's more efficient than AVC/h.264/Mpeg4, contains it's own proxy, and is awesome, but not every NLE can work with it. REDCode is built on this codec as is Cineform.

There are lots of options out there and it does take a bit of work and research to find the best workflow for what you're doing, but the reward is that you can make some gorgeous looking final products.

[Steve Wolla]

Thanks, that's a lot of good information. Much appreciated!

[Chris McMahon]

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep a permanent backup of the AVCHD file and only transcode when editing?

[Doug Marcum]

Chris McMahon wrote-
"Wouldn't it make more sense to keep a permanent backup of the AVCHD file and only transcode when editing? "

That is exactly what I do. Download files from SDHC to computer or Ext HD and transcode to Temp file for editing. Save the smaller native AVCHD files to whatever you want to use for long term storage.

I created TEMP AVI 1, 2 and 3 file folders on my desktop. When I transcode, I assign output to one of the TEMP files and use for project. Once editing is done and project rendered (and re-rendered) delete the files from TEMP folder and move on.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Chris McMahon

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep a permanent backup of the AVCHD file and only transcode when editing?

Maybe, maybe not.

1. Jpeg2000 is more efficient than AVCHD, so I can fit more footage into less space with equal quality.

2. Jpeg2000 is an international standard so 20 years from now, someone could open it and look at it. Where will AVCHD be in 20 years? Or 5?

3. The idea of keeping the original files is something I do when I can. Not all projects require this, and in some instances it's a real waste.

4. Even though we are talking about AVCHD here, this workflow choice doesn't translate that well when you move out of the realm of consumer cameras. The original footage coming from an HDV or AVCHD camera is generally a lot smaller than archival or editing formats. But the reverse is true when coming from most professional formats. So keeping the original footage becomes a storage burden that may prove unnecessary.