For those of you that transcode your footage...

[Michael Johnston]

I think it really depends on the nature of what you think you'll do with the footage in the future. I shoot a lot of stock footage and work in news where we have tight deadlines so, to save time, it's usually better to keep prores files for immediate use to eliminate time wasted transcoding. If you do more production work where time isn't an issue or you don't think you'll use the footage much or at all, it makes more sense to keep the originals because they take up less space and you can always transcode back to ProRes when needed.

[Joe Thompson]

Thanks Katie, useful info in this thread, and was only wondering the same myself of late, so useful to know what a workable system is.

Off topic, but how long are original files kept in archives for clients, incase of damages in years to come, or incase a client wants their film on blu Ray etc. What generally goes into the contracts?. Not a biggie, but would be useful to know if you folks do delete after X amount of years

[Michael Johnston]

I keep nearly everything for as long as I can without losing it to a corrupted hard drive. I tell clients I guarantee to keep it for a year. That's gives me the option to delete if I want too.