Video workflow and filehandling

[Craikeybaby]

I feel like I have honed my still workflow and file handling/backup over the last 10 years and am happy with how I'm doing it. However, when it comes to video I feel pretty clueless. My Mac is filling up with video files, either GoPro footage, or time lapses and I'm not sure what I should keep/delete.

I have mainly been using iMovie and GoPro Studio to make short videos or time lapses to upload to YouTube.

What I am currently doing is:
1 (timelapse) - Import all the images to Lightroom, batch process them and export at 1920x1080. Import them into GoPro Studio.
1 (video) - Import footage into GoPro Studio. In the case of my last project 4GB of data.
2 - Trim the clips, then convert to working versions. This seems to give files of about 500MB per minute. Another 2GB in the case of my last project.
3 - Either import into iMovie, which seems to then make more copies of the clip, or continue in GoPro Studio to tweak colour, add titles etc. Only very basic editing.
4 - Export to YouTube, GoPro studio seems to make another copy of the video on my Mac (500MB), iMove seems to upload directly.

Does this look about right?

What files should I keep? My gut instinct is to keep all of the video that I have shot, I'd liken these to my raw photos, but do I need to keep the larger intermediate files? Would this break the iMovie/GoPro studio projects?

[Craikeybaby]

I've remembered why I stopped using GoPro Studio beyond converting clips in the past - it has locked up, when I tried save the project.

Whilst waiting to see if GoPro studio uncrushed itself (it still hasn't) I had a go with iMovie. What is the difference between importing a file into an "event" and just importing it straight into a project? I seem to have each clip in an "event", then also in a project. Is this why my iMovie Library is so big?

[coach]

It's no different. If you drop straight into project it creates and event.

it doesn't duplicate per se.

[Phunk]

Not sure how GoPro studio works, but this is how I backup my video stuff.

Original footage is copied onto an external drive (copy the whole card). It's only a 2TB drive, but it means if I have any issues with the video files not importing correctly into Final Cut, I've got about 3 months of backups (by that time the project should be finished anyway)

File structure is: Year/Month/Project Name/Video(or audio)/Then device name(e.g. GoPro)

I then create separate libraries for each of my projects, importing the footage again directly into these projects within final cut.

I work away on the project, then once complete the library is moved onto an external Raid.

File structure for this is, is similar to above (Year/Month/Project Name)

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks, I'm on iMovie, rather than Final Cut, but will give that a go.

[Phunk]

Ideally you want to keep your full video workflow within one programme. iMovie should be able to do most of what GoPro studio can.

If you've got time to learn a new programme, DaVinci Resolve is free and a very powerful editing and colour correction tool.

[Craikeybaby]

I'm going to try and stick with iMovie, as it seems less flakey than GoPro Studio. I thought GoPro footage needed to be converted to work on, as it is quite compressed?

[Craikeybaby]

I don't think my Mac liked the idea of Davinci Resolve - it crashed as soon as I went on the Black Magic website to read about it.

[Phunk]

Craikeybaby said:

I'm going to try and stick with iMovie, as it seems less flakey than GoPro Studio. I thought GoPro footage needed to be converted to work on, as it is quite compressed?

iMovie shouldn't have any issues with GoPro footage, does it import ok?

[Craikeybaby]

I'll give it a go, everything I've done previously has been decompressed in GoPro Studio prior to import into iMovie.