Deleting Footage from CF Cards
 

Curious if most folks delete thier footage from the CF cards from within the camera or from their computer desktop? Does it make a difference? And how often do you reformat the cards?

Thanks,
Blake

I format the card in-camera every time after the footage has been download. The only footage I delete are the ones that aren't keepers while I'm in the field, otherwise, I always format the card.

I download, encode to the format I'm using to edit with and then reformat the cards on every project/shoot.

Once I have two versions of the data there's no good reason to keep it on the CF cards. I also have several Camera's and reformat the card in the camera its being used in. This ensures that the data is written contiguously with no fragmented sections. If you simply erase on either the camera or computer there is the possibility that the card becomes fragmented reducing read and write speeds.

At least that is what I was told when the video was skipping on playback from a 133X Elite Pro. It seemed to help and I certainly don't think it hurts.

I'm swapping a handful of cards regularly between a 5D Mk. II and a 7D, so I format them in-camera every time.

I always clear the card by formatting in camera, never on the computer. I have recently started using dedicated cards for my camera. I only use the same cards in my 7D, never in another camera. I had started getting the odd dropped frame, which could be caused by a few things, so as a precaution I have bought Kingston pro x133 and only use these in the 7D and my SanDisk are used in my other camera (Nikon).

Great, thank you for the info! For my stills I have just deleted from the computer and not reformatted the cards very often, but for video I will definitely start this practice immediately.

Hi Blake,

I would recommend in camera formatting for stills as well.

I do the same thing, reformat every time, in camera. I copy the footage to a USB drive, then convert to ProRes 422 and send that footage to one of the firewire drives. Only after that do I erase and reformat the cards.

I normally delete on the computer right after copying and backing up.

I've always just deleted on the computer, never bother reformatting in the camera, no problems so far (over a year of use). Using a mix of Sandisk extreme II & III cards.

When I'm using Magic Lantern, I also just delete in the computer (so I can keep the ML files on the card), and I've never had a problem.

I reformat the cards in the camera and add the ML files at the beginning of a project, but not after each transfer to the computer.