RAW Video once finished...
 

Just wondering what everyone typically does with those huge RAW video files once your are or think you are done with them. For example, I filmed a conference a while back, and still have the RAW .AVI files that I riped from the miniDV tapes. There is 151 GB of RAW AVI there, and it seems to just be a space hog, and they are too big to put on a disk (5-20 GB each) without cutting and editing the RAW.

I've always hated to delete these because of the chance of ever needing it or wanting to use part of it, but external storage fills real fast when dealing with that kind of data and even though save the tapes and dont record over, it seems like it'd be a hassle to have to go through them all to find what I'm looking for and have to dump it back in if ever needed.

So what do you all do with your RAW Video files? Delete them, compress them down somewhat, or deal with the space/storage issue?

I prefer the term original over RAW, because RAW has a lot of other meanings in digital video.

If you have a lot of money, buy online storage with multiple offline backups (DDS tape or disk) and asset management software.

If you have a little money, buy one external hard drive and use labels.

If you have a lot of time, blow away the files and re-capture them from tape when you need them again.

If you have poor eyesight, compress the originals.

I would suggest doing a combination. Render the files to a low quality, highly compressed format for storage on removable media or external HDD. Label the files to correspond to the original tape.

If you ever need/want to reuse the footage, use the file to scrub through and find what you want, then grab the correct tape and recapture just the section you want.

Randy

thats not a bad idea, it would cut back on storage needed and provide a quick find method of getting the full quality clips back if needed, though it adds the time back in of capturing the footage, but it seems the best way around the file size.

Online storage is out of the question, It's take as longer to upload or redownload the footage in its full-quality original format than it would to recapture it.

When I said online storage, I was not referring to Internet storage; I meant storage that is connected to your editing workstation and available all the time. Unlike, say, a gaggle of portable hard drives where only one is connected (or "online") at a time.