Do you capture ALL footage, then edit, or capture only what you need?
 

it's what i called video-dump. assuming that hard drive space is NOT an issue, let's say you recorded 10 hours HDV. do you:
a. dump all of the footage onto the hard drive THEN edit?
or
b. capture the footage that you think *might* end up in the final edit. it's pretty much editing already @the capture stage.

good/bads of either:
a. the benefits of dumping all footage is that you're not losing any of it. you're seeing ALL of the footage that you've captured. it's a matter of convenice and obsessive-compulsive behavior on some people. the problem is that the hard drive space (especially HDV/HD) requirement is tremendous and you're using a lot of processing power to edit across such a huge amount of data.
b. the benefits of capturing what you need is you're saving processing data and editing already cutting out unnecessary footage. the problem is that it's very possible to MISS good footage entirely if you're falling asleep/tired.

so which of it do you guys prefer?

I capture it all, because space is rarely a problem for the work we do. Depending on the machine I'm working with, I'll either capture using CineForm's Aspect HD app, or I'll capture in Vegas, using GearShift to convert to DV proxies. I use proxies exclusively on my P4 3.2 laptop, and use Cineform or 4:2:2 YUV on our various desktop/editing systems.

GearShift allows you to be selective about what you keep and don't keep. You simply do a logging session and mark what you will and won't keep, then discard everything not marked once you've done a logging session.

I agree with Douglas on this.

Once you've played with HDV enough, you'll go "what the heck was I so concerned about!!" and just capture the whole shoot, with the option to split "scene changes to individual clips" selected in most circumstances... the beauty being, the more you use your HDV equipment the more you recognise when "split scene" will be a God send, and when it'll be a pain...

The one really important thing is that capturing the whole shoot allows for easy cataloguing on disk prior to archiving, and allows you to be a little more flexible in how you use your tapes. Peace of mind!!!

As long as you use CFHD AVI uncompressed or Gearshift proxies, there's no problems cutting up your material into it's final edited form - and; as long as the original captures are available somewhere - hard drive or DVD, rebuilding a project for that last minute alteration becomes a snap...

is it 1gigabyte=1minute or is it 1gigabyte=1hour? HDV.

I view, log, and capture only what I need, with just a tad on either end of each clip to work with. Some of us do have limited space :)

It's neither for either...

If you're asking about the m2t captured from camera... it's approx. 12Gig P/H

If you're asking about CFHD AVI converted clips... it's approx. 30Gig P/H

kewl, thx =).

A slight tangent...

What would you do if you had hours upon hours of footage on tape, but using your camera as a deck.
Do you log first, then batch capture of do you capture everything, make subclips then delete everything else?

i capture how i capture DV... especialy for multicam work.. i need to capture the WHOLE tape and sync that way.. then i worry bout cutting..

ive got a couple of terrabytes worth of storage here (plus a couple of hundred gig for emergencies) and i regularly cut abut 4 weddings and 1 corporate at a time, i also have a drafting machine which is our office machine and does all capturing and draft editing, then i jsut swap drives like a conveyer as im done..

building the cheap arsed second machine was prolly one of the best things i did for the business and saves Aa whole heap of time as when i render on teh main machine, i just jump across to the other machine and cut somethign else..

with the prices on desktop&storage so cheap, i imagine that if the business you are in is somewhat profitable, one can build up quite a farm of machines =).

i wish i could, then id have 4 students in a week as oppsed to 2... then i can get more hands on deck.... but the thing is, these machines need ot at least be able to do some midrange editing, as these usually end up being backup units in case anything happens...

Im a pessimist and the way PCs components are built today, they dont have a life longer than 3 years.. recently my old machines CPU bridge died.. what from who knows, but we were moving house, and i had the case on the passanger sea and drove 20kms under teh limit.. thats how paranoid i am.. but even that slight movement of carrying it (were talkin a 45kg machine here with at least 8 drives in it.. ) must have doen something..

anyways, now i no longer use RAIDS, and each drive is dedicaed to either being a capture drive, a "render to" drive, and an encoding drive..
in the longrun it saves wear and tear and if a drive is nuked, at least its only one drive and not 3 raided 200gb units housing all my work..

CFHD size is doubled from the original m2t?? I thought its smaller since its simplifying m2t.

Yes, CFHD size is doubled (or more like tripled) from the original m2t. It's simpler to edit, but to make it that way it needs more space.

Quoting from Cineform's web site: http://www.cineform.com/products/FAQ.htm#codec2

"How big are CineForm Intermediate File Sizes?

HDV: For 1440 x 1080 60i HDV material, you can expect a range of arount 10 - 14 MBytes/sec, or around 40GB/hour. In comparison, 1280 x 720 24p material will be about half that size.These files are larger than the MPEG-codec HDV streams, but this is done intentionally to allow improved visual fidelity within multi-generation workflows."

Mark