What, in your opinion, is the best media in which to save master edit films? These are 20-minute color training films re-edited in a second language. The master edits will be downloaded directly from the studio's computers and saved, one each, on some type of storage media. These master edits will - theoretically - be saved indefinitely should later someone want copies made.
The choices I have been given so far for master edit media are:
* DVD
* Mini DV
* Digital Betacam
* USB Flash (or an external, portable hard drive)
Can you please tell me your ideas about the pros and cons of using these - or other - formats?
Thanks.
Depends on what you shot on. For SD footage Digibeta will be best unless you're doing a cuts-only edit of DV, when a Mini-DV master will be an exact copy of the original footage.
You could save it digitally to hard disk, but disks aren't as reliable as tapes over long periods: you're more likely to be able to play a ten year old tape than recover data from a ten year old hard drive.
Thanks for your reply. All 12 films are being redubbed and edited into a second language from English. The old, original VHS films were put on DVDs and the DVDs were given to me. So we'll re-digitize the films (is that the correct term?), work on them as needed in the studio's computers, and then give the client back playable DVD copies in the new language.
Again, I'm interested in learning what you think would be the best format to hold on to one "master edit" copy of each film for the client. I might be a year or more later that he'll want additional copies.
As for saving it to a hard drive, I first thought of using a small flash drive. Would that be a viable choice? Thanks again for your advice.
