Compressing Video Files to Send to Editor???

[AsgardInternet]

I have eleven interviews of staff. Each interview consists of four files about 3gb large (two camera angles). I am finding it impossible to send to video editors overseas. The videos were recorded with the rebel t4i and t3i. Ultimately these files will be edited to be created and put online for our website. My question is this

Is there a way to compress these file, eg make them MUCH smaller but keep them good enough that he editor can edit them in adobe premiere pro and after effects to make it look nice, adjust coloring, and all that jazz?

[aedipuss]

no. as an editor all i'd accept is the originals. get a better isp or send via snail mail on blu-ray discs. and why would you have to send them overseas? there are plenty of hungry editors right here in the states. i can always use extra work....

[Cornucopia]

Maybe you're not used to this and don't understand, but NO, you specifically DO NOT want to re-compress them prior to editing. Exceptions to this would be to "visually lossless, lossy intermediate" codecs such as DNxHD, Cineform, J2k, etc. but those are often LARGER than your originals.

Compressing them to much smaller versions is what happens to a copy of the master, AFTER the editing is done. They WON'T be good enough if you do make them much smaller.

It's not impossible, just logistically more difficult (or slower). You can always pay for a DropBox account and upload (and have them download) in segments (using HJsplit or similar).

Scott

[AsgardInternet]

You are right. I'm not knowledgeable about this which is why I'm here asking for help

I have paid drop box and paid sugarsync Its taking 24 hours to upload one 4 gig file! Any suggestions

[transporterfan]

Burn to discs and use a courier service.

[jagabo]

Obviously, it's best to send the original files. There a lots of cloud based sites that will let you do that for a price (and the upload/download time). Or burn them to DVD and send by FedEx, mail, etc. But if these are talking head shots on static backgrounds you can probably compress them quite a bit without much quality loss.

[AsgardInternet]

They are talking heads, yes. They are sitting next to a plant and a white wall. Do you guys think compression is OK? I have aftereffects. To what do you think I can compress? And what kind of limitations to the editor will it cause. I just want them to cut out things like ums, add title slide, lower thirds and closing slide. And make the lighting/color nicer.

[jagabo]

Use any of the open source conversion programs like Handbrake to encode to h.264 (x264) at something like RF 18, constant framerate, one second GOPs. See how big it turns out compared to the original. Use lower RF values for higher quality and larger size, higher RF values for lower quality and smaller size.

[AsgardInternet]

Thanks jagabo I'll try that.

[aedipuss]

Canon .mov files are already compressed h264. Compressing again and then editing and re-compressing yet another time out of the edit is asking for garbage. I shoot and edit 60d/3ti video myself along with hdv. If it's taking hours to upload, either get a hardened hard drive, copy the files to it and ship or find a local editor. We could use the work.

[Cornucopia]

Or ship it to a regional upload service that is on the internet backbone where they can upload it in a matter of hours.

Scott

[smrpix]

Or add timecode to the files with something like QTChange (link below), then compress, send the editor proxies, get an EDL or copy of the project back and conform the original to the editor's cuts....

nah, just send a copy of the files on a hard drive.


http://www.videotoolshed.com/product/42/qtchange