[David Braue]

Hoping for some tips here. As I find I am now taking all my video on Flip camcorders, there is a very real issue with managing a growing amount of video data. For example, I have filled the Flip Mino HD and have 4GB of video files waiting to import.

I would prefer all these files not live in iPhoto but I'm wondering where else I should put them for an orderly workflow -- what does everybody tend to do with these files? I have created a separate folder in the iMovie Events folder so they are easy to index and edit -- is that pretty much the best approach? Or is there another, more efficient way? Since these are big files and they don't exist on tape as well, I want to make sure they are somewhere distinctive and easy to back up via Time Machine. Losing them would be a real shame, to say the least.

TIA for any tips...

DB

[Genshin]

I was for a time importing my video footage together with the corresponding images in iPhoto. I found however, that this bloats the iPhoto library and I was having a hard time with this approach. I was advised by several people that storing videos in iPhoto - in the large number that I was - was not such a good idea.

I have since dedicated two 2TB external drives (total 4TB) to my video files - which are also backed up on DVD and on our server. Currently I have 3.2TB of video footage on those drives.

My video footage is indexed the old fashioned way ie. colour coded labels and an extensive filing system such as: festivals & events, locations, mountains, rivers, temples, shrines, people, crafts, etc (you get the idea). I have long wondered if there were a better less complicated way/application to handle this? Bento? Filemaker?

At present I also have 12 iPhoto libraries similarly labelled, with a total of 2TB of images.

[skyhawkmatthew]

I download all the video from our Canon HF10 through iMovie onto a bus-powered 2.5" drive that we take with us when travelling. When we get home I transfer it to the Drobo.

[clinton1550]

My dad recently archived a heap of old Super8 tapes to a 1 TB drive, he needs a 2 TB drive now. As far as I know he sorted by year and named the movies after what was written on the tape. That drive will be the master and if he ever wants to edit any of the footage he makes a copy.

I think the best thing to do would be to have a dedicated drive and archive the footage in a logical way, keep it simple because you're going to want to pull a clip out of the archive one day.