Storage original or render files

[zuri]

Hi everyone, i have a lot of terabytes for a project im working on, and i wonder if i render a timeline and delete the original files, the rendered one will preserve the quality and stand up for post procesing?

Im working on davinci resolve and doing some render test but i can't see an image diference between the original and the rendered file.
What is your experience with this? You always kept the originals?

[kye]

On 5/6/2024 at 10:09 PM, zuri said:

Hi everyone, i have a lot of terabytes for a project im working on, and i wonder if i render a timeline and delete the original files, the rendered one will preserve the quality and stand up for post procesing?

Im working on davinci resolve and doing some render test but i can't see an image diference between the original and the rendered file.
What is your experience with this? You always kept the originals?

I definitely always keep the originals, but it depends on what work you're doing and what you export.

If you really want to reduce the amount of storage your footage takes up, one way is to use the (excellent) Media Management tool and use the Copy Only Used Media Files option to create a backup of only the files that you actually used in the project.  If your source files are large RAW files then you could transcode them to a Prores file as a lower resolution source and delete the RAW files.  Or you could even export a Prores HQ copy of your completed timeline to have a high quality copy of it, rather than an 8-bit h264/5 export only.

Of course, all these things take time, and if time is money to you then it might just be easier to buy more hard drives!

[zuri]

Thanks for reply Kye. Until now, i always kept the camera files, but... 
I am shooting nature stuff. Birds and animals, and the other day i forgot the camera remote control, so after pressing record button, then move my hand to the lens and find the bird, then exposure, focus, etc... And i end up having a lot of useless seconds of footage on each clip...
More ssd can be a solution, but with 600mbps clips i'm thinking of buying an ssd company, because otherwise a legion of ssd won't be enough.

Looking for the output codecs of davinci 18, there is a lot of options, but i wonder which will be the best to keep the original quality for future edition and color grade. My files are avc all intra 600mbps on s log3.
Thanks again for reply.
 

[kye]

9 hours ago, zuri said:

Thanks for reply Kye. Until now, i always kept the camera files, but... 
I am shooting nature stuff. Birds and animals, and the other day i forgot the camera remote control, so after pressing record button, then move my hand to the lens and find the bird, then exposure, focus, etc... And i end up having a lot of useless seconds of footage on each clip...
More ssd can be a solution, but with 600mbps clips i'm thinking of buying an ssd company, because otherwise a legion of ssd won't be enough.

Looking for the output codecs of davinci 18, there is a lot of options, but i wonder which will be the best to keep the original quality for future edition and color grade. My files are avc all intra 600mbps on s log3.
Thanks again for reply.
 

If you have a lot of dead time in your media, the other option is to split the original clips to cut out the good bits.

IIRC ffmpeg has an option to split a clip into two pieces at a given timestamp, but there might be other programs that can do this too.

This method doesn't re-compress the video and audio stream in the file so there is zero loss of quality.

[Happy Daze]

2 hours ago, kye said:

If you have a lot of dead time in your media, the other option is to split the original clips to cut out the good bits.

IIRC ffmpeg has an option to split a clip into two pieces at a given timestamp, but there might be other programs that can do this too.

This method doesn't re-compress the video and audio stream in the file so there is zero loss of quality.

When you place clips in a Davinci Resolve timeline you have the option save the used media in the original format (not re-encoded) either complete or split as per the edited clip. When saving the cut clip there is also a choice to add frame handles to both ends of the clip to a selectable length. It can then automatically replace the clips in the timeline with the newly saved trimmed versions. It works for BRAW files as well as standard mov, MP4 etc, but I've not tried it with other raw formats. Certainly saves a lot of storage space and time splitting clips individually. It also gives the opportunity to re-encode the clips before saving them if that is your desire.

It's in the file menu under 'Media Management...' 

[ac6000cw]

8 hours ago, kye said:

If you have a lot of dead time in your media, the other option is to split the original clips to cut out the good bits.

IIRC ffmpeg has an option to split a clip into two pieces at a given timestamp, but there might be other programs that can do this too.

This method doesn't re-compress the video and audio stream in the file so there is zero loss of quality.

If you want a nice, free, GUI based tool, 'Shutter Encoder' - https://www.shutterencoder.com/ - uses FFMPEG underneath, supports cutting without re-encoding for some codecs (on keyframe boundaries) and is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. If you want to re-compress the files to reduce the size, it supports ProRes and many others, including optional GPU hardware acceleration for H264/AVC and H265/HEVC.

But always check the new files work properly in your editor before you delete the originals...

(I don't have any connection with the tool other than being a satisfied user)

[gt3rs]

14 hours ago, Happy Daze said:

When you place clips in a Davinci Resolve timeline you have the option save the used media in the original format (not re-encoded) either complete or split as per the edited clip. When saving the cut clip there is also a choice to add frame handles to both ends of the clip to a selectable length. It can then automatically replace the clips in the timeline with the newly saved trimmed versions. It works for BRAW files as well as standard mov, MP4 etc, but I've not tried it with other raw formats. Certainly saves a lot of storage space and time splitting clips individually. It also gives the opportunity to re-encode the clips before saving them if that is your desire.

It's in the file menu under 'Media Management...' 

FYI it does not trim Canon RAW files, just copies the whole file

[Yannick Willox]

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