Basically, I am trying to record as many videos as humanly possible for my daughter (who is now 6), but the videos will be for all stages of her life, from kid to teen to adult. I know I won’t be there for her, so I’m hoping that through these videos I can still “be there for her” at least somewhat and also teach her life lessons and such. Basically, I’m kinda trying to do what Superman’s dad did for him, like where he puts in the crystal and the AI hologram of his dad appears and talks to him and teaches him lessons or just hangs out with him. Well, I don’t have a fortress of solitude or an AI hologram crystal, but I got this IPhone 15 Pro Max. Hopefully that will be enough.
I just recorded my first video on this phone for my daughter. I used 4K at 24 fps, to see if I could give the video more of a cinematic type feel. The video was a few minutes over an hour and was like 14.5GB! I’m using “Apple ProRes” video format with HDR as the “format encoder”.
I really want to film the videos for her in 4K if I can, because I am trying to future-proof the videos as much as humanly possible. I am thinking she could be watching these videos 50 plus years from now and I feel like 4K should help them hopefully hold up better.
I just wanted to ask you guys if there is a good way for me to film these videos in 4K, but maybe use some format that helps save a bit on file space. Because I believe the videos I have recorded in 4K 60fps on my PC (I have an elgato facecam pro with a SM7B mic), that are all about an hour long only came out to 1-2 GB’s or so, where as this iPhone video is 14GB! Although it is appealing to use a format that allows for the best editing options in the future, I cannot justify the storage space usage and over all extra cost this would bring upon me in the future trying to find ways to store these videos. So I definitely need some kinda 4K format that maybe has some compression or something, but will hopefully get my file sizes down to about a GB or two for an hour of footage.
If y’all have any tips for me on this I would be really appreciative! Thanks so much!
Retired archivist here.
I am so sorry for your situation and I love your idea but keep things simple.
Don’t use anything proprietary or exotic. We really don’t know what will be available to her in the future for playback.
Sure they might look a little clunkier but at least she’ll be able to watch them.
And make backups!!!
Absolutely! Always at least 3 copies OP,
-The original file
-A copy of the file somewhere else on the computer
*A copy of the file off of the computer, such as cloud/DvD/flash drives
-a copy of the file offsite such as drives in storage, or cloud would work for this as well
Offsite is usually best in a cloud or physical media stored in a safe place from the computer in case of fire/evacuation…
I added the * option as a personal preference, and added security, but a lot of people don’t
Thanks for the advice Sea-Bottle6335! I had been recording my first 5-10 or so videos on my PC. I have streamlabs OBS for recording and an Elgato Facecam Pro (it can record 4k@60fps) and a sure SM7B mic. But I would have to go back and see what format I recorded those videos in. Sorry, I can’t remember the format off the top of my head.
But I got the new IPhone 15 pro max in hopes to start using it as the new way for me to make the videos. I am hoping that the phone will simplify things, plus it will back up my videos to the cloud, which is big for me.
If you have any suggestions on exactly what settings to use while recording I’ll take all the advice I can get. But I feel like I have figured it out already. Basically ProRes is useless to me, so I just turned it off in settings. And I am planning on recording the more “important” videos in 4K@24fps and then record most of the videos in 1080p @ 30fps to save on file size. To be honest, I may just record all of them in 1080p @ 30fps, to keep the file size as low as possible.
I have heard a lot of people suggest burning blue ray disk with the videos on them and I definitely want to try that as well as backing up to other hard drives, iCloud, and hopefully YouTube.
Hopefully what I’m thinking about doing matches up with what you were talking about?
I would backup to Blu-ray and YouTube, flash drives and Google drive and share access with a bunch of people. Maybe get a Blu-ray player and store it in the box with the Blu-ray’s. Make sure all of your family has copies to all the data in all the formats.
The quality of the video doesn’t matter as much as the content and I can’t imagine how bad everyone would feel if something happened to that content and your daughter couldn’t watch it. Just make sure it’s everywhere in as many formats as possible.
I wouldn’t sweat it in terms of playback, as long as it’s a computer file. What video file that is obsolete and unplayable today? I’m still able to play .qt, and .rm files on MPV.
I say to bundle in a standalone video player in case, like MPV.