2009

Ingest at online quality, edit using duplicate offline media, and reconform to online
media for finishing
This strategy is typical for many programs whose media was acquired using a tapeless
recording format. Using this method, you copy or ingest all of your recorded media at its
highest native level of quality and then immediately back it up for safety. You then create
a second set of lower-quality media files, using either the Log and Transfer window or
the Media Manager (depending on the format of media you’re working with). This
duplicate offline media has cloned timecode, clip names, reel names, and UUIDs (or
Universally Unique Identifiers; see “Ingesting Tapeless Media”) that are identical to those
in the source media. You edit your program using the offline media, which typically results
in better performance, allowing you to work more efficiently.
When you’re ready to finish, you reconform your program to the online media that you
originally ingested. Because the online media is already on your hard disks, the reconform
process should be relatively easy, and you can color correct, master, and output your
program at this high quality.
This method of working requires large amounts of disk space because you need to
maintain both the online and offline versions of media. However, often the online media
is stored on one system and the offline media is used on an entirely different computer.
The online-to-offline conversion can be time-consuming but happens only once at the
very beginning of the process, and makes it faster and easier to reconform later, when
you frequently have less time. In the interim, offline media lets you use a less expensive
computer to do the majority of your work.
Note: Although this is the only way to work with tapeless media, this method can be
used with any type of captured media.
Ingest and edit at offline quality and reconform to online quality for finishing
This strategy is typical for programs whose media was acquired using high-bandwidth,
tape-based formats. Using this method, you ingest your media at offline quality and do
your entire offline edit using this low-quality, low-bandwidth media. When you’re ready
to finish your program, you recapture only the media that is used in the final program
from the source videotapes at online quality, and from this point forward you color correct,
master, and output your program at high quality.
When you use this method, the initial ingest is usually fast and has minimal disk space
requirements. However, you need to budget both time and equipment for the eventual
process of reconforming from the source tapes. As always, the key to a successful
reconform in this scenario is to carefully maintain the timecode and reel identification of
each clip in your project, as these two pieces of data are key in maintaining the
correspondence between the offline and online media. Archiving the source media,
especially with tapeless formats, is critical.
31Chapter 2 Ingesting and Organizing Your Media