Where do you store your Digital Videos

[davidg4781]

I used to not take that many videos. Maybe some ants carrying a snail. Short things like that so I kept everything in Photos.

I recently bought a GoPro to take some videos and this is where things might get a little tricky. I don't mind keeping everything in there but I end up running out of storage on iPhone, even if I have it set to save originals in the cloud.

For now, are my only options to keep them saved in a folder on my MBP? Whenever I get a newer iPhone, I'm definitely getting a larger capacity one.

But all this got me wondering if there's an even better place to store them. Does iMovie have a way to store and catalog movies like Photos does with pictures? I've never really used iMovie other than a couple of small edits.

 

[ColdCase]

You are saving gopro video on your phone? If you are storing the videos on the iPhone, it won't matter what app you use as they all take up space. I offload iPhone and GoPro video/photos to a Mac. I use FCP for its video indexing, iPhoto for convenience.

 

[davidg4781]

Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

I’m offloading them onto my Mac. But I don’t know where to put them other than a folder in the Movies folder section in Finder (I know there’s a better way to describe that!).

I would think Photos would be best because of its organization but then it’ll move it to iPhone and I don’t want that. I’m short on storage.

 

[ColdCase]

You don't have to sync your Mac's photo library with your iphone automatically, you can do that manually and selectively. My iPhone and Mac photo apps are independent. If you use iCloud, you don't have to download iCloud photos to your phone but can download to your phone the ones you want..

 

[cthompson94]

I don't think there is a (easy) way to catalog videos/clips like you can photos where you have the designated subject or scene and each individual photo can be labeled as such and easily put in neat folders and file names. I use a Samsung T7 2TB SSD for my videos and I just have them broken down just like I do my photos ie. year-month-activity/location-then the filename which for videos just a real short title that basically sums up the video like "(daughter's name) jumping around" I take a lot of small videos of my kid. In cases for that example for the activity/location I just put "Random Home Vids" so if I ever go and decide to just combine clips of those random sorts of videos I know exactly what folders they will be in.

 

[ColdCase]

I use FCP to index/catalog videos FCP has a powerful keyword capability for clips or parts of clips to help you quickly locate the clips you need to compose your movie. You cab tag a clip with multiple keyword, one for Susie, one for Bill... as activities. Works very well, as long as you keep up with tagging videos as you add them to the library... as any kind of index system. So if you want to find all the birday parties Bill attended, search on the keywords.

 

[JW5566]

I store mine on an eternal SSD (a Samsung T5) to free up storage on my Mac, and back them up to another extra drive.

 

[JamesMay82]

I don't think there is a (easy) way to catalog videos/clips like you can photos where you have the designated subject or scene and each individual photo can be labeled as such and easily put in neat folders and file names. I use a Samsung T7 2TB SSD for my videos and I just have them broken down just like I do my photos ie. year-month-activity/location-then the filename which for videos just a real short title that basically sums up the video like "(daughter's name) jumping around" I take a lot of small videos of my kid. In cases for that example for the activity/location I just put "Random Home Vids" so if I ever go and decide to just combine clips of those random sorts of videos I know exactly what folders they will be in.

ha I do that but with kids but its hard thinking of title names.. there's only so many trying to walk part 1-100 you can use etc

 

[cthompson94]

ha I do that but with kids but its hard thinking of title names.. there's only so many trying to walk part 1-100 you can use etc

that is very true, I have ran into that quite a number of times

 

[ColdCase]

ha I do that but with kids but its hard thinking of title names.. there's only so many trying to walk part 1-100 you can use etc

Thats exactly why I've used FCP, select a frame or a segment of a clip, apply a label, continue. Its then not hard to find the gems in the haystack. Organizing Video as you would Photos is hard, well organizing may not be, but finding if Sally was at Aunt Mary's 23rd birthday party and the clip segment later would be.... without doing a lot of scrolling.

If you Keep the clips short and on a specific topic, its much easier of course.

 

[JamesMay82]

Thats exactly why I've used FCP, select a frame or a segment of a clip, apply a label, continue. Its then not hard to find the gems in the haystack. Organizing Video as you would Photos is hard, well organizing may not be, but finding if Sally was at Aunt Mary's 23rd birthday party and the clip segment later would be.... without doing a lot of scrolling.

If you Keep the clips short and on a specific topic, its much easier of course.

so you keep all your videos stored in FCP and use its as a library for just general viewing of your clips? i.e. like we would with the photos app for photos?

 

[dandeco]

I have a dedicated audio/video production hard drive - a G-Technology 4 TB Thunderbolt 3 external HDD. It holds both iMovie and Final Cut Pro libraries, and is where my render files for Adobe Premiere Pro are stored for certain projects, a capture scratch disk, along with digital video files of material I may watch, in addition to my finished video projects for uploading to YouTube and whatnot. To be fair, I also have much of that stuff also duplicated onto my LaCie 4 TB USB-C external rugged HDD for when I am on the go, sitting alongside files for other uses on said drive (such as software installers, photo archives from my cameras, etc.). I've also got a big hard drive in a FireWire 800/USB 3.0 enclosure, largely for use with my older Macs, if need be. Since hard drives don't last forever, I'd probably replace the drives every seven to ten years and copy all the material onto them.

 

[ColdCase]

so you keep all your videos stored in FCP and use its as a library for just general viewing of your clips? i.e. like we would with the photos app for photos?

It depends.

I keep all the raw/source material in FCP libraries, working libraries on SSD.

I assemble, edit and export mostly short clips. I use Topaz to clean them up if necessary.

For general family viewing, I add the file to iTunes running on an old mini with a large drive attached. This iTunes server also contains movies and shows I purchased over the years.

For clips that are intended for extended family viewing, the files are loaded onto a web server I own. The web page program I use has a couple nifty ways to organize and present the video gallery. .... but thats just me.

I do very few feature length 15+ minute clips. There are backups. This process started to be developed when I transferred all my tapes to digital media more than a decade ago and then adapted along the way to suit my work flow and changes in product offerings (using a media server service is costly now days). If starting from scratch today there may be other options, but this works well and efficiently for me.