As a video production house, you understand how much work goes into creating just one video. Everything from pre-production up to client submission takes a lot of work and coordination.

Hundreds of hours go into just one video production, as well as the efforts of everybody involved with the video. Because of all this time and effort, it comes to no surprise why a technical error like footage loss and damage can be very disheartening to a production team.

Even losing one clip of footage means losing hours of takes, setup, and practice. While it is not an ideal situation, there may be times when this can happen because of unforeseen circumstances, or technical issues.

The best thing that you can do is to protect your footage in the event that one copy of your footage gets corrupted or lost. Here are some ways to protect your footage.

Protect your memory cards

One of the biggest reasons why footage gets corrupted when transferring it from the memory card to your PC is because there is an issue with the memory card.

As a video production house, you will end up using your memory cards a lot, so the proper steps must be taken to guarantee that nothing happens to them that may cause file corruption. First and foremost, never buy off brand memory cards, no matter how much cheaper they are.

These are more likely to get corrupted for no reason, and you will end up paying more. Always buy legitimate, branded memory cards. Secondly, always store your memory cards properly. Don’t expose your memory cards to anything that might damage it, like moisture or static.

Store them properly, and maintain a rule that you designate one memory card to one specific device to avoid any data compatibility or corruption issues that might occur when switching a card from one device to another.

Don’t keep your footage on one place

Of course, the basic rule of thumb for important files is to never keep everything in one place. So after you’ve transferred the footage from the card to your PC, immediately create a backup copy on a hard drive,and upload it onto a cloud storage service. Cloud storage is a great way to backup your footage and recover it quickly if anything happens to the file you have on hand.

Plan for the worst case scenario

If the damage has been done to the original device and you have no backups yet, it’s advisable to have a plan in case that happens. Your best bet would be to take your device to a company that specializes in data recovery using specific tools and technology that can help recover your data completely.