user16277: I am trying to organize the videos on my external harddrive. I have a lot of home video shot with a hand held camera, and now I am using a GoPro 4 camera that I record 4K video with. It consumes a lot of data. 
I have tried find out how people organize and manage the raw video. Many of the clips from one day of recording (such as a motorcycle trip) is never edited. It just lays on the harddrive. But it consumes so much space when the bit rate of the 4K clips are something like 45-60 Mbps. 
Is it dumb of me to compress the video to a bit rate such as 15-20 Mbps. I am thinking of "merging" all the clips that the GoPro is creating to one MP4 file with h.264 codec and a bit rate like 15-20 Mbps. Is that good enough for later usage if I need to use the clip in a movie that I want to edit?
How do you solve this? If I start to record every ride with my motorcycle it would consume to much space and I don't need that. Thats why I want to do this. But I don't want to be in a position where the clips are too bad for later usage. 

user674: The way you have worded the question makes it difficult to answer. I keep all mine in default format, because disk space is so cheap. I have a bunch of 2 terabyte drives to store it on. 
If you want to compress it you will lose quality, obviously, so you need to decide what quality you would be happy with.
Totally up to you, but I'd encourage buying large disks - they are incredibly cheap these days.

16277: <p>I am trying to organize the videos on my external harddrive. I have a lot of home video shot with a hand held camera, and now I am using a GoPro 4 camera that I record 4K video with. It consumes a lot of data. </p>

<p>I have tried find out how people organize and manage the raw video. Many of the clips from one day of recording (such as a motorcycle trip) is never edited. It just lays on the harddrive. But it consumes so much space when the bit rate of the 4K clips are something like 45-60 Mbps. </p>

<p>Is it dumb of me to compress the video to a bit rate such as 15-20 Mbps. I am thinking of "merging" all the clips that the GoPro is creating to one MP4 file with h.264 codec and a bit rate like 15-20 Mbps. Is that good enough for later usage if I need to use the clip in a movie that I want to edit?</p>

<p>How do you solve this? If I start to record every ride with my motorcycle it would consume to much space and I don't need that. Thats why I want to do this. But I don't want to be in a position where the clips are too bad for later usage. </p>
 674: <p>The way you have worded the question makes it difficult to answer. I keep all mine in default format, because disk space is so cheap. I have a bunch of 2 terabyte drives to store it on. </p>

<p>If you want to compress it you will lose quality, obviously, so you need to decide what quality you would be happy with.</p>

<p>Totally up to you, but I'd encourage buying large disks - they are incredibly cheap these days.</p>
