In our production department at IMM, we have been cleaning up old files and project folders so that everything is in order. In this process, we found that many of our video products were kept in a format as requested by various distribution partners. This means we had a huge variance in file quality and size. Because a large number of our older and current projects continue to be remade into new language versions, having discrepancies with these files is problematic. We recognized that we desperately needed a standard.
Many people have different standards for life. “Be a good person.” “Go to church twice a year”. “Pray 3 times a day.” While these things seem like good practices, they represent a huge range of ideas for what is required of us. Romans 3:23 says “For everyone has sinned: we fall short of God’s glorious standard.” On our own, we cannot reach the standard God has put in place. Knowing this standard and deciding our own human efforts are not enough frees us to accept Jesus’ help to attain it.
Back to our video files. We decided on a standard. Going forward, we are going to keep our final video products in a format called Apple ProRes 422 (plus one that this blog doesn’t cover). This format allows that future copies and versions will not degrade generationally. At the same time, they are not so enormous that they become a burden. They can also easily be converted for the needs of our ministry partners.
In the end, having a standard is good for everyone. My desire is that anyone who comes to work with IMM in the future will have a clear standard to follow that minimizes frustration and confusion. In a greater and more important way, having Jesus as our standard of faith (see also Ephesians 4) will show us the way forward to an acceptable, glorious standard.