Film crew hire/Edinburgh/DIT and data
DIT and data for Edinburgh shoots. Every card checked and copied before it leaves the set.
The edit for an Edinburgh shoot might be across the city, four hours down the line in London, in our own suite or in another country. Here’s how the footage gets there in one piece: what a DIT or data wrangler does, what they carry, how much a day makes, where Edinburgh makes it harder, and every way rushes leave the city, from a drive on the train at Waverley to an upload that starts before wrap.
DIT · day rate
£527
Verified copies before a card is wiped
2
1 hour of Sony FX6 4K at 25p
up to about 112 GB
Waverley to King’s Cross, fastest train
about 4 hr 10 min
On this page
01 Who does what
DIT, data wrangler or loader?
Three jobs that overlap, and different sets call them different things. The cameras, the formats and how soon the edit needs the rushes decide which one an Edinburgh shoot books.
Digital imaging technician
DIT
Sits with the DOP on the camera settings and the look, checks each take for focus, exposure and noise, builds the colour for dailies and runs the backups. The one to book for ARRI or RED on a stage at FirstStage Studios in Leith, or for anything shot RAW.
Backups and the log
Data wrangler
Takes the cards from every camera, copies them with verified backups and keeps the log. On a three-camera conference day at the EICC, the wrangler keeps pace with the cards so the camera team never waits for an empty one.
On smaller jobs
Camera assistant or loader
On a small shoot the 2nd AC offloads between set-ups with verification software. On a sportswear brand’s social spot in Woolwich, London, in January 2025, our 2nd AC took over as DIT at the end of the day.
Our view
An interview day in a New Town office on one or two FX6s doesn’t need a DIT: a camera assistant with the right software does the job. Book a wrangler from three cameras up, and a DIT for RAW, ARRI or RED, dailies the same night, or an edit in another city or time zone waiting on proxies. The DIT’s cart and drives go on the quote as their own lines. Booking the whole crew? Every role is on the Edinburgh crew page.
02 On set
How we handle data on an Edinburgh shoot
Five steps on every shoot, whoever does them.
01
Offload, verified
Cards are copied with checksum-verified software such as Silverstack, ShotPut Pro or OffShoot, which reads each copy back against the card. Never by dragging files across in Finder.
02
Two copies, then three
Two verified copies on separate drives before a card goes back to camera to be formatted, and a third away from set by the end of the day.
03
Check it
Spot checks for focus, exposure, sound and timecode while the crew are still on set to go again.
04
Log it
A report for every card, and an ASC MHL file that travels with the media: a checksum for every file, usually xxHash or MD5, and a record of every copy made.
05
Hand it over
At wrap the drives go to you, onto a train at Waverley, to a courier, up to the cloud, or to our edit.
Card handling
A full card comes off camera marked as not yet copied and goes straight to the DIT, never into a pocket. It goes back to camera only once two verified copies exist and the DIT has marked it safe to format. On a two-camera day each camera’s cards travel in their own case, so nothing gets wiped by mistake.
Why it matters
Copying in Finder makes no checksum, so a corrupted file can go unnoticed until the card has been formatted and the original is gone. The baseline we work to is the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, on two kinds of storage, one of them off site.
On one of our jobs
For Swanson Studios, an Oregon studio filming surgeons for a surgical robotics company in Portsmouth, London and Oxford in November and December 2023, our DIT ingested the RED footage and the audio each day, made proxies, and backed up to two mirrored drives, one for Swanson and one for its client, before the vans were packed for the next city.
03 The cart
What a DIT brings, and what they need
The cart is a small data station on wheels. Most DITs bring their own, and it goes on the quote as its own line, with the drives.
Software and looks
A station
A laptop or workstation running the verification software, the camera makers’ own tools for RAW, and the DOP’s look files for dailies.
Media
Readers and drives
A reader for every card format on the day, and drives for three copies. A Sony FX6 records to CFexpress Type A or SD cards; ARRI and RED cameras use their makers’ own media.
Checks and backup power
A monitor and power
A calibrated monitor for checking pictures, and an uninterruptible power supply, so a tripped socket doesn’t stop a copy halfway.
Power and a corner
A socket and a spot out of the traffic of the set, close enough for the camera team to hand over cards. At the EICC, on a stage in Leith or in a New Town office, we agree both with the venue before the day.
Parking
The council issues parking dispensations for a vehicle “essential to the work that is taking place”, so a DIT who works from a van by the set can stop on a yellow line, though not where loading is banned. It’s £16 a vehicle per location, with at least 24 hours’ notice through NSL, the council’s parking contractor (the council’s parking charges, checked October 2026). Each dispensation covers one vehicle, so it goes on the van that carries the cart.
The Low Emission Zone
Edinburgh’s Low Emission Zone covers the city centre around the clock, and there’s no daily charge to pay your way in: a petrol car or van below Euro 4, or a diesel below Euro 6, is sent a £60 penalty, then £120, £240 and £480 for repeats within 90 days (checked October 2026). The Old Town is inside it, and so is the EICC’s loading bay, off the West Approach Road; Leith is outside. We only book vans and cars that meet it. The council on the Low Emission Zone.
04 Storage
How much data a shoot day makes
Per hour of recording, from the camera and codec makers’ own figures. Multiply by the hours you roll and the number of cameras, then by the copies you keep.
| Camera and format | Per hour of recording |
|---|---|
| Sony FX6, XAVC-L 4K, 25p | up to about 45 GB |
| Sony FX6, XAVC-I 4K, 25p | up to about 112 GB |
| Sony FX6, XAVC-I 4K, 50p | up to about 225 GB |
| Apple ProRes 422 HQ, UHD, 25p | about 332 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444, UHD, 25p | about 498 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444 XQ, UHD, 25p | about 746 GB |
| ARRIRAW Open Gate 3.4K, 24 fps | about 973 GB |
| The same ARRIRAW, as Codex HDE | about 584 GB |
Worked example
Three FX6s on a conference day at the EICC, each rolling six hours of sessions in XAVC-I 4K at 25p, make up to about 2 TB. Keep three copies and that’s about 6 TB of drives, sized before the day, not found at lunch. At up to 250 megabits a second, a 160 GB Sony CFexpress Type A card holds about 85 minutes, so each camera fills one about four times over, and every card is copied twice and checked before it goes back. Shoot XAVC-L and the whole day is about 810 GB.
From one of our jobs
The client’s post house often sets the format. For Davies Group’s talk show, shot in Manchester, London and Bolton in October and November 2024, the post house asked for log, 4K, 25 frames for interviews and 50 for B-roll, and the London cameras were two Blackmagic 6Ks, chosen to match the other cities for the edit.
05 Edinburgh
Where Edinburgh makes data harder
Copying and checking work the same anywhere. Three things change the plan here: the venue’s line, August, and how soon the signal goes once you leave the city.
Venues
Ask for the wired line
The EICC’s technical team runs online streaming and hybrid events, but the venue doesn’t publish a speed. FirstStage Studios in Leith does: up to 10 Gbps by Ethernet and Wi-Fi over a site-wide fibre backbone (both checked October 2026), which in theory sends a terabyte in under a quarter of an hour. Wherever the shoot is, we agree a wired line with the venue before the day and test it, rather than share the delegates’ Wi-Fi.
August
Long days, full streets
The Fringe, the International Festival and the Tattoo fill the Old Town, and when Baby Reindeer filmed mid-Fringe, Film Edinburgh encouraged a reduced crew on the Royal Mile. A small street crew means the DIT works from a base off the street, with a runner walking the cards. The light lasts, too: on 15 August the sun is up from about 05:45 to 20:50, against about 08:40 to 15:40 on 15 December (US Naval Observatory, checked October 2026), so a shoot that chases it rolls longer, and we size the drives to the call sheet.
Out of town
Plan for no signal
Ofcom’s Connected Nations report for 2025 found Scotland still has the lowest 4G coverage by area in the UK (checked October 2026). In the Pentlands or out on the East Lothian coast, we plan as if there’s none: the copies happen on the cart, Frame.io Camera to Cloud queues the proxies until it finds a connection, and the originals go up from a wired line back in town.
06 Delivery
Getting rushes out of Edinburgh
Handed over at wrap
The drives go to your producer on set with the media log. Whoever takes them, the masters stay with the production until the copy has arrived and been checked.
On the train, with a person
Waverley is about 4 hours 10 minutes from London King’s Cross on LNER’s fastest trains, about 3 hours 10 minutes from Manchester Piccadilly direct, and about 45 minutes from Glasgow Queen Street (checked October 2026). A runner or the DIT takes a shuttle drive on the train and hands it to the edit at the other end. Wrap too late for that, and the Caledonian Sleeper’s Lowland route runs overnight from Waverley to London, Sunday to Friday (ScotRail, checked October 2026). It’s a copy, never the only one.
By courier
Gophr delivers across Edinburgh, EH1 to EH17 and out into the Lothians, from £7.50 by bike to £26.50 by large van, with collection in as little as 20 minutes and a live tracking link on every job. For anywhere further, Speedy Freight’s Edinburgh branch, at Loanhead, is open 24 hours and aims to collect anywhere in the Edinburgh postcode area within 60 minutes of booking, for same-day delivery anywhere in the UK; its film and production service carries editing drives and rushes. Checked October 2026.
By upload
The connection sets the pace: at 1 gigabit a second, a terabyte takes over two hours in theory. MASV gives 15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB, so two hours of FX6 4K at 25p, about 225 GB, costs about US$53 to send (checked October 2026). For a Paris agency’s interviews in Wimbledon, London, the June 2025 rushes went to Paris on two transfer links two days after the shoot.
Proxies as you shoot
Frame.io Camera to Cloud sends proxies, or originals from some cameras, from a connected camera or encoder, so the edit can start before wrap. It keeps a queue when the connection drops and uploads once it’s back, but a file that takes more than 24 hours to upload expires, so in a venue we ask for a wired line first.
To an overseas edit
When the edit’s abroad, the proxies go up as you shoot and the drives follow by courier, or fly home with the visiting team: the tram runs from the city centre to Edinburgh Airport in under 35 minutes, every 7 minutes through the day (checked October 2026). Here’s how overseas teams book an Edinburgh crew.
07 Playback
Playback and remote viewing
For four days of customer stories in September 2025, a US production company flew in four of its own crew and we crewed the rest of the unit, at a law firm’s offices on Cannon Street in the City of London and then an office in Uxbridge. Playback was added late in prep: an operator with a playback package, a Teradek and a livestream licence, on all four shoot days, so the shoot could be watched from outside the room.
A video playback operator in Edinburgh is £334–518 a day, with the kit on its own line. Two Edinburgh details. A stream to a client in London or abroad goes out on a wired line agreed with the venue before the day, at the EICC or on a stage in Leith, and tested before anyone joins. And on a festival street in August, where the crew is kept small, playback comes down to a wireless monitor for the director.
08 Post
Where it’s cut: your edit, or ours
Edinburgh rushes usually go one of three ways. We plan the route at the recce, so the format, the drives and the delivery match the edit.
Your spec
Wherever it is
Your post house
Send us the post house’s spec before the shoot, and the format, the drives and the route out of Edinburgh are set to it. For Davies Group in 2024 we handed over rushes only: Manchester’s on SSDs with a Frame.io backup, Bolton’s straight into its SharePoint, and its post house cut the show.
Edit days
Crew hire
An editor in Edinburgh
An editor booked for the edit days, cutting from the drives the DIT hands over, in your office or theirs.
Here Now Films
Our own edit
The people who shoot it can cut it, grade it and mix it, with no drives changing hands between companies. AlTi Tiedemann Global’s six productions, shot in London and New York between January 2024 and July 2026, were edited, graded, mixed and animated by our team in London.
In the city
Edinburgh has post of its own. Film Cut, on Stafford Street in the West End, edits, grades and finishes sound and VFX, and Canongate Studios, by the Shore in Leith, records ADR and voice-over (checked October 2026). If your edit is booked in the city, we set the drives and the handover to its spec.
Need a DIT, or the rushes handled?
Tell us the cameras, the formats and where the footage has to end up: in Edinburgh, in London, in our edit or overseas. We’ll book the DIT or wrangler, the drives and the delivery. Or call us on 07412 543822.
Quick contact form
09 Questions
DIT and data in Edinburgh: questions
Do I need a DIT or a data wrangler in Edinburgh?
Not for a one- or two-camera interview day in a New Town office: a camera assistant with verification software does the job. Book a data wrangler for three or more cameras, such as a conference at the EICC, and a DIT for RAW, ARRI or RED on a stage at FirstStage in Leith, dailies the same night, or an edit in another city waiting on proxies.
Can you find a DIT for an Edinburgh shoot?
Yes. We’re a crew agency with 2,800+ freelance crew on our books across the UK, so we can scale a crew from one person for a morning to a full unit for a week. We book DITs and wranglers who live in or near Edinburgh first. When the brief or the date needs someone else, they come from elsewhere in Scotland (Glasgow is about 45 minutes by train), the north of England or London, with the travel on the quote before anything is booked.
What does data handling add to an Edinburgh quote?
The DIT’s day rate, £527, or a wrangler’s, quoted on the brief; the cart and the drives, each on its own line; and the delivery: train fares, a courier or an upload. A van that stops on a yellow line by the set needs a parking dispensation, £16 a vehicle per location (checked October 2026). There’s no Low Emission Zone charge to add, because we only book vehicles that meet it. On a crew hire, everything we book carries our 10% booking fee and 2% insurance.
How do I get rushes from Edinburgh to a London edit?
By hand is often quickest: Waverley is about 4 hours 10 minutes from London King’s Cross on LNER’s fastest trains, and the Caledonian Sleeper runs overnight to London, Sunday to Friday. Speedy Freight’s Edinburgh branch is open 24 hours and aims to collect within 60 minutes of booking, for same-day delivery anywhere in the UK. Or upload: MASV gives 15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB. All checked October 2026. The masters stay with the production until the copy has arrived.
How much storage does a conference day at the EICC need?
Three Sony FX6s rolling six hours each in XAVC-I 4K at 25p make up to about 2 TB, from Sony’s maximum bit rates. With three copies, that’s about 6 TB of drives. In XAVC-L it’s up to about 45 GB an hour per camera, so about 810 GB for the same day.
How many copies of the footage should we make?
Three, each checksum-verified, on at least two kinds of storage, with one away from set: the 3-2-1 rule. Cards don’t go back to camera to be formatted until two verified copies exist.
Can we upload rushes from the EICC or a studio in Leith?
Plan on a wired line, not the delegates’ Wi-Fi. The EICC runs online streaming and hybrid events but doesn’t publish a speed, so we agree a wired line with it before the day and test it. FirstStage Studios in Leith publishes up to 10 Gbps by Ethernet and Wi-Fi over a site-wide fibre backbone (checked October 2026).
What if we’re shooting in the Pentlands or on the coast?
Plan as if there’s no signal. Ofcom’s Connected Nations report for 2025 found Scotland still has the lowest 4G coverage by area in the UK (checked October 2026). The copies happen on the cart, Frame.io Camera to Cloud queues the proxies until it reconnects, and the originals go up from a wired line, or travel on the train, once you’re back in town.
Does August change the data plan?
It can. The festivals fill the Old Town, and when Baby Reindeer filmed mid-Fringe, Film Edinburgh encouraged a reduced crew on the Royal Mile, so the DIT may work from a base off the street with a runner walking the cards. The days are long, too: on 15 August the sun is up from about 05:45 to 20:50 (US Naval Observatory, checked October 2026), so we size the drives to the hours on the call sheet.
Can an editor overseas get the rushes?
Yes. Proxies go up as you shoot with Frame.io Camera to Cloud, the originals follow by upload or courier, or the drives fly home with the visiting team: the tram gets from the city centre to Edinburgh Airport in under 35 minutes. For a Paris agency’s interviews in Wimbledon, London, in June 2025, the rushes went to Paris by transfer link two days after the shoot.
Around the crew
More for Edinburgh shoots
01
Kit rental
Kit houses in Leith and out towards the airport, the crew’s own kit, and what comes from Glasgow or London.
02
Locations and permits
Film Edinburgh, Historic Environment Scotland, Waverley, the kirkyards, the trams and the drone rules.
03
Studios and set builds
FirstStage in Leith, smaller studios for interviews and product, and set builds.
