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Archival to Blu-Ray with Large BPAV size (XDCAM & RED)
So I am nearing the point where the double hard drive setup for backup has to move to a “shelve-able” format for storage space reasons and piece of mind. Hard drives scare me. I know I eventually should go LTO, but I have this OWC Mercury Pro External Blu-Ray Burner that I have had a while and just got around to opening. So I’m looking for help on this situation using just BD and not a different format.
I shoot mostly XDCAM (EX1) and some RED, and have the original BPAVs and RED folders on hard drives. What is the correct procedure to tackle the archival of these original media folders with Blu-ray? The sizes of some of BPAVs are over 25 GB, and one RED footage folder is 51 GB. Since 50 GB is the max on Blu-ray, how do I handle that? I have Toast Titanium 10 Pro. For the folders under 50GB, I know I could get 50GB discs, but I do not have any on hand, so I have to work with 25 GB ones. Plus, bigger discs would not solve the over-50GB-folder situation anyway. What’s the skinny here? Is there a way to properly span while maintaining proper file structure?
Also, should I be turning these BPAVs and RED folders into disk images first to maintain integrity and organization of the file structure?
Last question: If my drives of footage fail but I have my FCP project file, and I need to dig into these Blu-ray discs, is it just as simple as dragging the folders from the disc and onto the computer and reconnecting, (supposing all the original file names are used) or is there something else?
Thanks!
-Apple Certified Trainer / Pro-
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3 Replies
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[Adam N. Greene] ” and one RED footage folder is 51 GB. Since 50 GB is the max on Blu-ray, how do I handle that? “
Adam, 50GBs is the “nominal size”. in fact you can not put more than some 46.5 GBs.[Adam N. Greene] “Also, should I be turning these BPAVs and RED folders into disk images first to maintain integrity and organization of the file structure? “
If you burn folders, the BR will keep the file structure inside the folders.[Adam N. Greene] “, and I need to dig into these Blu-ray discs, is it just as simple as dragging the folders from the disc and onto the computer and reconnecting, (supposing all the original file names are used) or is there something else? “
the BR works like any external HD. You should be able to reconnect the files in the BR.[Adam N. Greene] “Plus, bigger discs would not solve the over-50GB-folder situation anyway. What’s the skinny here? Is there a way to properly span while maintaining proper file structure? “
Toast shows an span option. I guess its works, but no idea on the way to recover the spanned data.
rafael -
USE THE SPAN OPTION IN TOAST…whoops, caps lock…and there is a checkbox that says “don’t divide files” or something like that. Works great. We have a set of about 8 Blu Rays with a huge backup and I feel most confident about that backup set. So far it is our only one.
I currently have 30 hard drives and 30 backup hard drives of our backups. Scary!
The 8 disc BluRay backup took a day and a half to burn! Cost about $32 dollars in discs but worth the peace of mind.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
I agree with Rich regarding Blu-ray backup. I haven’t been doing this in Toast though. I use ClipBrowser to split the folders into proper size for Blu-ray. There’s a preset for that in ClipBrowser. Well, I should say at that point I do use Toast but the folders have all been split beforehand.
BTW I’ve tried using Toast to backup AVCHD and do the splitting to keep BDMV viable. It hasn’t worked. iMovie and FCP are supposed to see each disk as a viable folder and it does not. I’ve reported this the Toast a few months back.
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