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BRU PE Windows and Linux versions? Can’t find any news on this software that was announced 3 years ago? Should I just get Preroll Post?
Hello,
I am leaning quite heavily towards BRU PE for archiving video to LTO.
It was far more cost effective for me to opt for an internal LTO drive with a SAS interface destined for a PC, compared to the costly Thunderbolt LTO solutions for Mac.
From what I can tell, BRU PE was announced for Windows and Linux over 3 years ago but has not been released.
Tim Jones, who I understand is the Tolis group’s CEO, posts extremely informative material here and elsewhere, but on the topic of the Windows and Linux versions, there has been radio silence for over a year now from what I can tell, with specific inquiries made by others left unanswered.I wrote to the Tolis group directly a few days ago and was told that the software was imminent now, and would be available within a month – call me a pessimist or a cynic if you will, but I have my doubts because their website gives zero ETA information. I want to believe, but realistically the release could be another year off, or three.
Adding to my doubt is the reasons cited for the delay: changes in Microsoft backend permissions roadmap. I don’t understand why that would have delayed the Linux release for 3 years as well?
Either Windows or Linux would work equally well for my purposes…
Can the community help with my predicament?
Should I just buy into the existing solution for Windows that is within my price range: Preroll Post?What is the state of play in terms of prospects for easily restoring LTFS data written by Preroll Post, 5 to 10 years from now? I’ve read extensive discussions about the matter here on CreativeCow, but am still unclear on what the risks are today, in December 2017. On some level, I feel like as long as I keep an image of the OS I am using now, with the LTFS driver I am using now, I should always be able to restore the date? I’m not so concerned with needing to deliver the data on an LTO tape to a 3rd party 5 years from now, and having it be readable on their system…
Thank you all!
Malcolm -
15 Replies
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We bought a 1beyond Netdrive bundled with CATDV. Some minor bugs, but 1beyond is beyond reproach on support getting this up. Very happy with the system and support. They also sell LTFS systems without CATDV.
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Hi Malcolm,
Have you contacted our sales team? They would probably have a better idea of our release plans than the folks here on the Cow ???? . Well, maybe except me.
Seriously though, now that MS has sorted the tape layer so that a regular user can use it without needing to be running Windows Server, we’ve made great progress in getting BRU PE ready for Windows AND Linux. To give you an idea, here’s what the app will look like on all three platforms (you didn’t hear this from me ???? ):
As long as the controlled betas continue as they have, we are pushing for a FeBRUary (see what I did there) launch.
BTW – don’t tell anyone else …
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Thanks Jack!
From the look of things, those folks sell complete machines in a box: OS, software and LTO drive.
Neat solution for the field.I already have an internal drive, and am just looking for the best software solution on PC at present.
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Haha – yes, I did see what you did there… sadly only on the second read (end of day, getting old and slow, etc).
That’s heartening news!
I had contacted the sales team, and they did mention the Windows and Linux versions were not far off, but I do occasionally suffer from a somewhat ‘show me’ attitude in these situations… Seeing the screen grabs goes a long way.
I’m in trialing mode right now: testing other solutions – if it is feasible, I’d happily join your beta testing. Windows or Linux. Happy to sign an NDA.
All the best,
Malcolm -
Malcolm,
PreRollPost uses LTFS, which makes it 100% non-proprietary. You can use the manufacturers free LTFS utility to read LTFS tapes at any time in the future, so even if for some reason PRP disappeared you’d still be OK.
I sell PreRollPost for Windows with LTO tape drives, and everyone loves it. It’s definitely worth the $499 price tag. If you’re looking to save you can pickup myLTO for $299 instead, which just loses some of the higher level functionality.
Tim Gerhard
Magnext
614-433-0011 x114
tgerhard@magnext.com -
Hello Tim,
Thanks for your suggestion.
I’ve been in contact with Imagine for the past couple of weeks, attempting to trial Preroll Post for Windows.
To be honest I’ve run into a number of bizarre difficulties. Crashes, which the company addressed quickly with a new build, but more recently and more strangely, the disabling of tape spanning on the Windows version.After 10 days of helping them resolve the crashing, I was finally able to do my first successful archive and retrieval of a small amount of data. It is only when I moved on to a larger set of test data to archive, that I realised the important spanning functionality Preroll Post is supposed to have, where it smartly divides up the data to archive between multiple tapes and requests a new one each time it has filled up its current tape, is not working. Instead, when I try to launch an archive write that is larger than the tape in the drive, I get an error saying there is not enough space for the source materials, and that’s it.
Bringing this to Imagine’s attention, I receive a terse email saying that spanning is disabled in the Windows version for the time being. No further explanations. I requested any more details they might be able to supply: naturally it would be good to know if and when the functionality might be coming back? No response after 48 hours, and I don’t really know whether I should be persevering or taking a sober look at the 2 weeks of difficulties I’ve been having trying to test the software, and just cut my losses? Certainly I would be even more unhappy with this sequence of events if I were a paying customer already: my time is being wasted but I have not spent any money yet.
So anyway, right now, going by the word of the person who wrote to me from Imagine, and putting aside the misgivings from my experiences so far, the Windows version is crippled in a way that rules out spending $499 on it.
All the best,
Malcolm -
Hi Malcolm,
BRU Producer’s Edition (and server, and workstation, and …) have all been spanning tape since 1985. This is the difference between an app that treats tape like tape and one that tries to pretend that a tape is a disk.
Once I can get our ducks in a row for the open beta, you can rest assured that BRU PE for Windows will span tapes and allow you to backup/archive 100’s of TBs in a single, multi-tape job (not that I would recommend that as a general workflow … ).
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Thanks Tim, good to know.
By the sounds of things, Preroll Post also has this functionality – its just that it has been disabled in the Windows version and I have no way of obtaining any further information than that. It is frustrating.
I very much look forward to your open beta testing!
Work flow wise, when I start archiving, the plan is to archive one shoot at a time, rather than entire project at a time. But when I reach the last fifth or so of a tape, odds are the next shoot won’t fit neatly in the remaining space so spanning will almost always be important if I’m not to either waste terabytes of storage space, or spend ages manually trying to figure out how to maximise the storage usage.
M
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Hello Tim,
Any news on the BRU PE Windows beta?
All the best,
Malcolm -
I have also apparently been added to the Windows Beta mailing list back in Jan, but still have not had any feedback….
Being an avid Windows user and abuser myself, I also cannot wait to get going with this….
I am tired of the issues I have been getting with all the new versions of Apple OS and the apps…
Seams like Apple is a very broken system at the moment….
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