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Cloud storage recommendation
Hi everyone,
After reading many posts about storage, I didn’t see anything that fit my question fully.
We are starting an business that will require people to send us videos from all over the world. The videos will be shot from a phone most likely ( we are not dealing with 4K material!) Ideally we would like to collect them on a cloud, and be able to retrieve them from our office in NY onto external drives for editing. We would give the clients a log-in to access the platform, and their name-specific folder to upload their videos.
Do you have any recommendation for cloud storage that fits the following requirements:
– unlimited video storage (or pay as you go)
– worldwide access
– fast upload/download accesses
– private folder with passcode( so each client’s privacy is respected)
– Option: editing out of the cloud by setting the scratch disks on the server. ( to eliminate external drives)I looked in to AWS and Google Cloud Platform but they don’t have the explicit answers on their website. I contacted customer service for both but no answer form them yet…
Thank you so much!
Ruth -
5 Replies
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Hi Ruth –
I will be as rude as possible, as I am an ex New Yorker, so I am sure that you understand.You CANNOT edit over the internet. Period. Since you specifically say
“The videos will be shot from a phone most likely ” – these are low bandwidth h.264 compression videos, and these files are tiny (just like YouTube) and people can upload and download these (why they would use you, and not iCloud, or Amazon S3, or Google Drive, or DropBox is beyond me) – but these files can easily be uploaded and downloaded to a cloud site. Anything greater than this capacity – including typical ProRes files, CANNOT be easily uploaded and downloaded to a cloud site – yours, or anyone elses – without great difficulty – as the files are HUGE (as compared to typical internet bandwidth), and it simply takes TOO LONG to upload or download these huge files. For example, to upload 500 Gigs of media would take FOREVER. Amazon S3 offers a product called Snowball, where they send you a 50 TB storage array with a 10G adaptor on it that you can load from your storage product, send it to amazon, and they will up load it for you (via Fed Ex, or UPS) for $200. Of course, you now PAY for 50 TB of storage every month. And in real life, it is IMPOSSIBLE to download 50 TB of data from the internet. Let me make this clear to you – if you are Steven Speilberg, or George Lucas, or the CIA, or the KGB, you are NOT downloading 50 TB of data over the internet – not unless some cable company has run a dedicated 10G Ethernet line (via fiber cable) into your building – via point to point. And if you say “well, we have Verizon FIOS, which is Fiber” – this is NOT a dedicated line.No one is going to answer you, because what you are trying to accomplish is unrealistic – and if you simply want a point to drop h.264 files – why would they use you and your company, when they can just get a drop box account, or if they are fancy, get an Amazon S3 account ? There are plenty of “Media Silo” companies out there right now. Have you been to an NAB show recently ?
And let me say one last thing (before you blast me for being so rude) – you CANNOT edit over the internet. If Adobe Anywhere was easy (you do know that that is – dont’ you) – everyone would be doing it right now.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Bob,
I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think Ruth was asking if she could edit in the cloud. She notes bringing down the files for editing on external drives or an “out of cloud” option using a centralized (and I assume) on-site server.
Ruth,
What sort of volume are you looking at?
AWS, Google, and Microsoft are the big three I know of. Have you checked out Microsoft’s Azure? Might be an option.
That said, it doesn’t sound like this is an instantaneous service nor that it is something you plan to scale to millions of clients? If so, you might be fine with something like Dropbox, iDrive, or Microsoft OneDrive.
Dave
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Thanks Dave. This was exactly my question. I just want to retrieve files from clients. I would say that each client could upload up to 1h of videos shot on their phones…so I would estimate at 10GB per client.
Bob, thanks for your comprehensive yet peripheral answer. I never intended to edit out of a server unless there is a magical platform that I don’t know of yet! ( hence my final “option” point) -
Hi Ruth,
Based on your response I think using one of the big cloud providers is probably overkill for what you are looking to do. Dropbox, iDrive, and Sync should all be capable of what you are looking to do.
Dave
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You could also set up an in-house server. We do this for our clients.
Using Filezilla, we have the server client set up with write-only access to allow them to upload files. This way the files are already on our servers and don’t have to be downloaded from another site. The downside is that your client has to know how to transfer via FTP.
I do like the idea of using Dropbox or the like, but you’ll end up paying for more storage space, which if it’s in the budget, is fine. But with an in-house system like Filezilla running your transfers, you’re already using a server you already have and with open-source software. Plus you don’t have to wait for it to download on your side. With a server in your own building, it’s a matter of just dragging the file across the network to your edit station. Much faster.
I’d love to hear what solution you go with.
Chris Sebes
Senior Video Editor
https://www.MediaMixStudios.com
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