How do you backup and/or move your projects between differnt editors?

[Jeff Brown]

Hi Fredrik,

Basic digital housekeeping should minimize your problems.
Know where your assets are. Don’t accept defaults.
What works for me:

Client/project directory is on a religiously backed-up drive,
     "workDrive:\clientDirectory"
Project files of all sorts (*.pproj, etc.) are in
that project directory,
     "workDrive:\clientDirectory\PremiereProj\.."
Likewise, anything I don't want to re-create:
     "workDrive:\clientDirectory\graphics\.."
     "workDrive:\clientDirectory\DVDmenus\.."
     etc....

Footage and renders are on a separate "media" drive;
this holds anything that can be re-captured or re-rendered,
     "mediaDrive:\clientMediaDirectory\reel_01\..."
     "mediaDrive:\clientMediaDirectory\3D_render-Logo\..."

To move things, I move 2 folders: the “work” folder, and the “media” folder. Opening a Premiere project on a new machine would bring up the missing footage requestor the first time. Once you redirect to that file, everything else should be found, as everything is in sub-directories.

There are quite a few 1 TB / 500 GB RAID 1 USB/FW drives available; these seem like a good means of moving footage around.

Your mileage may vary… but knowing where all the data should be without having to browse through folders (“myDocuments” is evil!) is necessary, in my opinion.

Food for thought,
-jeff

[Mike Cohen]

Jeff gives the best advice of all – keep everything in standard locations.

There are some files I use in every project – company logo, time-code burn-in, digital juice media and music. While tempting to always import these from their permanent home on the internal drive, I always copy and paste the files into my project directory before importing.

I try to keep backups of the project file and all non-video assets on a 2nd backup drive – but also keep track of your tapes. If using P2 or SxS media, you should keep backups of your raw footage on hard drive. Drives are cheap enough.

For really important projects, I have begun keeping two copies on two drives from the start. A client will not accept “oh, the drive is corrupt, sorry for the week delay.”

Once a project is done, I use the Project Manager to create a smaller version of the project, and copy this to the backup drive. So a 10 minute project may have 2+hours of raw footage, but the final project at 10 minutes should only have 2gigs of video assets, give or take depending upon complexity of course. You could burn that to DVD for that matter.

When I move to my laptop with an external drive, sometimes the audio needs to re-conform, sometimes not.

Mike

[Eddie Lotter]

FAQ:How do I transfer a project from one computer to another?

Cheers
Eddie

[Franklin Mcmahon]

Keep in mind title templates, its very easy to create and save templates with logos and titles in Premiere Pro CS3/CS4 for use on multiple projects.

Franklin

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[Mike Cohen]

does CS4 continue to save titles within the project file?

[Eddie Lotter]

[Mike Cohen] “does CS4 continue to save titles within the project file?”

Yes.

Cheers
Eddie

[James Orlowski]

One thing I also do–especially with large projects–is once it’s completed and the client has approved, I actually DELETE all the raw before I move the completed project off my work PC and onto a external storage drive.

I always name my reels, so if at some point in the future I have to revise a project, I just re-capture the footage.

Sure, that can be time consuming, but I save time in backup/restore withOUT the raw, and I save in storage.

Think of it: why back-up the raw? The tapes are your backup for that.

I DO keep any renders from AE or other items I had to create. But the raw? It’s tossed.

—
James Orlowski
RYNO Production, Inc.
http://www.rynoproduction.com
800-860-7966