How to tell if your downloaded file is completely functional
updated 10 months, 4 weeks ago 3 Members · 3
Posts 
Hello,
I was wondering, whether there is a way that you can say for sure, that the file, that you have downloaded via WeTransfer (or any other platform), truly preserved all the information? Is it enough if you can play the file with numerous video players without any error messages? Could the file get (just slightly) corrupted, even if you can do that? What could the corruption cause?
I was just wondering that, since I often receive graded footage back via the internet. Should you always receive the files by physically copying it, or are the internet transfers a safe way to receive video files for an archive?
Best regards,
Juan
If you’re on MAC, I always recommend downloading as a zip file to preserve file integrity.
Tim Gerhard
MagStor Inc.
LTO Solutions TB3 / SAS / USB / FC
614-505-6333
[email protected]
Using .zip archives is a good idea because the .zip format uses lossless compression, and because the .zip archive acts as a container, protecting the original media file that it contains.
However, it matters whether or not the media file was uploaded as a .zip file as well. Since corruption can happen, it can happen during both upload and download.
If you want to be really safe about it, then whoever is uploading media files to you should be compressing the files they send into .zip archives prior to uploading. Or in the case of WeTransfer, their site automatically creates .zip archives when uploading more than one file at a time. I assume there are other file transfer services that behave the same way.
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