Working Off Hard Drives and Backing Up Workflow

[Shane Ross]

[Chris Tarroza] “I will be working with some 720p footage and maybe 1080p here and there in the near future and was wondering how a FW800 drive would handle it.”

What codec? Frame size doesn’t mean much. HDV 1080i will have far less data rate than ProRes 1080i…or even uncompressed HD 1080i. So what codec are we talking about here?

[Chris Tarroza] “f. I don’t really have the budget for a RAID”

Well, you know you can get a two drive RAID 0 for darn little. iStorage Pro, Otherworldcomputing.com…they offer cheap options.

[Chris Tarroza] “I have an iMac i7 with a single FW800 port so eSATA is out of the question at the moment.”

FW800 will work for HDV, DVCPRO HD and ProRes 422. Just fine. I currently am using the iStorage Pro 2 drive raided portable…in RAID 1…and also a CalDigit VR Mini (more expensive) in RAID 0. They both worked great with ProRes footage.

[Chris Tarroza] “So how does this backing up work, at the end of the day you throw everything from your working drive in the backup?”

My project files are located on my system drive. I back them up nightly to my external drive (well, the drive that has the footage from the project on it) and to a flash drive. Two locations. I only back up the project, not the media. Well, I do back up the media, but the originals, not the imported footage.

[Chris Tarroza] “I’m assuming something like Time Machine automates this for you?”

I have that too…

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Chris Tarroza]

Hi Shane thanks for the response.

Ah yes. HD codecs. I’m JUST transitioning to HD from SD (company that I worked for was quite behind). Anyways, I have some XDCAM EX 720p24 footage. Also, I work with a freelance camera guy who says he will be getting a JVC ProHD camera. This is the camera > https://bit.ly/ah4IXr …but basically it says:

Video codec: MPEG2 Long GOP
File Format: Quick time format for Final Cut Pro/ISO .MP4 media file format

Never heard of MPEG 2 Long GOP. Looks like it records onto SDHC cards. Will I have any problems capturing working with this kind of footage? Anything special I should be aware of?

I’m a tad worried about the RAID 0 drives because I heard that if one drive goes down, the whole thing is lost. Budget wise, I’m looking at $300 max. Should I save up a bit more for something worth while? I’ve heard good things about the Drobo S but the thing is almost $900!

…talk about “you have to spend money to make money.”

When you say you back up the originals and not the imported, does that mean the footage straight off the card and not the QT files after log and transfer?

Thanks again!

[Hans Kellner]

[Chris Tarroza] “I have an iMac i7 with a single FW800 port so eSATA is out of the question at the moment”

If you have a newer 2010 iMac i7 then OWC has support for eSATA:

https://blog.macsales.com/6374-owc-offers-first-ever-esata-interface-for-imac

[Christian Clark]

Hey Shane,

Trying to get a backup system of my own going here and I wanted to see if I could get you to unpack this statement:

“Well, I do back up the media, but the originals, not the imported footage.”

I was actually thinking of doing the opposite. For instance, I don’t see the need to keep the original files off of a P2 Card for projects shot on the HVX or the H264’s off of a CF card for 7D projects.

Once the projects are 100% finished, I was planning on deleting the P2 files and H264’s and only keeping the resultant QT files (from P2) and ProRes422 files (from the H264’s). I was going to keep them on two separate drives just in case I ever wanted to go back to them and one drive failed.

I guess I understand why you would do the opposite if you’re dealing with R3D’s and cutting offline in some other format, but that’s not yet the case for us. Your thoughts?

Also, do you recommend a certain software for those of us on a pre-Time Machine Mac Pro for general backup (not the actual media files)?

Thanks in advance,

—
Christian H. Clark
City Limit Films
http://www.citylimitfilms.com

[Shane Ross]

[Christian Clark] ” I don’t see the need to keep the original files off of a P2 Card for projects shot on the HVX or the H264’s off of a CF card for 7D projects.”

No? You’d rather not back up files that are 1/6th the size of the imported footage? H.264 from 7D is a LOT smaller than ProRes…take up less room. P2 is about 1:1, but once converted to DVCPRO HD QT files, they are ONLY viewable on computers with FCP…unless you buy third party readers. SO you are tying yourself to one edit system (who knows if you want to switch to Avid or Premiere later?), and you can’t send the files to anyone else to even watch.

But, do what you want. Just giving you information.

[Christian Clark] “I guess I understand why you would do the opposite if you’re dealing with R3D’s and cutting offline in some other format, but that’s not yet the case for us. Your thoughts?”

You want to do this with EVERY tapeless format. Well, I do…as do others. Do what you want, but I don’t like to archive imported footage, but the camera masters. They require less space, and I can use them with ANY NLE, since I use Avid too.

[Christian Clark] “Also, do you recommend a certain software for those of us on a pre-Time Machine Mac Pro for general backup (not the actual media files)?”

Super Duper.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Christian Clark]

Hey Shane,

Thanks so much for your expertise. I actually just watched your tapeless media tutorial yesterday and have a follow up question on this thread.

Let’s say I archive a “finished” project. I delete my ProRes422 files and only have the H264’s. Then for some reason, say I want to go back to the “finished” project. I have to retranscode from H264 to ProRes422.

Is there any specific workflow I would need to follow to make sure everything links back up? And would this workflow vary depending on whether you used the E1 plugin to do your transcoding or Compressor? It almost seems like I shouldn’t do in and out points or rename clips in Log and Transfer because that could make it more difficult to relink everything after archiving. What do you think?

Just trying to plan ahead here. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

—
Christian H. Clark
City Limit Films
http://www.citylimitfilms.com

[Shane Ross]

[Christian Clark] “Is there any specific workflow I would need to follow to make sure everything links back up?”

It’s easy. Batch capture. Just highlight your clips and hit Batch Capture. You might have to load the drive with the backups, and load one into the L&T interface, just to remind FCP where they are, but then batch capture is all you need to do.

[Christian Clark] “And would this workflow vary depending on whether you used the E1 plugin to do your transcoding or Compressor?”

This would ONLY work if you used Log and Transfer. If you used Compressor, then you’d have to manually redo all of that footage, then RECONNECT.

[Christian Clark] “It almost seems like I shouldn’t do in and out points or rename clips in Log and Transfer because that could make it more difficult to relink everything after archiving. What do you think?”

Oh no, you can do that. FCP will reimport with those IN and OUT points, and will see beyond the name change. There is embedded metadata, the unique CLIP name that is 32 characters long, that FCP refers to. YOu can even media manage to footage only used in the cut, with handles, and batch capture.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def