[Neil Sadwelkar]

With 10 GigE switch prices falling, and 10GigE cable costs low (compared to TB cables), TB3 will make even less sense as a storage sharing method.

Apple might even add 10GigE into their MacPro/iMac. Even if they don’t, TB2-10GbE converters aren’t too costly. Like these ones…

Akitio
https://www.akitio.com/adapters/thunder2-10g-network-adapter
$ 430

Sonnet
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1115045-REG/sonnet_twin10g_tb2_10gbe_thunderbolt_connection.html
$480

SmallTree
https://www.small-tree.com/products/317/sanlink2-10gbase-t-pro-sl210gt
$ 600

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

We routinely backup all media for features and docus that we handle data and workflow for. The time spent in consolidating media is not worth it. And if you miss out even a single file, or part of a file the whole backup becomes pointless.
For features we backup as much as a hundred TB to LTO-6 tapes. Tapes are cheap. And if the backup starts with the shoot, then its not a big task as one is backing up about a tape a day or two.

We use Bru-PE and have been using it since 2010 or so. Tapes from 2009 still read fine and we’ve restored many shots for reuse in other shows. The drives holding the same footage may or may not mount any more, but the tapes work every time.

I think I’ve done about a couple of Petabytes to LTO-4, 5, and 6 over the past 5-6 years.

Just make sure you have some form of human readable database of tapes and their contents. We use Excel, and of course Bru-PE catalogs.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Could have been even faster if he had not set the import tool to close after each import, and if he had used search and replace in the Numbers part.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Files ‘conformed’ in CinemaTools is something that’s extremely common in the PAL world where we used to shoot film at 24fps, telecine it to tape at 25fps (with 25fps TC), then capture them to FCP and ‘conform’ from 25fps to 24fps either in CinemaTools or directly in FCP.

What this did, was to play a 25fps clip at 24fps so sound sync was preserved, but keep timecode at 25fps. This enabled us to make an EDL on the end which we could telecine or scan neg from.

This anomalous behaviour of conformed clips where the playback fps and timecode rate are different, is something that many apps cannot deal with. Your clips are playing back at 25fps but have 29.97fps timecode on them.

Maybe if one were to ‘re-stripe’ the TC in these clips to 25fps in FCP (Clip > Modify timecode) or with an app like QTChange, then FCP X would work fine with them.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Mine says…

release: 18.1
variant: 0.25
serial number: ____-____
bru id: mac-osx
config: Jan 4 2016 10:19:21
capabilities: PE TOOLS
archive: ntape0
buffer size: 2048k bytes
device table: /Library/Application Support/BRU PE/etc/brutab[ BRUTAB ]
incl/excl file: /Library/Application Support/BRU PE/etc/bruxpat[ BRUXPAT ]
max warnings: 1000 [ BRUMAXWARNINGS ]
max errors: 500 [ BRUMAXERRORS ]
copyright: Copyright (c) 1985-2016, TOLIS Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

There is a eight digit serial number which I’ve blanked above.
I can’t remember if I uninstalled the older 3.1.12 version before installing this 3.1.17 version.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

From Tandberg’s site, the LTO3503 is a SCSI external LTO-4 drive.
To connect, you’ll need a SCSI card, and a cable.

And that card has to go inside a Thunderbolt-PCIe case. And be supported by your MacOSX.

Some cards here
https://www.scsi4me.com/scsi_hba-controller-cards_for-macs.html

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I use Bru-PE to backup to LTO and I have a similar problem with over 400 tapes spread over different clients, browsing the offline database takes a while. I bought NeoFinder and it opens Bru-PE catalogs but ran into an issue with the tape name not getting seen. I wrote the NeoFinder team and they said they would work on it. But I haven’t checked back in a while.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Would be faster if you simply copy the Video_TS folders to a disk or array, and then do the ripping from disk. Ripping DVDs off the DVD limits you to the speed of the DVD drive. Once on the hard drive, even MPEG Streamclip can batch process the DVD folders.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Making FCP X archives is a foolproof and low-cost way of transferring data from the cards as they come. And then, importing cards or archives into an FCPX library is a neat (and low-cost) way of classifying footage in a way that you can actually use for editing. And you can keyword and re-keyword footage as you go depending on how it can be used.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

We do a lot ArriRaw to LTO backups using Bru-PE and we too have observed the same slowness with ArriRaw compared to RedRaw. But the difference using Bru is not as different as you’ve mentioned. We too use a 2009 MacPro with a SAS LTO-6 drive.

We keep the report that Bru puts out at the end of the backup which mentions start and end times for backup and verify. And from that in an Excel sheet, we derive the time taken.

Checkin my logs for recent backups I find that a single eSATA drive can backup around 130-150 MB/sec and verify can happen at 150-200 MB/sec when dealing with large contiguous files – Red Raw, QT, Smoke Archive etc.

With ArriRaw or DPX files – large number of small files, also over eSATA, the speed drops to 100-120 MB/sec for backup and 60-100 MB/sec for verify.

These figures are substantial smaller with 2.5″ drives (over any interface) and for Firewire connected drives. Even Firewire RAIDs don’t deliver anything over about 80 MB/sec.

I haven’t tried with LTFS much, but I’m guessing there’s a performance penalty for a large number of small files over a small number of large files.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India