[Sam Lee]

I’m still evaluating by performing various backup types and scenarios. So far I’m testing out the ability to send BRU archives to other TV stations nationally and internationally. The issue I came up with is when I export the catalog, it BRU 3.0.2 says it imports OK but it won’t show up. It only shows up when I actually insert all the LTO-6 cartridges for the Import Tool.app and it will show up. I contacted support and will wait for their answer on this. The story to that 3.5 Tb archive is that the verification was cancelled. This is because I set the cache to a low 128 Kb and not 2048 Kb. Not sure if canceling verification has any effect on not being able to export the catalog out. On another Mac Pro, I took used import tool.app to rebuild the catalog and export it out to a hdd. Then I took that .bru file to another Mac and import it in. This is where the tape catalog will not show up in the Restore portion of the app no matter what or how many times I re-import that .bru catalog. Either a bug or user error here.

Feature request wise, still evaluating mode. But something will pop up for sure after that period. So far it appears that I’ll have to get at least 3-4 LTO-6 drives and at least the same amount of BRU licenses for the volume of data I’m doing to be able to get the archives done quickly. Single LTO-6 drive won’t work out at all.

[Sam Lee]

So far after several days of use w/ the BRU PE 3.0.2, I do like the fact that I don’t have to install these annoying HP LTFS drivers and the two other sub drivers. Just the ATTO H680 OSX 10.9.1 drivers and BRU 3.0.2 and be done with it. Archiving huge amount of data to LTO-6 now w/ BRU 3.0.2 in OSX Mavericks. Multitasking w/ FCP 10.1 on light edits. It’s quite smooth and no crashing so far after 3 days straight. I’m looking in the long-term, like a decade from now and I have no idea what other flavors of LTFS will be out there. Need to restore all raw footage for a long-form, decade-long documentary media and BRU 3.0.2 seems to be able to have that ability.

[Sam Lee]

You may have to use several codecs for each type of format. Uncompressed 8-bit is way too much and you’re wasting hd space.

I did this couple years ago and the biggest issue with legacy analog VHS and UMatic 3/4″ SP is the TBC. Your deck must have it or else when you get to a trouble part, the capture device will give you an error. Even with the TBC, the signal sometimes will over the legal limit and capture would stop on its own regardless. It’s a pain in the neck. You may have to baby sit it.

For Hi-8 and miniDV: I’d get a consumer digital 8 camcorder w/ firewire and capture it that way. Cleanest possible quality because it performs chroma noise reduction on the higher end model. Huge improvements. MiniDV is pretty much everywhere back during the 2000s and any consumer camcorder or deck should do. Not sure if you’ll gain any benefit by going out to analog and go to SDI. For those who’s a digital purist, it’s best to keep in the miniDV tapes in Firewire DV25 domain because you’re extracting that miniDV bit for bit and not going to further compress and encode cycles. Once you take that miniDV signal and go to SDI, it’s not bit for bit anymore (except for STSDI deck to deck dubbing).

I used the Decklink Studio with analog inputs. There you can select the codec of choice. Uncompressed is overkilled. Pro Res 422 is plenty. Even DV25 is overkill for VHS. DV25 should be PC & Mac cross platform. Don’t use DV25 for analog component Beta SP. ProRes 422 is the ideal codec for any Betacam SP source.

[Sam Lee]

I’m relatively new to this LTFS thing. For me, LTFS just doesn’t correspond to enterprise scale archival. It’s more for simple, smaller scale manual backup. No spanning and verification is a no-no for me. The time if take to manually sort each hdd to 2.5 Tb to fit LTO-6 max capacity is already eating up too much valuable time. Both apps cost the same. I’m leaned toward purchasing BRU PE within this week. Will start to archive 120 3 Tb hdds and 150 4 Tb hdds. Don’t want to waste time starting w/ LTFS and then switch to another format 1/3 of the way into the long archival process.