Final Cutters, Backup systems? (1 Viewer)

[Dixer]

What do people use for insurance on FCP, i.e. back up plans? Anybody use Raid arrays or anything of that nature? Looking for advice/suggestions.

 

[Goodbye]

http://www.apple.com/uk/xserve/

Got one o these bad boys in work... But what exactly are you backing up?
The best space saver is to keep your tapes and your project file

Play your master out onto tape of course...
But once a project is cut, there is no need to back up your rushes if you have them on tape.

You can also consolodate your project...

But you already know this I'm sure

 

[the bongo]

I second Ian's question. Though if you're really worried about footage, and need a nearline or online backup you have loads of options - everything from tape, to AIT, SAIT, LTO tape, to external drive, raid array, DVD, HDDVD, and there are even companies that'll back up your stuff online for a moderate fee.

It's all data. Trouble is, the more data it is, the harder it is to track. Handily there are nifty asset management systems out there, some free, most not.

 

[Dixer]

Thanks for the words doods, though I'm thinking more of safety backups in case a drive should go dicky. What methods/systems do you apply as insurance against such an event? Daily back ups to a seprate drive? Just curious if there might be more effective methods.

 

[Goodbye]

As long as I have my (current) project file backed up onto my usb key/ server/ emailed to myself or simple burned to CDR you can put a torch to pretty much everything else...
(as long as you have your tapes of course)

 

[the bongo]

what ian said, you ain't running a massive video business so that's the most you need really. the only thing to do for footage, other than tapes is to back up to discs, or another drive.

redundant post really.

 

[pete]

RAID is for resilience, not backup. It's great if one drive fails - you can just swap it out (assuming you're doing proper, grown-up RAID) and it'll repair the array - but if the upstairs bog overflows over a weekend and takes out the box with all the drives in, well... you're screwed.

And a backup of any description is less than useless to you if it's been kept in the same building that just went up in smoke with all your data in it. But if you are doing offsite backups (which you really, really should if it's for business) then try to encrypt the data in case it goes walkies. That could be embarrassing.

 

[pete]

another thing that's absolutely critical is your backup routine. there's no point overwriting the same data every night only to discover later that you need to restore something from two days ago...

ideally you want 4 nightly backups, 3 weekly backups and 12 monthly backups.

so you'd go

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month1

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month2

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month3

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month4


etc

the problem is that "proper" backup stuff (your arcserves & commvaults) is expensive. very expensive. A guy i work with recommends Bacula but i've no idea what it's like.

If you can't / don't want to go with a dedicated backup application, then a few external drives (1Terabyte with firewire, USB & gigabit ethernet for 350 quid? Or a couple of 500gb models for extra resilience for 170 quid each?) and a well organised, well documented and well observed backup plan should do the trick.

 

[Goodbye]

Seems like a lot of hassle for a video project where the most important "data" resides on tape and a couple of kb's worth of a project file.

Even in TV or Film projects, the projects are consolodated/ deleted at a regular basis as uncompressed video takes up shitloads of space.

The project file is king.

 

[Dixer]

another thing that's absolutely critical is your backup routine. there's no point overwriting the same data every night only to discover later that you need to restore something from two days ago...

ideally you want 4 nightly backups, 3 weekly backups and 12 monthly backups.

so you'd go

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month1

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month2

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month3

Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week1
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week2
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Week3
Mon Tues Weds Thurs Month4


etc

the problem is that "proper" backup stuff (your arcserves & commvaults) is expensive. very expensive. A guy i work with recommends Bacula but i've no idea what it's like.

If you can't / don't want to go with a dedicated backup application, then a few external drives (1Terabyte with firewire, USB & gigabit ethernet for 350 quid? Or a couple of 500gb models for extra resilience for 170 quid each?) and a well organised, well documented and well observed backup plan should do the trick.

What Ian said.

 

[pete]

Seems like a lot of hassle for a video project where the most important "data" resides on tape and a couple of kb's worth of a project file.

Even in TV or Film projects, the projects are consolodated/ deleted at a regular basis as uncompressed video takes up shitloads of space.

The project file is king.

fair enough - if you've a digital copy of the original tape then you've got your backup right there - but the same risks apply to keeping your backup & originals in the same location.

 

[Goodbye]

Traditionally...
You first cut is an off line edit where you digitize your footage at a very low data rate. Hence more footage taking up less space. (This was when the SCUZZY drive was king of the video world.)
Your tapes were then archived. (preferably in a fireproof type of enviroment)
You worked on your 1:15 resolution cut. finished. deleted the entire media from your drives. Project file intact, you redigitized the chosen shots back again from your tapes at full resolution and THEN playout to tape. This is the online edit.

So really you only need to take in full resolution data when your finished editing (If your doing things properly)... Hence, back to my original point of: Tape and Project file are king

 

[Dixer]

Traditionally...
You first cut is an off line edit where you digitize your footage at a very low data rate. Hence more footage taking up less space. (This was when the SCUZZY drive was king of the video world.)
Your tapes were then archived. (preferably in a fireproof type of enviroment)
You worked on your 1:15 resolution cut. finished. deleted the entire media from your drives. Project file intact, you redigitized the chosen shots back again from your tapes at full resolution and THEN playout to tape. This is the online edit.

So really you only need to take in full resolution data when your finished editing (If your doing things properly)... Hence, back to my original point of: Tape and Project file are king

Out of curiosity, do you still log compressed footage in the first instance?

 

[Goodbye]

Yes, of course.
Timecode is what your project file refers to.
It's like a fancy EDL with transitions , filters, colour correction etc imbedded.

Unless of course you are capturing/digitizing the entire tape, but you still need to give it logging references... at least the one

 

[the bongo]

Ah an offline edit, I haven't done one of those for ages.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you doing? Is it personal, business, small business, enterprise? The larger you get the more you need to manage the data, and track the metadata, so complexity arises not in storage but in management. If you are doing something on a large scale, I might be able to suggest a few methods and bits of software/hardware to handle it all.

 

[Goodbye]

Firewire 800

nuff said

 

[Dixer]

Ah an offline edit, I haven't done one of those for ages.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you doing? Is it personal, business, small business, enterprise? The larger you get the more you need to manage the data, and track the metadata, so complexity arises not in storage but in management. If you are doing something on a large scale, I might be able to suggest a few methods and bits of software/hardware to handle it all.

Sorry, haven't checked in here in a while. The yoke I'm tipping at is something I had done a few years back in college and was asked to revisit. Then started getting curious about FCP again, enjoyed using it y'know.
re: offline vs online, I thought online referred to finalising the edit, colour correction type stuff. Is that yr day to day or how do you mean 'Haven't done one of those in a while'? r maybe offline vs. online relates to working with full res footage too? Again, not paricularly pertinent, just curious.

 

[the bongo]

online usually means working with your uncompressed, or high quality footage after using lower resolution/compressed proxies to do the editing. It often involves a little colour work, and some other fine tuning. Traditionally the last step in the process.

These days, as computers speed up and compression improves it becomes less necessary to separate the editing process like this. You edit and finish with the same files from the beginning. This depends on your circumstances though - the shooting format, how much computing power you have, if you have a raid or not, what your output is, and whether you want to do effects work or something else that requires working uncompressed.

 

[Goodbye]

Ditto