Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Simple Free remote backup to avoid disaster

With the recent posts and discussions on the importance of BackUp its worth mentioning some efficient and free ways to backup project files remotely. Its one thing to have your NLE Project Files and EDL's, not to mention screenplays, treatments and outlines backed-up in multiple periodic versions on your hard drive and external backup harddrive, but what if your hard drive(s) is stolen? Dropped in a swimming pool? Eaten by piranah?

The only sure solution is to have a secondary backup to a remote location - ie. in a different city/state/country. There are number of very simple ways you can do this. And The first, best and simplest is CELTX.



I assume you're all using Celtx for your screenwriting, project management, breakdown and scheduling of productions (and if you're not WHERE HAVE YOUY BEEN....? get with the program. Celtx is where it is at. No other software system on the market can do what Cletx does, nothing else is as efficient, flexible, powerful or functional. And its FREE!) )

But even Celtx users may not have yet used the Online Hosting and Collaboration features. In simple terms this allows you to upload your Celtx project to the Celtx server (which is deep in the wilds of Canada in an underground silo protected by polar bears and very fierce moose).

This upload can be viewed online from the Celtx Project Central site (http://pc.celtx.com)

 

The Project Central service allows for both public or private hosting of your project and is built for collaboration and exchange between writers and filmmakers remotely. But Project Central has some hidden gem features they may not be obvious at first glance. By being a remote host for your project it is also a secure remote backup of your project should your house burn down taking your creative life with it.

But thats not all. Within the local Celtx Project you can not only create screenplays and various text documents but you can also attach outside documents as well - this is most often Word or Xcel documents, PDF, videos, pictures and sound files. These files are zipped up inside the Celtx file and are uploaded along with the rest of the bundle to Project Central.

So it shouldn't take a genius to work out that this is a perfect way to backup your editing software project files (Premiere *.pproj or Final Cut *.fcp or Vegas *.veg), EDL's, XML, AAF and OMF files. All these can be attached as outside files to a Celtx Project and subsequently backed-up remotely with a click of a button, and retrieved at will by simply downloading your Celtx file from Project Central if you need to restore lost projects..

As if you needed any more reasons to love CELTX...?!

That said, if you want more dedicated online remote storage there are a number of services that provide free storage. Size limitations and bandwidth constraints make this kind of storage not suitable for full-res video media itself but if you have large amounts of document data - scripts, writings, project files and so on - an online hosted remote back-up might be a very good idea.  X-Drive offers 5gb of free storage and a very efficient local application that enables you to drag and drop from your desktop directly to the online server.



Likewise I-Drive offers a similar service with both Mac and Windows desktop clients for transfer.



And MediaMax tops them all for sheer size with a very generous 25gb of free online storage.



These services are great for storing moderate amounts of data but in truth for sheer simplicity and functionality of project management with the EDL/AAF/XML/ProjectFile, you cant go past using Celtx; keep your edit backup with your script and all your pre-production documenttation. One File to Rule them All.

Ok, so now you have absolutely NO BLOODY EXCUSE WHATSOEVER for EVER having a crash or technology meltdown cause the end of the world! Between periodic project file backups, EDL backups, XML and AAF backups, and remote server backups to Celtx or Xdrive, there really is no excuse.

Take a professional approach to your work, manage your workflow carefully, plan your process and backup daily and you cant go wrong.

Posted at 12:00AM May 07, 2008 by Mike Jones in technology  |  Comments[1]

Another solution for dealing with MAC/PC hard drive issues

Of late I've written about workign corss-platform and dealign with hard drive format issues of Read/Write permissions between NTFS and HFS+. The freeware HFS Xplorer is one solution which allows for Windows computers to access and copy files from Mac HFS+ format hard drives. It works very well but if you?re willing to cough up a few bucks there is a better solution available.

NTFS for Mac by Paragon software will set you back about $45 and when installed allows for a Mac to natively read AND write to NTFS formatted hard drives. So you can format your external hard drive as NTFS for PC and then be able to work with it natively on your Mac as well Windows machines. If you need to work cross-platform and particularly if you?re using Bootcamp this is a great solution at a bargain price.

Posted at 12:00AM Apr 25, 2008 by Mike Jones in technology  |  Comments[0]

Cross-Platform Production

There was time when it was unthinkable but the unthinkable, it seems, has become a reality - Windows on a Mac. But aside from the novelty value, the revelation of a dual operating system opens up new possibilities for video and digital media producers and rises above the traditionally application restricted and insular Mac platform.

For far too long the great computer platform debate has centered on the operating system but the truth is that the OS is the least significant part of the video maker's toolkit. It's not the operating system that is the focus of the editor's work, its the applications, the software tool interface that will be center of attention. It's the NLE where the editor will spend most of their time, not the elements of the OS. Choosing your computer system based on the operating system and then forcing yourself to be restricted to the software native to that OS is plainly silly. Logic would dictate that choosing the software tools that best fit your workflow, and which best match your creative style, first and then getting the OS to match that software is a far more functional perspective.

Of course the computer platforms themselves get in the way, enforcing software restrictions and preventing video makers from choosing the right combination of tools to suit them. That is of course until BootCamp.

Part 1 of this two part series can be read here.

Posted at 12:00AM Apr 16, 2008 by Mike Jones in technology  |  Comments[0]

Circumventing MAC/WIN hard drive format incompatability

One of the  last great pains in the arse for PC Mac compatibility is Hard Drive format. Where virtually all other hurdles of cross platform compatibility have been leveled over the past few years, Hard Drive format remains a significant obstacle.

The native format for the  Mac is HFS+ and for reasons best known to Microsoft drives formatted in HFS+ cannot be read, written to or even seen by a Windows OS.

The native format for Windows is NTFS and for reasons best known to Apple NTFS drive can be opened and read from on the Mac but cannot be written to. This is obviously a better situation than HFS+ on Windows but still dysfunctional.

The much older FAT32 hard drive format is fully cross platform but comes with a highly problematic short coming; 4gb file size  limit for individual files. Since a simple 5min lossless 422 video file will exceed this FAT32 is simply not functional for video producers.

All is  not lost however and simple freeware utility might be the answer to your cross platform woes. HFSXplorer allows  for HFS+ formatted drives to be mounted and seen on Windows and files copied over to a local NTFS partition or drive.

Until Microsoft and Apple cease their pissing contest this simple software is a very effective solution for cross platform file transportation; especially for those running BootCamp.

Posted at 12:00AM Mar 26, 2008 by Mike Jones in technology  |  Comments[2]