Digital media has revolutionized the way in which we shoot, edit, and ship. I’m certain lots of you studying this may bear in mind digitizing and laying again tapes. Some may even bear in mind splicing movie collectively.
Fortunately, the longer term has arrived, however nonetheless, working with digital media presents its personal set of challenges, particularly when transferring by the manufacturing to post-production pipeline. It’s simple to fall into traps of merely copying, pasting, and storing media on a tough drive. In the event you’re doing this for a dwelling with shoppers or different stakeholders which have giant investments at stake, you want a extra strong system.
However performing A-list media administration isn’t low-cost or trivial. There’s a joyful center floor although. Let’s take a look at some fundamentals of media administration workflow and implement that workflow on a low finances.
Let’s first take a look at what a typical workflow may appear like for a low finances manufacturing. Possibly this can be a brief indie movie, company video, or native TV advert.
First, there’s the shoot. It will possibly occur on a big assortment of cameras (which all have their very own intricacies), however you’ll finally find yourself recording media onto some type of built-in or connected digital storage (e.g. SD playing cards, laborious drives, and so on.) After capturing wraps, the media is then copied to an exterior or native laborious drive the place it’s also edited, rendered, exported, and delivered. As soon as delivered, it’s copied to an ‘archive’ laborious drive and thrown on a shelf to be forgotten, if the venture is archived in any respect.
I’ll be the primary to say that sure, this may get the job accomplished. The issue is that this type of media administration opens your venture as much as every kind of vulnerability and inefficiencies.
Earlier than diving into budget-friendly media administration, let’s take a look at how knowledgeable manufacturing may deal with its media.
Workflows for big productions and studios are sometimes customized, all relying on their measurement, tools used, and switch round time wanted. That mentioned, let’s take into account a primary shoot for a nationwide TV advert by an advert company.
Manufacturing
Because the shoot progresses and digicam media fills up, it’s time to switch the footage to exterior storage. A typical process is to dump footage to 2 separate RAID 1 laborious drive programs through offloading software program like Shotput Pro.
Why two RAIDs? Twin copies present a grasp and backup within the occasion that one is misplaced, stolen, or damaged. On high of that, RAID 1 signifies that every field shops two actual copies of the media on two separate inside laborious drives, which offers an additional layer of redundancy.
Devoted offloading software program is used to handle the switch from digicam to exterior drives as a result of it tracks what’s moved, byte for byte, so as to ensure that no errors had been made throughout the copying course of. On the finish of the switch, this system runs an Md5 checksum on each copies to make sure there are not any discrepancies between the supply and vacation spot information. Moreover, Shotput Professional can monitor a number of offloads on the identical time, making the information switch extra environment friendly.
Large Funds Media Drives & Offloading Software program
– Hard Drives: (2x) G-Raid w/Thunderbolt 3 @ RAID 1: $650 per
– Shotput Pro: $130
Takeaway: Use redundant backups and offloading software program to stop shedding footage.
Submit-Manufacturing
As soon as the RAID drives arrive at a publish facility, the media is offloaded to a network attached storage (NAS)/storage area network (SAN) or a devoted high-capacity exterior RAID. NAS/SANs present giant quantities of storage at excessive bandwidth, so a number of individuals can entry media concurrently. There are dozens of various configurations for high-performance shared storage, however they practically all contain some sort of RAID. The configuration of post-production storage depends on venture complexity, however the steadiness of value, redundancy, and velocity is the primary query.
Challenge information (work in progress from the NLE) are stored on drives separate from the media drives, and are backed up at the least as soon as a day. For instance, an area venture file on an editor’s workstation is usually copied to a server or second laborious drive, including one other degree of redundancy. This workflow optimizes enhancing velocity, whereas additionally creating up-to-date copies of the venture information for security.
Luckily, venture information (the information that retailer the work-in-progress timelines) are tiny in comparison with the media information, so it’s fairly simple to again them up steadily.
Large Funds Submit-Manufacturing Storage Answer
– Studio Network Solutions EVO: $30,000 (estimate)
Medium Funds Submit-Manufacturing Storage Answer
– G-Speed Shuttle XL TB3: $4,000
Takeaway: Copy media to high-performance storage and observe good venture administration by backing up venture information individually from media information.
Supply
Many hours of editorial later, the lower reaches its ultimate approval and is delivered. These days, a ultimate product could also be a high-quality H.264 MP4, however it’s good observe to additionally export a full decision file in a excessive constancy codec (ex. Prores HQ) with cut up audio. Having a model of the ultimate video in this kind of codec permits for higher high quality transcodes sooner or later if it’s referred to as for sooner or later—like an unanticipated cut-down. Confused on what codec you have to be utilizing? This codec comparison guide should help.
Cut up audio merely signifies that, slightly than a video having a stereo mixture of the entire video’s sound, the dialog, music, and results (DME) are every on their very own separate monitor. Splits additionally permit for simpler manipulation of the ultimate video, like in a cut-down, with out having to have entry to the entire unique video’s supply information. For instance, you may lower sections of dialogue whereas nonetheless preserving the music mattress, or you may re-dub the movie in one other language.
Takeaway: At all times export your ultimate deliverable to a high-quality codec with dialog, music, and results on separate tracks.
Archiving
Lastly, after supply, the venture is positioned in chilly storage. Workflows differ, however usually all venture information, media, and supply information get archived to 2 redundant units of LTO tapes. LTO is an business normal archival medium that safely shops information for much longer than a tough drive—in extra of 30 years. Many normal laborious drives, if merely left on the shelf with out getting used, can deteriorate in just some years.
The scale of the ultimate venture determines what number of tapes must be used, however the newest LTO tapes can maintain 12TB of uncompressed information, so most tasks might match on only one or two. The tapes may be standalone or half of a big tape library. As all the time, redundancy is essential.
Every tape set is saved in numerous geographical areas. Whereas this may appear excessive, there are a number of corporations that cost a low month-to-month charge for this service. Having one copy readily available on the company offers quick access, and having one other in off-site storage offers peace of thoughts in case of a catastrophe like a hearth or an earthquake.
Software program like BruPE is used to maneuver information from media storage to the LTO tapes. The software program’s essential operate is to jot down the tapes, but it surely additionally retains an index of every little thing that it writes. Indexing is a crucial a part of a correct archival process, because it makes discovering previous tasks and media very simple. If a consumer asks for a brand new model of one thing months or years down the road, you don’t wish to spend hours simply discovering the correct information. Indexing is essential to keep away from that headache. 
Large Funds Archiving Answer
– Storage DNA LTO Tape Library: $30,000 (estimate)
Medium Funds Archiving Answer
– ArGest LTO 8 Quiet Desktop Cube w/ BRU PE: $6,000
Takeaway: Archiving ought to use long-term options, like LTO, not short-term laborious drives.
Having piles of money makes it simple to handle media “correctly”, however how does that assist a low finances filmmaker? It’s a good query, however we are able to take away main classes from what giant productions do. The most important of all is that every little thing wants a backup in case disaster strikes. So what does that appear like?
Manufacturing
Offload footage throughout/after the shoot to 2 separate laborious drives—both 7200rpm or strong state for ample velocity. In the event you don’t have the funds to spend money on Shotput Professional, you may alternatively use Red Giant’s Shooter Offload ($99) or DaVinci Resolve (for free) to carry out the offloading. Resolve’s options are extra restricted, however it might deal with the switch wants of most tasks.
Maintain these two laborious drives bodily separate instantly after the shoot (ship one over to your editor after which preserve the opposite your self). There are many tales of a beginner DIT who places each copies in the identical bag, after which the bag will get stolen.
Low Funds Media Drives
– (2x) G-Drive USB Drives: $140 per
Submit-Manufacturing
Previous to beginning the edit, offload the footage to an area RAID or laborious drive, separate from the place you’ll be storing and dealing on venture information. Are you actually strapped for money? Nicely in the event you’re really in a pinch, you may edit from one of many duplicate media drives from the unique on-set dump. This isn’t advisable, because you’re rising the chances of storage failure, however generally you gotta do what you gotta do.
Word that in the event you’re working with footage above HD decision (UHD and above) will probably be painful to edit with out the assistance of a RAID. As your abilities and manufacturing gear enhance, you’re going to want to spend money on a media system that may sustain. Although in fact, using proxies is a improbable different option to get extra mileage out of your {hardware}.
In case your media drive kicks the bucket, you don’t need your venture information going with it. So, you must preserve a backup of your venture information in at the least one different location. The media drive is ok for preserving the redundant copy, simply as lengthy is you retain it updated.
It may be an amazing thought to direct your NLE to retailer its autosaves on a separate drive from the venture file. Or, even higher, retailer these autosaves on a folder that’s synced to the cloud through Body.io’s Watch Folders app or Google Drive/Dropbox. That approach, in case your laptop (with all of its drives) will get stolen, you then’ve nonetheless bought your venture information.
Low Funds Submit-Manufacturing Storage Raid
– G-Raid w/ Thunderbolt 2: $600
Low Funds Submit-Manufacturing Storage Drive
– G-Drive USB Drive: $140
Supply
Ship the venture as specified (let’s assume it’s H.264 MP4.), however don’t cease there. Additionally export a model in ProRes or ProRes HQ with cut up audio tracks, in order that in the event you ever return to the venture your job can be simpler. Not having knowledgeable combine accomplished? Premiere (or any NLE) is solely able to creating splits by itself.
Archive
That is arguably essentially the most neglected facet of media managing productions, giant or small. That’s partially comprehensible (until you’re an archivist). The venture has wrapped, everybody has acquired excessive fives, and it’s time to maneuver on. It’s additionally a comparatively costly facet of the method that isn’t seen by many individuals.
Inevitably although, some venture will finally come again, so it’s essential be ready. LTO and optical disc archiving are the 2 finest long-term choices at present accessible for archiving media. You may assume that dumping the venture, media, and deliverables to a pair of laborious drives constitutes an archive, but it surely doesn’t.
Most exterior drives are vulnerable to failure of 1 type or one other. Spinning discs (HDDs) have transferring components that should be spun up every so often and can nonetheless finally fail. Strong state discs (SSDs) reside longer, however their flash reminiscence, capacitors, and energy provides nonetheless malfunction. HDDs have a long life of round 4 years, whereas SSDs can final round 10. However in comparison with an LTO tape’s lifespan of at the least 30 years, the winner is evident.
Our suggestion for bridging the archiving hole whereas nonetheless preserving to a finances is go for an older model of LTO. The present model is 8, however you’ll find LTO 7 or LTO 6 drives new for a considerable low cost. Used drives are additionally an amazing finances saver, however bear in mind you’ll have to additionally buy tape media for the drive.
In the event you can’t afford the LTO route and nonetheless go for ‘archiving’ to a number of laborious drives, I might recommend Mac customers decide up a duplicate of Alorsoft’s Media Indexer. It’s a light-weight program that permits you to index laborious drives and retain the flexibility to go looking by their information (names solely) with out the drive being connected to the pc. Right now we’re unaware of a Home windows different.
Medium to Low Funds Archiving Answer
– Quantum LTO6HH Tape Drive: $1,550
– BruPE: $500
Low Funds Media Indexer (Mac Solely)
– Alorsoft’s Media Indexer: $18 (plus laborious drives)
Media administration will not be essentially the most glamorous a part of the job, but it surely’s a crucial chore. Sure, bigger budgets can afford extra tech, however finally good media administration comes right down to good planning and bulletproof workflows. Even the smallest budgets can put these classes into observe.
Don’t take your footage as a right, and don’t danger your fame. It’s best to all the time play it protected with redundant backups all through all of your venture workflows. This kind of well-planned redundancy will allow you to get again to the enjoyable a part of video, and preserve you from shedding sleep over whether or not or not your media will survive the method!
