Best small bit-for-bit backup

I've just been through the incredible pain involved in setting up a dos system with bootcamp. Errors on the XP disc (because it uses '-' that is rendered as '_'), so many that you wonder if it was a first year project to put that install disc together!
Anyway, what I'd like to do now is make an exact copy of the 32Gb partition - one that I can simply replace to get it to the identical state that it is in now - that I can then compress and keep as a handy backup in lots of places.
I've got toast if that's good. I'd be happy to use dd as well. With dd, I'm just not sure if this would work [if so, I'd be grateful for confirmation!]:
dd if=/dev/dosdisc of=bitbackup bs=32m
then, to restore it:
dd if=bitbackup of=/dev/dosdisc bs=32m
I'm concerned that the above might not do things like get the MBR (Master Boot Record) correctly. If not, is there an easy fix for that too?

Hi,
I am not familiar with 'dd' so no answer to that.
I use WinClone to backup/image my BootCamp Windows http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932
Regards
Stefan

Similar Messages

Development System Backup - Best Practice / Policy for offsite backups

Hi, I have not found any recommendations from SAP on best practices/recommendations on backing up Development systems offsite and so would appreciate some input on what policies other companies have for backing up Development systems. We continuously make enhancements to our SAP systems and perform daily backups; however, we do not send any Development system backups offsite which I feel is a risk (losing development work, losing transport & change logs...).
Does anyone know whether SAP have any recommendations on backuping up Development systems offsite? What policies does your company have?
Thanks,
Thomas

Thomas,
Your question does not mention consideration of both sides of the equation - you have mentioned the risk only. What about the incremental cost of frequent backups stored offsite? Shouldn't the question be how the 'frequent backup' cost matches up with the risk cost?
I have never worked on an SAP system where the developers had so much unique work in progress that they could not reproduce their efforts in an acceptable amount of time, at a acceptable cost. There is typically nothing in dev that is so valuable as to be irreplaceable (unlike production, where the loss of 'yesterday's' data is extremely costly). Given the frequency that an offsite dev backup is actually required for a restore (seldom), and given that the value of the daily backed-up data is already so low, the actual risk cost is virtually zero.
I have never seen SAP publish a 'best practice' in this area. Every business is different; and I don't see how SAP could possibly make a meaningful recommendation that would fit yours. In your business, the risk (the pro-rata cost of infrequently needing to use offsite storage to replace or rebuild 'lost' low cost development work) may in fact outweigh the ongoing incremental costs of creating and maintaining offsite daily recovery media. Your company will have to perform that calculation to make the business decision. I personally have never seen a situation where daily offsite backup storage of dev was even close to making any kind of economic sense.
Best Regards,
DB49

Best Cloud Storage for iPhoto backup?

Hello, it seems ridiculous that Apples iCloud doesn't allow you to backup your entire iPhoto library... so I'm looking for some advice on the best alternative options. I currently have TM backup automatically, but I travel between the USA and Europe often and would love a safe and simple online backup system. Anyone have reccomendations? Carbonite? Dropbox?
Thanks in advance!

Online doesn’t really work for iPhoto because most solutions don't understand the iPhoto Library structures and also because of the massive amounts of data involved. We often see folks on here complaining of restores taking days to complete.
But you do raise a very important issue and this is what I have done in this case:
My Library lives on my iMac. It’s Backed up to two external hard disks every day. These disks are permanently attached to the iMac. These back ups run automatically. One is done by Time Machine, one is a bootable back up done by SuperDuper
It’s also backed up to a portable hard disk when ever new photos are added. This hard disk lives in my car. For security, this disk is password protected.
I have a second off-site back up at a relative’s house across town. That’s updated every 3 or 4 months.
My Photos are backed up online. There are many options: Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug etc. However, check the terms of your account carefully. While most sites have free uploading, you will often find that these uploads are limited in terms of the file size or the bandwidth you can use per month. For access that allows you to upload full size pics with no restrictions you may need to pay.
Every couple of months I test the back ups to make sure they are working correctly. It’s very easy to mis-configure a back up application, and the only way to protect against that is to do a trial restore.

WHAT IS BEST STRATEGY FOR RMAN BACKUP CONFIGURATION

Hi all,
my database size is 50GB I want TAKe WEEKLY FULL BACKUP AND INCREMENTAL BACKUP
WITHOUT RECOVERY CATALOG.by follwing commands
weekly full database backup
run
backup as compressed backupset
incremental level=0
device type disk
tag "weekly_database"
format '/sw/weekly_database_%d_t%t_c%c_s%s_p%p'
database;
I want do CONFIGURE RMAN BY FOLLWING stragtegy
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY window of 14 days.
CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION OFF;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO
'\SW\AUTOCFILE_'%F';
and other is by default
sql>alter system set control_file_record_keep_time=15 days;
os--aix6 and for two database 10g2 and 11g2
what is best configuration strategy for rman backup.AND BACKUP WITH RECOVERY CATALOG OR WITHOUT RECOVERY CATALOG
PLEASE TELL ME
Edited by: afzal on Feb 26, 2011 1:45 AM

For simply two databases, there really wouldn't be a need for a recovery catalog. You can still restore/recover without a controlfile and without a recovery catalog.
From this:
afzal wrote:
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY window of 14 days.I am assuming you want to keep two weeks worth of backups, therefore these:
alter system set control_file_record_keep_time=15 days;
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY window of 14 daysShould be:
RMAN> sql 'alter system set control_file_record_keep_time=22';
RMAN> CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF 14;22 would give you that extra layer of protection for instances when a problem occurs with a backup and you want to ensure that data doesn't get aged out.

Best pratices for RMAN backup management for many databases

Dear all,
We have many 10g databases (>40) hosted on multiple Windows servers which are backup up using RMAN.
A year ago, all backup's were implemented through Windows Scheduled Tasks using some batch files.
We have been busy (re)implementing / migrating such backup in Grid Control.
I personally prefer to maintain the backup management in Grid Control, but a colleague wants now to go back to the batch files.
What i am looking for here, are advices in the management of RMAN backup for multiple databases: do you guys use Grid Control or any third-party backup management tool or even got your home-made solution?
One of the discussion topic is the work involved in case that the central backup location changes.
Well... any real-life advices on best practices / strategies for RMAN backup management for many databases will be appreciated!
Thanks,
Thierry

Hi Thierry,
Thierry H. wrote:
Thanks for your reaction.
So, i understand that Grid Control is for you not used to manage the backups, and as a consequence, you also have no 'direct' overview of the job schedules.
One of my concern is also to avoid that too many backups are started at the same time to avoid network / storage overload. Such overview is availble in Grid Control's Jobs screen.
And, based on your strategy, do you recreate a 'one-time' Oracle scheduled job for every backup, or do your scripts create an Oracle job with multiple schedule?
You're very welcome!
Well, Grid Control is not an option for us, since each customer is in a separate infrastructure, and with their own licensing. I have no real way (in difference to your situation) to have a centralized point of control, but that on the other hand mean that I don't have to consider network/storage congestion, like you have to.
The script is run from a "permanent" job within the dba-scheduler, created like this:
dbms_scheduler.create_job(
        job_name        => 'BACKUP',
        job_type        => 'EXECUTABLE',
        job_action      => '/home/oracle/scripts/rman_backup.sh',
        start_date      => trunc(sysdate)+1+7/48,
        repeat_interval => 'trunc(sysdate)+1+7/48',
        enabled         => true,
        auto_drop       => false,
        comments        => 'execute backup script at 03:30');and then the "master-script", determines which level to use, based on weekday from the OS. The actual job schedule (start date, run interval etc) is set together with the customer IT/IS dept, to avoid congestion on the backup resources.
I have no overview of the backup status, run times etc, but have made monitoring scripts that will alert me if/when a backup either fails, or runs for too long. This, in addition with scheduled disaster/recovery tests makes me sleep rather well at night.. ;-)
I realize that there (might be) better ways of doing backup scheduling in your environment, since my requirements are so completely different than yours, but I guess that we all face the same challenges in unifying the environments as much as possible, to minimize the amount of actual work we have to do. :-)
Good luck!
//Johan

Using a single external drive for both Time Machine AND for manual backups?

I'm new to Leopard and haven't launched Time Machine yet. I would like to use a single (500 GB) external hard drive to use with Time Machine, plus I would like to use whatever portion of this external drive Time Machine isn't using to keep some other files upon it as well--things that I can drag-and-drop manually and then trash from my computer's HD (avi files, etc., so that they don't take up space on the computer). Is there anything special I need to do with the external hard drive before I let Time Machine have its way with it, so that I can also do drag-and-drop manual file backups with it?

I’m not terribly knowledgeable, but I’ll tell you what seems to be working for me.
I also have a 500GB external drive which I had planned to use for TM for my MBP. I partitioned it (using Disk Utility) into two partitions. One I created nearly the same size as my MBP drive, the other I used for TM.
I used the smaller partition for a backup using SuperDuper prior to upgrading from Tiger to Leopard. Once I tested that I was able to boot from it and that all my programs seemed to work, I upgraded to Leopard and told it to use the other partition for TM.
It then created a TM icon for the other partition and, to the machine, it looks like a separate drive. I’ve seen no performance hit at all.
Just one man’s experience, though I haven’t yet tried to retrieve anything.
Good luck.

HT3226 My iphone 4s fell down on the floor and a very very small bit on the edge of my iphone were broken. Can I insert a new iphone body panel with replace the old one

My iphone 4s fell down on the floor and a very very small bit on the edge of my iphone were broken. Can I insert a new iphone body panel with replace the old one.. ???

I think I had it on the iCloud, I just changed computers and had part of my old computer backed up, where are the default iTunes info saved like the pictures and I know my contacts were backed up cuz I kept getting updated stuff that I wasn't sure about, but it was contacts where some belonged to my wife's contacts....but anyway, if the cloud backed up contacts, it should have grabbed pictures too? Like I asked before, if they were backed up to the computer, is there a default iTunes folder they are saved to? I had a crap load of pictures on there that I usually could really access if I was connected to wi-fi. I turned off my data stuff as I only have 4GB and between me and my 2 kids, we seemed to use up a lot of it. My son would play music from Pandora during work, and use up all our data til I limited him to only 3GB, my daughter and I barely used 1GB. Anyway, thanks to everybody that is answering. I thought I might have done good finding the dang sim card, but pointless I guess.
Ralph - F.Y.I. I would be happy to back up the iPhone if I could turn it on LOL......I am pretty positive I did, but what about Text messages? ANY of those saved too or not? Sorry guys, I don't know a **** of a lot about cell phones, but I do know about memory cards, but not sim cards that act like memory cards or look like them anyway. What is the purpose of a sim card if I may ask a stupid question since they don't hold any data from my phone stuff. I just hope my stuff comes back on the new replacement phone once I get it up and running. Again, thanks to everybody for the edumucation.

Best command for script backup?

hello,
i always use robocopy for file backup , but with powershell and the new technologies is still the easiest and best choice?

Your initial question was "Best command for script backup?". For this you received an answer. If you now need support on the subject of your script then you should start a new thread. Note also that you must test your robocopy command from a
command line before trying to embed it in a PowerShell script.

I would like to build a desk top computer for video editing, business management and online learning and also have a small compatible laptop or tablet or ipad to take to university, Can someone please advise me of the best set up for this?

I would like to build a desktop computer for video editing, business management and online learning and also have a small laptop, tablet or ipad to take to university, Can someone please advise me of the best set up for this?

Let's see if I understand this... You're asking for advice on building a desktop computer, in the Apple developer's forum? Why not just buy a Mac?

Best File Format For Online Line Art?

I thought the conventional wisdom was that all line art for the screen should be saved as GIFs, all photographic line art should be saved as JPEGs.
Then PNGs came along and offered an alternative to GIFs.
I've been exploring this because I've been having a problem when exporting line art from Illustrator 8 as a PNG and opening it in Fireworks MX, where it appears washed out.
I did a bit of research among comic strip artists -- the art I'm exporting from Illustrator is a comic strip -- and came up with conflicting results.
Dilbert seems to save black and white line art as GIFs, e.g. http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2008611230313.gif
... But its Sunday colored strips seem to be saved as JPEGs, e.g. http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2008040261966.jpg
Meanwhile Donnesbury seems to save colored comic strips as GIFs, e.g. http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2008/db080406.gif
Any thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks.

I assume your line art is drawn as vector art in Illustrator, correct?
As far as I'm concened, the "best file format for online line art" would be .swf, because it would retain its scaleable vector nature, and the Flash Player is most likely embedded in any reasonably recent computer's browser.
But a little simple experimentation would be in order regarding file size. SWF (as exported from Flash, not necessarily AI) is very efficient. But the complexity of the line art could still make a given image require more bandwidth as .swf than as a rasterized version.
The former conventional-wisdom regarding PNG is the old "not supported in older browsers" saw. I see even Firworks's online help still says:
> However, not all web browsers can view PNG graphics.
Personally, I think its way past time to stop cow-towing to outdated browsers and use PNGs anyway. So if it were me, and the nature of my line art required rasterization for online use, I would use PNG for its obvious advantages. But then, my livlihood is not affected by some minority of outdated web viewers not being able to view my PNGs.
I would think that whatever color problems you are having in getting your AI files exported to PNG can be worked out with a little investigation/experimentation. (PNG supports color management profiles, so that alone may be your problem, and may be easily fixed in your workflow.) GIF is by definition limited to a subset of colors. JPEG is by definition a lossy compression format. So there are certainly precise color-accuracy issues with those overused formats, too.
But again, that's just me. What little I do in web graphics that would involve this issue doesn't really affect my livelihood. Lowest-common-denominator compatibility may be more important to you.
> Gilbert seems to...
> Doonsbury seems to...
The two images are very close to the same size (132K & 125K). They both include contone grads. Between JPEG and GIF, I would expect JPEG to more consistently yield acceptable results. Since GIF is limited to an 8-bit lookup table, I would expect aberations such as unwanted banding to be more likely in GIF if the artwork contains many colors and alot of highly-rendered shading.
Since you specify
line art, though, that would rule out contone fills, and you could use GIF with a very small color table.
On the other hand, you do not specify whether you want to use transparency in your line art images. If you do, PNG would be far superior, because it supports true alpha transparency. In a GIF, if you can only make one particular color transparent. So even with line art, if the line art is antialiased at all, you'll have the ugly halos so commonly seen in GIFs when displayed on a wrong-colored background.
The only functional "advantage" that I see in GIF over PNG is its multi-image capability, for quick & dirty frame-by-frame animation. My personal animation efforts focus entirely on Flash/SWF, and use scripted animation whenever possible to avoid frame-by-frame. But I recognize the simplicity convenience of animated GIFs for web banners and those (often-annoying) moving icons and such.
JET

What are the best export settings for a HD video in Premier Pro CS4?

Hi!
   I've been having so much trouble with this issue and it's something that continually frustrates my boss. I have a HD video the settings for it are
FPS 23.98
1920 x 1080, then a few lines down it says 1408 x 792
16 bit,
2 channels
48000 Hz
   What should the settings be when I make a new sequence?
             When I look at it in the window in Premiere Pro I have to contantly 'shrink' the image to fit the window, is that something I should be doing or does it indicate the sequence settings are incorrect?
But more importantly what should the export settings be? I exported a 4 minute long video and the size was 1 GB, I know that's too big.
I need to export it without loosing any quality and export another one that meets the Youtube and Vimeo limits on size.
Vimeo is 500 MB per week, sometimes I upload 4 videos per week. I think Youtube you can only upload 500 MB at a time.
I need to get smaller sizes with loosing the least amount of quality possible AND the best export settings for quality, so I guess I have 3 separate questions-
What are the best sequence settings for HD video?
What are the best export settings for HD without loosing any quality?
What are the best export settings for the size to come out around 500 MB with loosing the least amount of quality possible?
Thank You!
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/713070
On the above thread I used the 5th anwer, and it's going to take about 7 hours to export a 4 minute video :/

It Stands for "Coder Decoder."
Your format is like a container for your video file. Certain containers can hold certain codecs and not others. Other containers can hold other codecs. Sometimes different containers can hold the same codecs.
This might be a bad analogy but I'll give it a try.
A coffe cup (container) can hold pretty much any liquid you drink, where a red solo cup (container) won't hold scolding water. So, the coffe cup would be your container of choice most likely because it has the most options for liquids (codecs). But, you might want a red solo cup for just a single crappy beer at a party (a moderate quality streaming video on the web). In that case, you don't need all the optoins of another container.
In Premiere Pro CC H.264 is a Container and the Codec in one option. This has been streamlined for web distrobution of video to be played in browsers without things like Flash or special players.
Were as if you choose the QuickTime Container there are over 40 codec optoins (at least on my machine with additinal ones installed) but you may run into an issue where your browser doesn't support QuickTime playback.
I would say that your container is for compatability with players and your codec is taken into consideration when looking at the quality of the compression.
Yesteraday I wrote a blog entery on Exporting from Premiere Pro and found that the MPEG-4 codec inside of the QuickTime container gave me much richer colors than the H.264 container/codec option.
I posted the link before but here it is:
http://goo.gl/8GZq4i

Best video format for converting DVD to NAS for widely sharing

Summary: The article shows you with an easy workaround for
copying DVD to NAS for streaming by ripping DVD to NAS friendly video
format on Mac and Windows
I recently purchased a NAS to store all my music/photos etc on. I
can stream stuff to my iPhone/iPad using the NAS software. What I want
to do is rip all my DVDs (over 400) to my NAS, but I’m not sure which
format to do it in, to play nice with my Apple TV2, Xbox 360, iPhone,
iPad etc. I wanna get some advice as to what format to rip in and what
software to use?
Learn some tips from online, I got know that to copy dozens of DVD movies to NAS,
you need to get the content off the DVD disc as a protection-free and
easily readable element for NAS. In this case, at the first place
powerful third-party software for backup DVD to NAS is what you need.
There are many, many DVD ripping tools on the market. I’ve tired a pile of them.
Brorsoft DVD Ripper
is the best one I’ve tried yet. It is capable of ripping DVD to MP4,
AVI, MKV for NAS streaming with no quality loss; it also enables you to
copy DVD main movies for backup onto NAS in .vob format. And what I’ve
learned is that MP4 would be one best target format for it is fully
compatible with nearly all media devices including iPad, iPhone, PS3,
Apple TV, etc. If you are running on Mac OS X, turn to DVD Ripper for Mac. If you haven’t got the software, download it now and let’s start the conversion.
Ripping and copying DVDs to NAS
1. Launch the DVD ripping program for NAS devices . Then
click "Load DVD" to import the DVD files you want to convert. To select
the subtitles you like, simply click Subtitle and select the one you
prefer. P.S. Before start the conversion, you can choose to backup DVD mian movies.
2. Click Format bar and choose your desired format. To store
hundreds of DVD's on NAS, you can rip DVD to .mp4, or .avi, .mkv, etc
compressed format. And click Settings bar, you can adjust the level of
compression to suit the quality you want.
Tip: If you like, you can click “Settings” to change the
video encoder, resolution, frame rate, etc. as you wish. Keep in mind
the file size and video quality is based more on bitrate than resolution
which means bitrate higher results in big file size, and lower visible
quality loss, and vice versa.
3. Press the "Convert" button to start ripping DVD for NAS streaming.
After the conversion, click Open button to find the output files.
Make sure the wireless network connection is accessible among the NAS
and Apple TV, PS3, HD TV or other media players. Then just enjoy the
high quality DVD movies anywhere anytime.
[quote] movies-videos-convert-tips.overblog.com/2014/02/ripping-dvds-to-nas-how-to-copy-dvd-to-nas-for-streaming.html [/quote]

I've always found encoding with Handbrake and choosing the Apple TV2 preset is an excellent place to start and video encoded using that preset will work on my iPhone 4, 4S and iPad 2.
If the files encoded using that preset are too big for one's taste they can always encoded at a lower average bit rate rather than using the default 'Constant Quality' of 20.
Later on I'm sure the Handbrake group will have an AppleTV '3' preset supporting the 1080p format supported by the ATV3 and iPad '3' but using such a preset would not create a file usable on the iPad 2 or the iPhones.

Best possible setup for the future

I am going to ask a generalized broad question. First some background, then I would appreciate your input.
Used mac desktops up until now. Primarily storage reasons. I am sending my daughter off to college this fall and decided to get our first laptop, nice zippy macpro 15". I have to say I'm very happy stealing this laptop from my daughter. I thought I would not want to do so much picture processing on such a limited screen, as I'm used to two landscape monitors.
The database for Aperture right now is almost 400 gigs. I used managed files. I initially thought about upgrading my old desktops to a new super powerful desktop in the next year of so, as I'm still using powermac PCs.
I wasn't going to consider a laptop as a serious contender for primarily the storage issue.
Enter thunderbolt.
Now I'm scratching my head and wondering about the potential to utilize this seemingly potential I/O as a game changer to the deal.
#1 - I'm not in a hurry. Time is on my side.
#2 - in the past, desktop Vs laptop was a no brainer to me. That gap has narrow now. The primary issue was screen space and storage, mostly storage/speed really.
#3 - speed gap from laptop to desktop is nominal at best from what I can tell, am I correct in seeing this now as not as clear an advantage of a desktop?
#4 - if I'm understanding thunderbolt right (and since time is on my side), I could potentially have a laptop with some lug around peripherals that would nearly make this like a desktop on the go. Sit down and plug into multiple monitors in a flash with RAID extensions, who knows what. Maybe then grab a raid cube and run with it to a place and essentially take my "desktop" environment with me. Am I thinking straight here or being a bit to idealistic? Seems like that it where Apple/intel is headed with this
#5 - managed Vs referenced. I've read a little about this debate and approach. I've only gone with managed and probably will do so, but in light of what I've said above, any comments?
#6 - backup. Always the biggie for me. backup. I love redundancy. I have time machine this and that thrown around in duplicity, copy over mirror drives here and there, and even put an extra drive or two in a neighbor's closet x2 a year just as an offsite backup in case of catastrophic loss like fire/theft. I'm not crazy over such a fragmented multiple approach, but haven't found what I consider a good alternative just yet to something simple, straightforward, and trustworthy. I'm hoping thunderbolt might lend a whole new ability to move quicker through backup scenarios. Thoughts? What are your approaches when you have a life's work of digital pics and videos and just can't stand the thought of ever ever losing them?
#7 - I would love to have an offsite online backup option for everything, seems that would solve so much of my backup stuff. But as a home user that is seriously into digital whatever, I haven't seem to run across something good as I've been limited to slow upload speeds. Until now. Enter FiOs. I can now(supposedly) do 32 up and down on the Fios, the fastest I think I will be able to get without going to a major business type connection. Does anyone have any knowledge of anything that would be a solid online backup option for 2TB or more of data on a revolving basis? I want to overshoot a bit as I seem to be picking up memory usage quickly with shooting in all RAW now and using higher density HD video. Opinions?
Having said all that, I hope what is coming across is that I'm looking at basically going from a guy who had an old powermac and found he is good at video, photos, and all things fun like that. Expanding into business sides of it slowly, seeming to have good luck, sending a daughter off to college introduced a surprising element to me of a powerful laptop, and now I'm grappling with onsite and offisite storage. Future expansion. thunderbolt potential.
I would appreciate some of you who have much more seasoned interactions with higher end equipment and can appreciate some of the details, if you could give some insight into what might work, might not, how to posture myself the best for future expansion and capabilities, etc. I'm not too worried about price. Obviously I'm a home user, so I don't have a corporate account. But dropping 10 - 20 grand in the next 2 or so years wouldn't be unreasonable if it were to posture me for the best potential use for many years.
Thanks,
Robert

TexasMan_Luvs_Hismac wrote:
The database for Aperture right now is almost 400 gigs. I used managed files. I initially thought about upgrading my old desktops to a new super powerful desktop in the next year of so, as I'm still using powermac PCs. I wasn't going to consider a laptop as a serious contender for primarily the storage issue.
#3: At the moment (until MPs are upgraded) the top new MBPs are stronger Aperture boxes than many Mac Pros are. IMO the first true desktop replacement (DTR) laptops. Stick to the stronger graphics options and I very, very strongly recommend the anti-glare display choice.
#5: Managed files are IMO not the way to go for many reasons, and certainly not on a laptop. I recommend using a Referenced-Masters-Library on the internal drive with Preview size set to be the size of your laptop display. Have two large external drives: one for Masters and Vaults and one for offsite backup of the other external.
So #6: Backup is easy, just add more off site drives for more redundancy and change them out frequently (at least weekly or every significant project). For images work mirrors tend to be a waste of drive space. Far more worthy is more frequent real offsite backup. Note that simple changeout of a 2-TB drive to the trunk of the car provides real backup against fire, theft and drive failure.
Originals should be backed up before import into Aperture or any other app anyway. A Managed-Masters-Library not only gets itself ridiculously large, having Masters in Vaults just makes Vaults huge and Vault backups slower, and therefore less likely to be done as frequently.
#4: Yes. Tbt may have some growing pains but I think your insight is accurate. However even without Thunderbolt using a Referenced-Masters-Library with Masters accessed over FW800 i/o is ok. Key is that the Library lives on an internal drive that is kept underfilled, which is easy once you use a Referenced-Masters-Library with Masters on external drives.
Personally I just ordered a 17" 2011 MBP with SSD and am replacing the optical drive with a 750 GB 7200 rpm OWC drive. The Referenced-Masters-Library will live on the SSD while Masters will initially live on the OWC drive then later get relocated to external archive drives.
#1 - I'm not in a hurry. Time is on my side.
Since you are using a Powermac now, I respectfully disagree. Life is short: get thee to a Sandy Bridge MBP asap This new MBP is literally what mobile Aperture users like me have been waiting for since v1.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Best compressor settings for HDV downconvert -- attention hanumang

Reposting this bit because it differs significantly from topic of thread where it appeared.
goal: the best possible HDV-DV downconvert using final cut studio (hitch: I have added problem of converting resulting film from PAL to NTSC)
previous method: the best luck I've had is Quicktime converting from HDV to 10-bit PAL SD and compressor converting that to NTSC DVDPRO50
Hanumang recommended using compressor for first conversion. My response:
What settings?
By coincidence I decided to try the initial conversion (HDV to 10-bit) this morning on compressor (but I didn't change the frame rate; i didn't know they were relavant for HD downconvert; I only change them for the PAL-NTSC conversion).
At first glance, the compressor 10-bit conversion doesn't seem any better than the quicktime conversion (due to the frame rate settings?). I don't know for sure because I haven't sent it back to compressor for PAL-NTSC conversion and on to DVD SP.
One issue I'm worried about is the dimensions. quicktime's 768 x 576 (preserve aspect ratio checked; letterbox selected) was the only dimension setting that produced a film that looked right (on the dvd; it's squished in final cut). I don't see that option in compressor. I suppose I could type it in the frame size boxes.
I would be most grateful for help in this matter. I've spent a few weeks on this. I just plod along, zombie-like, trying a few different things every day, hoping to hit the jackpot eventually. I've been planning on trying to downconvert using my HDV/DV deck (print to tape in HDV; then change settings to downconvert and capture as DV). Would that help?
how do pro studios handle downconverting? What kind of hardware do they use? I'm an independent filmmaker, working on a small budget, but eventually, once the film is finished and (hopefully) I have more money, I''d happily pay for a good pro conversion. Do you know what that costs? The film will be 80 minutes long.
thanks again for your help.
What compressor settings do you recommend?
The best workflow I've come up with is qucktime conversion from HDV PAL to SD 10-bit PAL, then compressor conversion from 10-bit Pal to DVDPR0 50 NTSC.
By coincidence I decided to try the initial conversion (HDV to 10-bit) this morning on compressor (but I didn't change the frame rate; i didn't know they were relavant for HD downconvert; I only been change them for the PAL-NTSC conversion).
At first glance, the compressor 10-bit conversion doesn't look better than the quicktime conversion (due to the frame rate settings?). I don't know for sure because I haven't sent it back to compressor for PAL-NTSC conversion and on to DVD SP.
One issue I'm worried about is the dimensions. quicktime's 768 x 576 (preserve aspect ratio checked; letterbox selected) was the only dimension setting that produced a film that looked right (on the dvd; it's squished in final cut). I don't see that option in compressor. I suppose I could type it in the frame size boxes.
Anyway, I would be most grateful for answers to these questions. I've spent a few weeks on this and am past the point of frustration. I just plod along, zombie-like, trying a few different things every day, dimly hoping to hit the jackpot eventually. Actually, I've been planning on trying to downconvert using my HDV/DV deck (print to tape in HDV; then change settings to downconvert and capture as DV). Would that help?
how do pro studios handle downconverting? What kind of hardware do they use? I'm an independent filmmaker, working on a small budget for the time being, but eventually, once the film is over and (hopefully) I have more money, I'll be willing to pay for a good pro conversion. Do you know what that costs? The film will be 80 minutes long.
thanks again for your help.

My bad, I was out in the afternoon and didn't get a chance to pick up on your reply to the last thread. Sorry to hear that your first attempt with Compressor was so disappointing.
Just so we're clear, you're using what exact versions of the software? FCP 5.1? Compressor 2? (For Compressor, in particular, 2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.3 is important.) And, what are your sequence settings in FCP? Finally, we're to understand that you're actually working in PAL HDV? Or are you working in AIC?

Best export option for Sound Designer

Hi everyone,
I am working on a new short film and I am working with a Sound Designer and composer. We want to create a 5.1 mix for the film (which I have never done before). So I am trying to figure out what would be the best export option for him to work with to make his life easier.
Providing him with just a ProRes export won't help him match up to my cuts in the time line since he doesn't use FCP X. So my thought is that we will have matching files and folder structure for both video and audio before I start editing. But what I am not understanding is once I have a complete rough cut, how do I get him a cut list so that he can totally match up my cuts with the same audio files on his system?
Any advice?
Thanks.

See this pic for an example of how my exports turn out:
http://www.brettmichaelwiesman.com/temp/qtexport.jpg
First off, the titling style is not ideal for DV (or DVD). That is, your font should be a bit fatter (or, at least, bold) and perhaps 1-2 point sizes larger. (This is all because the DV codec makes titles look like s--t if the font size is small and narrow)
Also, for your LiveType files, make sure FCP is interpreting your alpha channel correctly. For every LiveType file placed in your timeline, select it, then press Command-9 to bring up the Item Properties dialog. In the column for Alpha, make sure it says it says Black. If, for instance, it reads Straight, Control-click [right-click] on Straight, then select Black from the contextual menu. You should notice your text 'popping out' a little more. You'll have to re-render, of course.
Also, in QuickTime Player, press Command-, (that's  + comma) to bring up QT's preferences. Make sure that the box for Use High Quality Video Setting when available is checked. (In order to get this working, it's probably best to set this, then restart QT - or close, then open, all movies). With the High Quality flag always used, your titling should always look better in QT player. (That is, there is no change made to your actual file, but at least when previewing, you'll get a better idea of things)
After you've made these changes, export as you were (Current Settings) and let us know if you see any improvements.

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