Larry Rubin:

 I call my 84 year old mother at least once a week. And her 93 year old brother, too!

Hey lucky man, do never forget your mother,  I lost mine 24 years ago.

 LTO tape back-ups rock! They never fail! $15 for 200GB of storage. And you don't have to plug them in, or call your Mother, although you should still call your mom from time to time. Quantum makes a resonable 1 tape unit.

 What about the backup speed !

 The trouble with tape is that it's linear access. So say you need a logo from this project you did a while back; you can't just go get the logo. You need to restore, then listen to the motors on the tape churn. Then get your logo.

I know that tape now is faster than DLT was 10yrs ago when I was using it (I assume) but it seems like a dying medium to me.

 We had a DLT backup system in the ABVB days, but yes, I agree, the "logo" example is pertinent

 Joseph - Just saw this... LTO1 is about 50GB a hour (uncompressed) and is old technology. LTO3 is 325GB an hour (uncompressed) and one LTO3 tape holds 400GB. This is the unit I was talking about, it will read LTO1 and LTO2. Sweet, but pricy.

http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/LTOUltrium/LTO-3/Index.aspx

$3,000US, which is about $500Euros now . A 400GB/800GB tape is $34 each.

LTO2 HH drive is $900US, 187GB/hr speed, tapes are 200/400GB at $24US each.

http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/LTOUltrium/LTO-2HH/Index.aspx

Both include back-up software, supposedly valued at $1700US.

I do have a consolidate/restore question to ask you about later this week. Thanks.

 Many thanks for this post, Dan.

Feel free to ask your question, I hope I will be able to answer.

Joseph - I'm about to do my first restore on an Avid job and need some help. I have yet to get my dull head around the way Avid's databases work.

I used Media Mover to move my job to our Network Area Server and then made an LTO. So I've restored the job to the NAS box and it's in a folder with my job code. Lots of omf and aif files in this folder, nothing else. So I want to copy this back to the Avid. I have an empty partition in my SCSI RAID that I use for consolidates, and restores. This partition is blank other than the following folders:

AvidMediaFiles\MXF\1 this has into msmFMID.pmr and msmMMOB.mdb

MediaMover Offline - this has AvidMediaFiles and OMFI MEdiaFiles folders

OMFI MediaFiles - this also has the .pmr and .mdb fies

So where should I move my job code folder back into so MediaMover will see it to move the media back on-line? (I also have .avb's for this job backed up on the NAS box). Thanks!

 Which version of Media Mover are you using ?

V3.0 can cope with OMF and MXF files, and does NOT need the database files infos (.mdb &.pmr) The only thing you'll have to do is to rename the folder in which your media files are currently located as "OMFIMediafiles" for OMFI files, and AvidMediafiles, + sub folders for MXF. Then MediaMover will detect to which project your files belong, and you may bring them back to your media drives.This technique won't work with the Russian MDV software which needs the database file infos. 

 Joseph - I already have an OMFI MediaFiles folder on the drive so I created a folder with my job code and moved the files in there. I renamed that folder OMFI MediaFiles. I opened MediaMover 3.0.2 and it didn't see the media (I guess it only looks at root level), but I selected "add folder" and it saw it and it says it's online, I didn't have to move it online. I still had the job on the Avid so I opened it up. How do I now re-link to the media from my job? Thanks!

BTW: I saw you have a Libec jib on your site. I have one too and LOVE it. Check out this link, after the :30 spot is a timelapse with it in action...

http://www.take-one.net/portfolio/video.html?CID=19

 Joseph - I figured it out. Avid didn't seem happy that it was not on the root of the drive, so I moved all my media into the root level OMFI MediaFiles folder and it all showed up nice and happy. Thanks for your help.

Fazz Powell:

 Joseph - I already have an OMFI MediaFiles folder on the drive so I created a folder with my job code and moved the files in there. I renamed that folder OMFI MediaFiles. I opened MediaMover 3.0.2 and it didn't see the media (I guess it only looks at root level), but I selected "add folder" and it saw it and it says it's online, I didn't have to move it online. I still had the job on the Avid so I opened it up. How do I now re-link to the media from my job? Thanks!

Bring simply the media files back to your media drives, delete the .pmr and .mdb files, Avid will rebuild them when you launch it. this will relink the medias to your project, that's all.

Fazz Powell:

BTW: I saw you have a Libec jib on your site. I have one too and LOVE it. Check out this link, after the :30 spot is a timelapse with it in action...

http://www.take-one.net/portfolio/video.html?CID=19

As we do corporate video, yes we frequently use the Libec Jib. This adds movements which look nice. However, the use of the Jib needs expereince, and not all cameramen are at ease with it. We also use the Libec travelling rails, adapted to the Jib, very easy and fast to use, require however a "correct" floor. 

 Dan:

Two basic rules about media files.

1. Both the OMFI MediaFiles and the Avid MediaFiles (for MXF) folders must always live at the root level of the media drive.

2. Never rename either of those two folders. The default names (without the quotes) are: "OMFI MediaFiles" and "Avid MediaFiles".

 Larry - Roger that, thanks! I'm still trying to get my head around how Avid handles it's database, but yeah it made sense that I could move all the media into the exisitng OMFI folder, but contrary to what sep was saying, I didn't delete the .pmr and .mdb files, and it still restored fine and dandy. Thanks.

 If you're just moving media within the platform, then a database rebuild (.pmr and .mdb) should not be necessary. However, whenever you move media from one platform to another, you must always rebuild the database files in order for the target platform to see the new media.