DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

Copying Large Video File Across Devices/Drives? This Is How To Make Sure You Don’t Goof Up

May 11, 2014 by Guest Author 11 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

large-file-copy-09

Whether your are a professional photographer or an aspiring photo enthusiast a day will come, when you will need to transfer all your valuable multimedia materials from one storage location to another!

Obviously, a single copy & paste or drag & drop should do the trick! However, please be aware that any backup or data replication scheme is composed of two integral parts: copying and verification!

The fact that you see a complete file list after a quick, copy and paste operation does not ensure the data that you have copied from the source location to the target destination are not corrupted!

You may wonder why have I written this post in the first place? Well, as a matter of fact I have found myself in a position where I needed to send via air mail an USB stick with video material to one of the media agencies we collaborated with. The assignment came literally last minute, and the deadline was within 4 days.

The agency requested ungraded, C-log video clips, with no audio, in Apple ProRes HQ in 4:2:2 color space (at least). The most of the footage was supposed to be shot in 24p or 60p for slow-motion processing.

Why is all of that relevant? It is important as it indicates that resulting files will be relatively big (we are talking here about hundreds of megabytes in size, reaching gigabyte or two in some cases). The bigger the file, the easier to screw something up.

Truth to be told, I like DIY (do-it-yourself) projects and in general. Understanding how things work is essential in professional media maker workflow, especially if you have to deal with hundreds of gigabytes of photo material every month.

How did I solve my problem? (Please be aware, you need to have basic UNIX knowledge in order to proceed)

1. Simply copy & paste or drag’n’drop your files from source folder to destination. In my case I will be coping ProRes files from DOCK2/PRO-RES/ folder to my USBStick1.

large-file-copy-01

2. Find the Terminal application in your Applications / Utilities folder. (Hint: click your Finder icon and press ?+?+U key combination).

large-file-copy-02

3. Right click on your source folder (in my case DOCK2/PRO-RES/), and choose Get Info.

large-file-copy-03

4. A detailed information window will appear. Among various pieces of information you should find a complete path to your media source folder. In my case /Volumes/DOCK2 . Select the text with the path and copy it to clipboard (?+C).

large-file-copy-04

5. Open the Terminal application and execute change directory (cd) command. Localize the path to the source folder containing your multimedia materials, in my case /Volumes/DOCK2/PRO-RES/ (Hint: the external drives are always mounted under /Volumes/ directory)

large-file-copy-05

6. After changing the directory and jumping into your source folder, you need to compute an MD5 fingerprint of the files you want to archive.

MD5 digests have been widely used in the software world to provide some assurance that a transferred file has arrived intact. For example, file servers often provide a pre-computed MD5 (known as Md5sum) checksum for the files, so that a user can compare the checksum of the downloaded file to it. Most unix-based operating systems include MD5 sum utilities in their distribution packages. (ref. Wikipedia).

How to do it? You need to execute the following command (just copy paste this code below into your Terminal window and hit enter).

find -s . -type f -exec md5 -q {} \; | md5

large-file-copy-06

7. Once you execute the command, you Mac should start running the md5 for every single media file in your source folder. Eventually (it takes some time), your Mac will generate the summaryMD5 fingerprint, which is an unique identifier of the content of your media directory. In my case the fingerprint of all the media files in /Volumes/DOCK2/PRO-RES is f6e0ef7029d951e386ef2c6b8b2c3657

large-file-copy-07

8. Apply the procedure from Step 3 onwards, in order to generate MD5 fingerprint for your archived content. In my case it means applying the presented workflow to files in target /Volumes/USBStick1/ directory. Here is the result of this operation.

large-file-copy-08

9. In the final step, you simply need to compare the MD5 fingerprint generated for the source folder (in my case ) against the one generated for the target USB stick drive. If they are the same, you are good to go! Your files have been securely copied and there is almost no chance of having data corruption!

About The Author

Kamil Tamiola is a nature photographer and visual storyteller based in Aosta, Italy. You can follow his excellent blog here, his facebook here and his twitter here. For a full dose of inspiration visit his portfolio. This article was first published here.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Rob Whitworth and Selina Miles Accuse Nike of Copying Their Work with Latest Neymar Video The Core SWX Powerbase Edge wants to power all of your photo and video devices on location Canon 35mm f/1.4L II Rumored to Be Coming by End of 2015; is it Copying Sigma’s ART Lens? How to build a DIY 35mm slides and negatives copying machine

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: backup, external hard drive, Kamil Tamiola, storage, Video

Guest Author: from diyphotography.net

About Guest Author

This article was contributed to DIYP by a member of our community. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us here.

« How To Build A Room Sized Camera Obscura (+ Timelapse)
Beautiful 4K LA Timelapse Ties Stars, City Lights and Horizon »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Cameraframe is a piece of wall art made from real camera parts
  • Photographer shares the story behind the iconic Columbia Pictures logo
  • Nikon releases super fast NIKKOR Z DX 24mm f/1.7 lens for their mirrorless lineup
  • Here’s a bullet time video booth you can build yourself
  • Ricoh has discontinued the HD PENTAX-DA 21mm F3.2AL Limited silver lens

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy