CD ProRes Transfer Tool

M

Mitch Gross

Veteran
I noticed that not a lot of people have downloaded the latest version of this utility from our website. It is the easiest way to pull files from your SSD into your computer, especially if you are shooting in Apple ProRes 422(HQ) such as in 4K2HD mode. With the import the utility will also stich the ProRes clip segments into complete clips so you don't have to bother with that aspect. It's seamless and quick. The latest version will also import your RAW files if you mix and match. It's a simple but effective little tool for pulling in your files, available for both Mac & Windows.

https://odyssey7q.com/software.html
 
Mitch Gross said:
I noticed that not a lot of people have downloaded the latest version of this utility from our website. It is the easiest way to pull files from your SSD into your computer, especially if you are shooting in Apple ProRes 422(HQ) such as in 4K2HD mode. With the import the utility will also stich the ProRes clip segments into complete clips so you don't have to bother with that aspect. It's seamless and quick. The latest version will also import your RAW files if you mix and match. It's a simple but effective little tool for pulling in your files, available for both Mac & Windows.

https://odyssey7q.com/software.html
Click to expand...

Hi Mitch,

I had posted awhile ago about using one of the older versions of the utility, it corrupted a few files, and noticeably changed the total file size of some files.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...ne-Transfer-Tool-(Corrupted-files)&highlight=

I think due to some of these issues there's a little apprehension about trusting the Transfer Tool.
 
Mitch - do you recommend using the transfer tool to transfer straight from the SSD? Or would you download all clips first to a drive, and then stitch them?

EDIT: And also do you guys plan on ever merging the CLIP MERGER and PRORES TRANSFER tools into one. Basically doing the proper offloading for all clips you may have shot? Just kidding I just realized you need both of the DNG sequences present for the CLIP merger tool, but still I'm interested in further plans with these utilities to make our lives easier.

Also - there's a typo on that page with the CD Data*(IT IS SPELLED DATE) Unpacker tool title. Friendly heads up.
 
The big gripe I hear from renters/editors is that everything is in a folder. The .dng sequences I get and the Prores stuff, too, at first. But I think this program should remove the folders as well for the ProRes sequences. The real problem is that you can't view thumbnails of the clips if they are in folders. You have to go into each file individually and then back out.

Again that is only with ProRes. Obviously you don't want to be doing this with the .dng sequences. One single program that stitches all the sequences together, and then leaves the .dng's in folders while keeping the Prores files out of folders would be best. Thanks!
 
Mitch,

I did not realize there was an update to the ProRes Transfer Tool. I just downloaded & installed it. after reading the release notes, I am excited for a new feature that I see:

Choose Whether to “Place all transferred clips into the same folder (no sub-folders)”
When this option is selected: All transferred Quicktime files will be placed into the selected destination folder, instead of individual clip folders (as they are originally stored on the Odyssey 7Q). This allows for easier importing of multiple files at once into editors.
Auxiliary xml files are placed into a separate “xml” folder

I have not tried it yet, but I look forward to checking it out this weekend.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
www.pifemaster.com
 
slipstrea808 said:
The big gripe I hear from renters/editors is that everything is in a folder. The .dng sequences I get and the Prores stuff, too, at first. But I think this program should remove the folders as well for the ProRes sequences. The real problem is that you can't view thumbnails of the clips if they are in folders. You have to go into each file individually and then back out.

Again that is only with ProRes. Obviously you don't want to be doing this with the .dng sequences. One single program that stitches all the sequences together, and then leaves the .dng's in folders while keeping the Prores files out of folders would be best. Thanks!
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Agreed. I hate the folder structure. It's odd that if you do one clip, it doesn't put it in a folder with the merger tool, but if you batch a folder, it creates subfolders.
And like you said DNGs in folders is totally fine.
 
I tried to use the prores transfer tool a few times on my last job but it is way to simplistic in a bad way. I was storing footage from several days of shooting on my SSD and found it to be a real pain that the tool only supports transferring one clip or all clips. That meant I'd have had to either transfer 3x as much data as I needed (2/3 of the data was already backed up, but card was not formatted since a lot can fit on a 512GB SSD and extra backups are always nice) or I would have had to go clip by clip and manually tell the tool to transfer those. Frankly I'd rather the editor have to put two clips together in the rare case a used portion of the clip spanned to segments than waste a ton of my time using the transfer tool which I found to be slower and have none of the features I look for in a transfer tool. The free copy tool I use has CRC checks and queuing, CD's transfer tool seems slower and has even less functionality than any OS's standard copy function.

I still have no idea why CD can't use exFAT for their SSDs and skip the pain of splitting clips every 4GB... This is going to be a much much bigger pain with 4k Prores since splits will happen 4x as often due to the 4x higher bitrate. It's just an extra annoyance to add onto the 7Q's already very unfriendly file structure. I also had a weird problem where if there was a power loss on the 7Q while recording, the recovery process would leave multiple identical folders and clips all with the same names. My copy utility would keep saying I had already copied the clip and then I'd end up copying the same clip and overwrite it 4 times, I just had to hope they were all the same files and it wasn't just 3 corrupt clips and 1 less corrupt clip. Not sure if all the identically named files took up additional space or if it was just a weird file table bug, but the big problem came when the 7Q may have reused that clip number for the next clip and I lost a very important opening shot and had to pull it from the SDHC AVCHD. Not sure what happened but I guess the last clip of the day had a power loss and so it there were 4 folders called CLIP0080 or whatever and then when I went to record the next clip the next day it either just lost the file or it also called it CLIP0080 but that file never got backed up because I had already backed up CLIP0080 the previous day.

For PRORES files that don't have very high write speed requirements, why can't CD just write the MOV file directly into a folder of clips at record time just like any other recorder/camera does? Then there wouldn't be any of these annoying issues that seem to be from all clip folders being built only at ejecting time, not to mention how annoying it is that I'll pull out the card at the end of the day only to realize I have to go back to the 7Q, find power for it, put the SSD back in and use the eject function for my clips to finally become visible in the filesystem for dumping on a computer...

This experience is all on the last firmware, havent tried the new one yet, but does it address any of these issues? Will the next one?
 
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Noah, I suggest you put your issues into a support ticket on our website. Then our techs can address it with you more directly.

The tool is not for everyone, but I do believe that the majority of the time it is a very useful and easy to use utility. I use it to offload all my files directly from the SSD into my computer.
 
Mitch, I hadn't realised there was a new version either. Is there a way to get notifications of these new versions, like there is with the firmware? Can you raise that as a request with your web guy?
 
There is a way -- me. I neglected to mention it in our other announcements. That's why I started this thread when I realized.
 
Mitch Gross said:
There is a way -- me. I neglected to mention it in our other announcements. That's why I started this thread when I realized.
Click to expand...

great, are you going to pop around to each of us to let us know new updates? I'll put the kettle on! ;)

seriously though, not everyone would see a post here. A simple email update subscription would be good.
 
A question about spanned SSD clips - what's the suggested workflow for these? Currently if you ingest directly from multiple SSD's, any clips that span SSD's dont get joined (correct?).
 
Pgale said:
A question about spanned SSD clips - what's the suggested workflow for these? Currently if you ingest directly from multiple SSD's, any clips that span SSD's dont get joined (correct?).
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My question exactly, how do I join two clips spanning two SSD's?
 
Just tried to use the latest version of this tool again on the DIT's computer (macbook pro) and it kept freezing at 0% and giving Java errors in the log. Also it kept locking the source files so that I couldn't copy with finder either until after restarting the computer. We were in a bit of a rush but after many tries I think we got all the uhd ProRes files copied though various broken work files were left around by the failed tries that had to be deleted. It did not inspire confidence at all. The complete lack of information during transfer is pretty terrible. No time estimate, no speed average, no current file detail, no error info, just sits at 0% until you decide it must be frozen. Next time I guess I'll have to just recommend they copy the many split ProRes files straight off the SSD and deal with the pain of duplicating and combining them later when there is more time to troubleshoot the CD ProRes transfer tool or through some other method that's less sketchy.
 
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Mitch Gross said:
Please report your issues to cdsupport -- at -- convergent-design so that we can work to assist you and improve the product.
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Oh I did open a ticket about that and a number of other issues I had that day with the 7q, but I thought I'd share in case it might help any other users.
 
Mitch or anyone, can you please point to a manual or instruct how to join spanned clips from two SSD's?
 
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