FS7: Hedge for mac

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
I got turned on to " Hedge for Mac" (another download program) on another thread last week on this forum and got a chance to try it out today. I just wanted to report here how impressed I was. Not only is the program fast but there is a wealth of information on how to speed up your downloads on their website that I knew nothing about beforehand. Anyway I just want to report that I downloaded a filled 128G XQD G card today simultaneously to 2 powered external drives ( not SSD's) in about 10 minutes - that includes checksum assurance. 10 minutes!

That's using a free 10 day trial of the $100 Premium (fast) version of Hedge ( the slower version is free ) , a late 2012 MacbookPro, and connecting my USB 3.0 destination drives to a powered thunderbolt Dock and the XQD to the Mac USB 3.0 port directly. They said I 'd have the same results using a much cheaper USB3.0 powered hub.

I never knew such fast and reliable download speeds are possible and it changes my whole conception of shooting 4K and downloading after the shoot.

I haven't used any other download software except Catalyst Browse so maybe this isn't such a big deal, but if its unusual - check it out.
Its a very simple interface and just today an upgrade came out offering reports. They've said the reports won't slow it down . Also I got immediate and extensive responses Paul at Hedge as soon as I asked any questions.

I have no relationship to this company except as a happy user.

https://hedgeformac.com

Lenny Levy
 
Just did another test at home :

128G XQD card going to 2 bus powered cheap hard drives . Also using a late 2012 MacbookPro, and connecting my USB 3.0 destination drives to a powered thunderbolt Dock and the XQD to the Mac USB 3.0 port directly. Simultaneous transfer.

A new Seagate 4T drive took 14 1/2 minutes and an older 1T Seagate drive took 18 min.., So total time was 18 min to download both drives and now with a written report. I'm going to buy a USB 3.0 hub so I don't need to bring along my Tbolt dock in the future.

How does that compare to other download programs?
 
I had some idea to use a USB3 hub at some stage but some research seemed to showed for large video files it wasn't a good idea.. sorry cant remember the specifics ..
 
Thanks for the review of Hedge. Even though I already own Shotput Pro I think I'm going to give this a try and see if I like it better.

I've had mixed results with USB3.0 and have had a two hubs fail on me at the worst possible times. Generally a powered hub works best but mostly they are junk and not designed for the demands of passing huge amounts of data for hours on end. I got one of these OWC hubs a couple of years ago and now I never travel without it. It has been fantastic.


  • 2 x Thunderbolt 2 Ports
  • 5 x USB 3.0 Ports
  • 1 x FireWire 800 Port
  • 1 x HDMI 1.4b with 4K Display Support

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...ng_owctb2dock12t1_owc_thunderbolt_2_dock.html
 
Doug,

What kind of download times do you get with Shotput and do you also do simultaneous transfers?

I used to have some USB3.0 hubs and had trouble with them also.
The guys at Hedge recommended :
"TP-Link 7 port AC powered hubs, very happy with them as they have power switch: sometimes card readers get a bit 'lost' after importing a lot of data so I like to reset my hubs once a day by power cycling them - after importing very large amounts of data from many different sources hubs and card readers start to get confused in some way. I think it has to do with caches on the devices themselves. So, once in a while I reconnect all power supplies. They get rebooted in a sense."
 
I think for DIT with a complicated show, Shotput may offer more ways to keep things organized - just a guess though. For me I wanted simple.
 
To answer for Doug.. yes SPP you can transfer simultaneously to as many devices as you can plug in.. that was its main selling point way back.. alot faster than to each one separately .. I think your right that SPP you can set up quite complicated "nested" folders and alot of presets.. for me too Im just only dealing with my own camera so keep it simple.. I wonder how Hedge is getting such quick times.. maybe their verification is not as " thorough " as SPP.. or SPP is too much so.. ? SPP is definitely still the defacto software as far as I can see.. probably because it was one of the early ones and does work very well.. and just that having to learn another program is perceived as a pain and worry when it comes to something as serious as down loading footage..
 
The Hedge website says they're using a different faster algorithm to verify.

What I've gleaned so far from what they say is that :

MD5 is the algorithm that’s in use by most data handling and backup apps. Hedge uses the "more modern xxHash algorithm".

"It is a non-cryptographic hash algorithm, and it’s fast. Really fast. Our benchmarks show it is at least 15% faster than MD5. If you have a fast Mac, the speed gain can be a lot bigger. Some of our users have reported a 40% speed increase." They say its just as accurate.

Again - I'm no expert on downloading. I know this is way faster than what I've been doing but that was just single transfers - drag and drop or Catalyst.

What kind of speeds do you guys get with ShotPut?

Re the interface - This is from Cinema 5D :

"It’s by far the simplest tool on the market and it’s extremely intuitive. The interface is very graphical and minimalistic, and that’s a good thing—the last thing you want to deal with on set is a sophisticated interface that confuses you or makes you feel unsure as to whether data has been safely transferred or not. Like the other solutions, Hedge can transfer to multiple destinations at once, but it does that in a very visual way. It shows you progress bars for each transfer. This is very reassuring. Everything is cross-referenced with the original file (checksum verification) too, of course. For extendable workflows, it also has functionality to auto-launch AppleScripts and the like—that makes it extendable and integrable into existing workflows if required (note: I did not test this feature).


There’s not much to say about Hedge for Mac other than it does exactly what it is supposed to, and it works. The interface is its biggest drawing point, especially compared to ShotPut Pro which takes a bit of time of to get used to when you first pick it up (however it’s quite straightforward once you have figured out how it works). Its simplicity is similar to Red Giant Offload..."
 
Yes SPP has the xxHash option too.. from about a year ago or so.. thats what I set it to.. I would agree that SPP takes some time to sort out compared maybe to Hedge.. possibly why also with their latest V6.. there is now a drag a drop interface option..as well as pre set.. that looks very much like Hedge ..source one side,dest the other.. having a progress bar is pretty basic and you would expect that for sure !
A new feature in V6 that might help editors,although it adds to the down load time is thumbnails with the report 1 or 4 per clip.. I dont use this if we have shot alot .. but do for some corp shoots when we dont shoot much per day..

For a totally full 128GB SxS pro + XAVC HD.. to 2 x 5,200rpm BUS powered small drives USB3/Thunder bolt Sonnet card reader.. 2014 Airbook.. about 40-45 mins.. the card fits 133 mins of footage .. 23.98p

End of the day Im sure they are both very good.. I just really wonder how Hedge seems to get so much faster down loads..the technology must be straight forward ,same xxHash ..I wonder what hedge knows that the might of Imagine products doesn't ..?
 
Donny,
If Shotput is also using xxHash option, then I also don't understand the difference between our download speeds. I doubt it could be the difference between using XQD cards vs your SxS.

Could it be computer speed? Paul at Hedge said that could make a big difference, but that much? Yours is newer though. I've got a 3.5GHz I7 with 4 cores , 8MB L3 cache and 32G memory.

How are your drives connected?

Again if anybody else is reading I'm curious what other download speeds people are getting with Shotput or Red Giant.

Lenny
 
ha yes I checked and my computer is mid 2012 ! .. some how convinced myself it was 14 !! 1.8 Ghz processor.. 5 Core 4GB memory..I have read that its the card reader and drives that make the difference more than the computer itself.. but dont know if thats correct.... drives are connected by USB3.. Air has two USB ports.. but there is an internal splitter.. so thats slowing it a bit I guess.. but all laptops are like this I believe...

The Newsshooter article on Hedge also said that Hedge was alot faster than SPP though.. on the same computer.. something is different besides xxHash..
 
Paul at Hedge said that with everything else optimized the speed of the computer could make a big difference. 1.8Ghz vs 3.5GHz is pretty substantial, but hell I'm way over my head on this.
 
Yes me too.. I dont know if that makes alot of difference.. Im sure I saw some video where someone was saying that that,within reason.. the actual computer specs didnt make that much difference .. maybe the memory to some extent ..maybe someone else knows ?
 
AFAIK - USB does require some processor work, I remember the old arguments of Firewire vs USB, Firewire had its own dedicated chipset so was just told do a data transfer a bit like a manager telling an employee to do a task were as USB needs the processor to do it (no employees the manager has to do it).

So yes a faster processor will make a difference.
 
ah interesting .. although the news shooter review he also got faster times using the same computer.. but yes maybe I need a new computer too !!
 
Agreed

Agreed

Donny 123 said:
ah interesting .. although the news shooter review he also got faster times using the same computer.. but yes maybe I need a new computer too !!
Click to expand...
Hedge is the preferred choice of DIT's in Houston these days. I tried it on my last multicamera project and have been using it ever since with great confidence.
 
Chris.. do you know if the actual computer processing power makes a big difference to down load times..?.. any ideas on how Hedge is managing to be so much faster.. Im not trying to question if Hedge is doing a good job..Im sure it is.. just how it is managing to be so fast.. I guess it might be their secret sauce .. and they don't want to say.. being a creature of habit and just paying for the recent SPP up grade I,ll most likely stick with it.. but will give hedge a look too..
 
I got an email from Paul Matthijs at Hedge for Mac this morning. He wanted to respond to some questions asked here but was having trouble getting posted so he asked me to post this for the time being . I assume I'm not violating any DVXUser policies on this as we generally appreciate having manufacturers input on the forums.
Again I have no association with Hedge for Mac at all other than as a recent user, and have no experience with or opinion about any of its competitors. From Paul:

"Regarding our Fast Lane copy engine: it is indeed our secret sauce, but I’m happy to tell you all about it. You’re not getting any source code though ;)

For Fast Lane we essentially rewrote OS X’s standard copy method. That method is in use by most apps (including our free version of Hedge) and has quite a few limitations when using it for offloading media. It’s really fast for files under 10 MB, it does redundant reads en writes when trying to do simultaneous transfers and it does not verify, so you have to “attach” your own verification method after the copy has finished. Next to that, it also has overhead so you won’t be able to use all the available bandwidth. You can see this clearly when doing a speedtest with Blackmagic’s app: it reports about 20% more than real life Finder copy speeds.

So our Fast Lane engine is so fast because it fixes all these issues and some more in a smart way. Hedge can verify while copying, doing simultaneous transfers from multiple sources to multiple destinations where a slow one won’t drag down another.

There are some limitations though: it is not good at keeping backups in sync. You should use rsync or Carbon Copy Cloner for this.
I hope to get to the moderation queue soon so I can keep answering your questions if needed.

Best,
Paul Matthijs
CEO, Hedge for Mac"
 
Thanks Leni..

I dont understand this though.. "it is not good at keeping backups in sync.".. so SPP is using the finder to copy.. then applying its verification ?
 
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