Use Dropbox for source files to NLE?

M

M1CEtro

Active member
Hey guys

I shoot music videos with a 5d Mark 3 and dump the files to my SSD to edit in Sony Vegas. I back up my files to external harddrive. I was thinking about the possibility of instead putting the files on my SSD for Vegas to read from, put the files in a big Dropbox folder and have Vegas read from there. That way I could work on my project easily on multiple computers.

As anyone tried this? I assume that there would be preformance issues. I assume pulling the files from Dropbox will not be as efficient/smooth when editing in vegas as compared to the SSD. I know dropbox can have big size folders but I don't see anything anywhere about data transfer rates.

Thoughts on this?

Thanks

M1CEtro
 
Dropbox synchronizes the files to your hard drive. It does not pull the files from the server each time you open them. Essentially, you will not experience any real differences in playback performance if the files are saved in your Dropbox folder or not.

If you have enough free space in your Dropbox and that's the workflow you want, then go for it.
 
Editing online to a remote server is unlikely to have the data rate required and is probably served up in packets.
 
Shooter said:
Editing online to a remote server is unlikely to have the data rate required and is probably served up in packets.
Click to expand...

Again, I just want to make things clear for anyone that might misunderstand what Dropbox is by reading this thread: network speed has zero impact on editing performance.

You're not flinging files back and forth over the internet if you're editing with files stored in your Dropbox. The way Dropbox is works is that the files are synced in their entirety on the computers that you have Dropbox installed on. The entire files are downloaded. If you can drop the file into your NLE, it's stored directly on your computer, not streaming from the cloud.

This is why I said that playback performance will not be affected at all based on whether you store your files in your Dropbox folder or in some random folder on your computer. Either way, the files are on your hard drive.

The only reason to use Dropbox is for workflow purposes. For example, if you wanted to sync your project file(s)/media and access them from multiple computers.
 
And I guess Dropbox (or similar) would also be a good way to keep your project files backed up?
 
If the upload and download speed is anything like as poor as we get in New Zealand...this would be a horrendous time and hardware consuming process. eg shifting 10-100GB+ via the internet! I cant see where the efficiencies would be compared to sharing transportable drives. NB- this what the O.P wanted to do...
I was thinking about the possibility of instead putting the files on my SSD for Vegas to read from, put the files in a big Dropbox folder and have Vegas read from there. That way I could work on my project easily on multiple computers.
Click to expand...
 
Shooter said:
If the upload and download speed is anything like as poor as we get in New Zealand...this would be a horrendous time and hardware consuming process. eg shifting 10-100GB+ via the internet! I cant see where the efficiencies would be compared to sharing transportable drives. NB- this what the O.P wanted to do...
Click to expand...

Upload/download has nothing to do with it. Your Dropbox folder and its contents are on your local drive. You are not accessing it from the Internet. Working from your Dropbox folder is no different than working from any other local folder.

(You just have to make sure that no one else who has access to the folder moves or deletes the files.)
 
O.P clearly wants to edit from the Drop Box...Not the local drive. "instead", "read", "Vegas read from there" are the operative words.
I was thinking about the possibility of instead putting the files on my SSD for Vegas to read from, put the files in a big Dropbox folder and have Vegas read from there.
Click to expand...
 
Sure...I guess its up to him to try it for himself then but he stated he didn't want them on a local drive. How's that going to work for him and working on multiple computers? Whatever...synching requires uploading and downloading and multiple points of access require repeating that downloading process.
 
Shooter said:
Sure...I guess its up to him to try it for himself then but he stated he didn't want them on a local drive. How's that going to work for him and working on multiple computers? Whatever...synching requires uploading and downloading and multiple points of access require repeating that downloading process.
Click to expand...

I suppose it must be asked to avoid further confusion if you aware of what Dropbox is?

It doesn't matter what the OP wants to do with Dropbox if it doesn't work that way. As David and I have been attempting to explain, there is no way to "stream" files from the cloud using Dropbox, it only does syncing to local drives.
 
It doesn't matter what the OP wants to do with Dropbox if it doesn't work that way. As David and I have been attempting to explain, there is no way to "stream" files from the cloud using Dropbox
Click to expand...
, Thats exactly what I have been saying since my 1st post in the thread. Others decided to inform me that the files are synched to a local drive. I know that! Its the OP that did not want to use a local drive in his workflow.
 
The only way a "drop box" "sugarsync" cloud based storage system will work is IF the O.P. is collaborating with someone else in another city, country, planet. That way media/edl/xml can be shared between parties. But 1st it has to be downloaded onto the NLE host computer or attached HD's for accessing.

Hence there is no merit in using any of the above file sharing systems for better hard drive performance.

In regards to using the above as an "archiving system" for storage of media ...............good luck with that one.
 
I wish the OP would chime in to clarify, but I don't see where better hard drive performance is his issue. He wants to be able to work from multiple computers without having to carry around a hard drive, which Dropbox would absolutely let him do, so long as the Dropbox folder is on all of those computers.
 
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