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1. Re: BD not great for archive...
John T Smith Dec 7, 2011 12:29 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)Wow!!!
What are you using to write those discs, and what are your write settings... and have you considered a failing drive?
I don't do BD, only DVD, but I've never created a disc that I could not later read... I use Imgburn and the slowest possible setting for the disc
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2. Re: BD not great for archive...
able123 Dec 7, 2011 12:37 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)==========
Ok, so I knew when I started that BD wasn't great for archiving data
========
how did you know that ??
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3. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 7, 2011 12:45 PM (in response to able123)how did you know that ??
Because I was told so by a number of folks on this and other forums... I think Ann was one of the more vocal ones against it. Apparently there's something about using them for data that's less than great... Not sure how it can be great for video and not great for data, but...
I was writing to the discs with an internal burner (a Pioneer BDR-205) connected with SATA, and burning with the Pioneer burning software at 2x...
I just had another file on a fifth disc fail...
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4. Re: BD not great for archive...
able123 Dec 7, 2011 12:52 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)wow.. thats bizarre !
maybe checksum stuff ( crc ) in software doesnt check stuff except headers etc for video and lets the pixel color info by without crc ( cause if one pixel is off a bit in color who would notice in HD ? ).. cant imagine what the difference could be...just taking wild guess...
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5. Re: BD not great for archive...
Ann Bens Dec 7, 2011 1:04 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)Well is was not me, but are you unable to copy the disk to HDD?
Are you still using this Pioneer burner or a different one?
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6. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 7, 2011 1:08 PM (in response to Ann Bens)Not you? I may be thinking of a different forum, perhaps... I can read from the disk and copy most things, but every now and then I'll come upon a file where it says it "can't read from the source directory" and asks me to either try again or skip. No amount of trying again will make it work, so I have to select skip.
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7. Re: BD not great for archive...
able123 Dec 7, 2011 1:12 PM (in response to Ann Bens)info found googling " blu ray problems with data storage"..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par2
========== post I found ======
you can add some parity files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par2) to data discs to increase the chance of recovering from errors the medium/drive can't compensate for. i also burn important discs at slower speeds and always verify after burning.
==============end==========
also someone mentioned re-writeable less good for date than just writeable
in my own case ( for most compatibility between dvd drives and dvd players ) important stuff i use dvd writeable and 'finalize' disk and verify disc too.
maybe do same for blu ray ??
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8. Re: BD not great for archive...
Ann Bens Dec 7, 2011 2:36 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)Is it just writen as data or BD video structure?
If its the latter can you open the stream in the BMDV folder? There you will find the HD file (m2ts).
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9. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 7, 2011 3:25 PM (in response to Ann Bens)Data
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10. Re: BD not great for archive...
John T Smith Dec 7, 2011 3:56 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)>Verbatim BD-R DL 50GB discs
>internal burner (a Pioneer BDR-205) connected with SATA, and burning with the Pioneer burning software at 2x
>I just had another file on a fifth disc fail
Verbatim is good (any individual disc may have a bad spot... several discs COULD mean a bad production run)
Pioneer is also good (ditto about any individual drive may have problems)
I don't use/know Pioneer software
I still wonder if your problem is due to a failing drive and/or the Pioneer software
Have you tried the bad file discs on a different computer?
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11. Re: BD not great for archive...
Bill Hunt Dec 7, 2011 4:54 PM (in response to davidbeisner2010)Hm-m-m, bits should be bits, but maybe I am missing something big here?
Hunt
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12. Re: BD not great for archive...
able123 Dec 7, 2011 5:15 PM (in response to Bill Hunt)that parity file thing is a sorta " forward looking" crc ( error checking ) routine.. that deals with some sorta " bursts" of data to the disc etc etc... who the heck knows...
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13. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 7, 2011 5:17 PM (in response to Bill Hunt)John, unfortunately this is the only BD drive I have available to me... I've never once had an issue with BD video discs burned with this drive... I'm honestly very much at a loss for what's going on here. Just to be clear, I burned the discs using the software that came with the drive (actually may not have been BY pioneer, but I don't remember for sure... I'm not at that computer anymore), but I'm reading the discs using Windows Explorer...
Bill, one would think...
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14. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 7, 2011 5:18 PM (in response to able123)haha, got it... I was kinda lost with that wiki link, actually... couldn't figure out why you had posted it!
Interesting concept... Never thought of attaching parity bits to files burned to a disc.
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15. Re: BD not great for archive...
Christian Jolly Dec 8, 2011 5:44 AM (in response to davidbeisner2010)Way I see it, BD-R media costs about the same as a comparably-sized HDD (right now, anyway...prices for both have been trending downward for a while). The main advantage of an HDD over optical media is that it isn't nearly as sensitive to environmental variables (heat, light, moisture, etc). SSD has it's own issues (if it gets hit by an electrical surge, you could lose EVERYTHING with no recovery options). Note that I didn't say HDD is perfect, or is NOT subject to environmental variables at all...because it is, just a little bit less so than the other options.
HDD works for me because the recovery options out there are numerous and becoming somewhat more commonplace and affordable. Even some severely damaged or broken HDDs can be recovered (albeit at a cost). When your BD-R fails, it's pretty much the end of the road. For the most part, not everything in the world must always be saved, but for example, if a client returns to me to revisit an older project, and my media is stored on an HDD that requires recovery, I can at least explain the problem to the client and allow them the option of covering the HDD recovery costs as part of the new project. If it's BD-R, then the client and I have no recourse, and no matter what, you have no shot at the job.
Another big thing for HDD for me is also how easy it is to work with. I ingest the media for editing on an eSATA connected HDD, then when the drive fills up, I disconnect it and connect a new drive. The old drive is readily available at any time. With optical media you have a lot of time spent burning the backup media and then reingesting it again.
A good practice if you go this route is to be sure that you occasionally reconnect your drives to let them spin up and keep the moving parts moving, and be mindful of any odd noises coming from the drive (weird spin up/down sounds, scratching, clicking, etc). These are the signs of a drive failing, and you either need to migrate the content to a larger drive immediately or have the contents transferred by a professional recovery facility. Keep in mind, if you are dealing with a drive that is already broken (all the noises coming out of the device), you really should not try to spend a lot of time migrating it yourself since you will continue to damage the drive and potentially compromise the remaining contents you are transferring or irreparably damage the drive to the point that a recovery facility cannot recover the last bits of data (or at least, it will become prohibitively expensive).
As for your particular issue....I wouldn't recommend ever using the software that comes with a burner. In fact, I usually purchase barebones drives and all I ever need to install - if anything - is an updated firmware or a driver. Imgburn is one of the better and more recommended utilities for burning (and it's free), but even if you just use the burning utilities built into Win7 OS you shouldn't run into trouble. Rewritable media is less reliable for archiving, and finalizing your discs is a must if you want the best chances of recovering data files later. This is just one of the quirks of writing data to optical media....writing video is much more standardized and subject to fewer concerns.
Good luck!
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16. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 8, 2011 6:19 AM (in response to Christian Jolly)Ok, so the software I've been using is CyberLink's BluRay Disc Suite that came with the drive...
I'm using HDDs now, but the reason I wasn't before is that we didn't have the budget in place for a whole RAID array, and I had no more internal slots for hard drives left... BluRay's could be bought as needed, so worked okay for my budget (I'm under a strict corporate budget)...
Got one disc left to go... we'll see how it does!
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17. Re: BD not great for archive...
Christian Jolly Dec 8, 2011 6:55 AM (in response to davidbeisner2010)CyberLink, yeah that's not so good.
For archiving, you really don't even need a RAID. If you buy good brand drives, you can archive on single drives with little concern. In the long run, it may be more expensive in the event of many drive failures (unlikely), but one downside to RAID is that if you DO have drive failures you have to fix it quickly. There's also the increased cost of running multiple drives for a given quantity of storage. And there's a greater chance of the user causing a problem that can destroy an array....pull a plug at the wrong time, swap out the wrong drive in the event of a failure, etc.
Look into eSATA. In many cases, when you buy an eSATA capable drive or enclosure, it includes a backplane to let you use one of your internal SATA ports as an eSATA connection (if not, you can usually get one for $10-$15). Very handy, just installs right easily and then you're never occupying internal space in your PC tower and you can switch drives out as often as needed.
BTW - not trying to say RAID is useless or unneccesary - some people swear by it and would call my approach folly - but for archiving it's really not necessary for most facilities. I am a very small producer myself, and while I do utilize RAID5 for some things, it's not necessary for my archiving.
I've gone through maybe 30-50 HDD in my lifetime and only ever had a failure on one of them (it was on year 5 of constant usage, so it was about time....but for $75, Fry's Electronics recovered the contents for me so there was no loss). Most of my drives are 3 years old, but I rarely keep a drive online for more than a year depending on my project load and the size of the drives.
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18. Re: BD not great for archive...
davidbeisner2010 Dec 8, 2011 7:09 AM (in response to Christian Jolly)Christian Jolly wrote:
but I rarely keep a drive online for more than a year depending on my project load and the size of the drives.
Must be nice! Unfortunately for me and my budget, that's not an option...
I suppose I should have clarified that this wasn't technically an archive deal... it was "I ran out of room on my system and couldn't bring in new stuff, so I had to clear some off for a while, even though I need it back for regular access from time to time."
Now that I've got a new 8TB external RAID, a 3TB internal RAID, and an additional 10TB of individual drives, both internal and external, I've got more than enough room for everything, so I'm just going through and pulling it all back off the BD discs so I can access it when I need it. My boss was much happier with me going out and spending $5 on a BD disc every few weeks than spending $100 on a new external drive, even though the BD discs ended up being more expensive in the long run. Funny how that works sometimes...
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19. Re: BD not great for archive...
Christian Jolly Dec 8, 2011 7:59 AM (in response to davidbeisner2010)My boss was much happier with me going out and spending $5 on a BD disc every few weeks than spending $100 on a new external drive, even though the BD discs ended up being more expensive in the long run. Funny how that works sometimes...
Yeah, that is a funny thing...that's part of the reason I left my cozy studio gig a few years ago and struck out on my own. The money decisions were always so near-sighted. And this was before the marketplace fallout. Coincidentally, one of my great arguments with my former employers had to do with our archiving practices. We were dumping everything onto DVDs at the time I was hired. I suggested they move away from that practice, and it was only after 3 years that they came around to my way of thinking. It was on the occasion that we needed to reclaim some footage from a project that was completed prior to my hiring, and lo and behold, the media had been corrupted by who-knows-what. But it was gone, and guess whose fault it was for not "taking care of the archive"....?
Anyway, I eventually parted ways with that group. After all, anyone who has ever been self-employed knows that as your own boss, you never make stupid decisions, and you are always smart about your money.
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20. Re: BD not great for archive...
Stan Jones Dec 8, 2011 8:51 AM (in response to Christian Jolly)After all, anyone who has ever been self-employed knows that as your own boss, you never make stupid decisions, and you are always smart about your money.
That's been my experience!




