OT Urgent need a fast server in Sydney

Anbody in Sydney Australia with a fast server that we can bring about 50GB of footage to on an external drive, load that in via Firewire, and then host the files long enough (and provide a link) for us to download in Munich? Needs to happen on the 15th of this month (this Friday, maybe Saturday). Willing to pay for it of course, just need a solution pronto.

Thanks,
Clay

FTP it. You can do it yourself if you have a fast enough internet connection. This bypasses uploading to a remote server.

[jeanmatthieu.free.fr]

Set it up and do a short test on a large enough file to estimate the time required. I suggest splitting it up into smaller parts and zipping them up..



www.strypesinpost.com

Hey Strypes, thanks for that link. Nice one.

What I need is either someone or some post-house facility in Sydney to get the files up by whatever method. I do have a fast download solution at this end, but I urgently need a partner to work with over there (killer tight deadline, failure is not an option). So far, I'm stuck as the local camera crew in Australia who are shooting a series of interviews on XDCam haven't been able to help. Thus my query.

Bust it up into smaller chunks by Interview or Card or whatever: yes.

Zip the files: doesn't really help that much with video. Only saves maybe 10%. Also, I'm wary of zipping BPAV folders. Sounds scary.

You know anybody in Sydney who can dependably wrangle this?

Clay

I'm not sure how many aussies there are on this site. Nick may chip in.

You can set up pureFTP on your end. So all they need is a fast internet connection to connect with an FTP client. FTP up/downloads can be resumable, so you don't have to start from scratch every time the server drops the connection.

An FTP client:

[cyberduck.ch]


Zipping doesn't really reduce much file size, but it does help to keep things slightly organized (or you can create a .dmg with disk utility). We had some graphics guys send us a folder of image sequences via ftp, and some frames didn't make it (i guess they didn't check the status on all the files), so there were a couple of frames with "media offline". Zipping would do much to prevent that, as well as to cut down on a bit of file size (10% on 50 gigs is 5 gigs, which could mean a couple of hours depending on the internet connection). Splitting them up into bite sized chunks helps prevent you having to re-upload one mammoth chunk in case of an interrupted internet connection.



www.strypesinpost.com

i've never had to do this, so have no experience with who is good or not.
but the top end post houses should know.

there is EFilm,
[www.efilm.com.au]

and The Lab
[thelabsydney.com.au]

Hi Nick,

thanks for the recommendations. Looks like we're going to go with The Lab. I'll post the outcome here in a few days. Might be of use somewhere down the road.

As Strypes suggested I could provide a client here, but connection speeds in Munich are very poor, to say the least. The upload would take way too long.


Clay

>but connection speeds in Munich are very poor

Any exchange of files on the internet is a two way thing. If you're trying to send a file from Sydney to Munich, you need fast uploading speeds in Sydney and fast downloading speeds in Munich. The shortest route is that one of you establish an ftp server.

If you go use a remote host, let's say your remote host is based in LA (which I assume you're not), you'll have to upload the file from sydney to your host in LA, wait for that transfer to be complete, before you download the file from LA to Munich. It's kind of similar to non-direct flight delays. If you set up an FTP server on your machine, or the post facility has an in-house FTP server, then files go directly onto that server, and you download directly from that server. Either one of you can set up the FTP server and it won't make much of a difference. Both of you will still need fast and stable internet connection to make this work efficiently. The rest of the measures just helps make the transfer more reliable and manageable.



www.strypesinpost.com

Just to round this one out, The Lab Sydney does a great job. They grabbed the files from an external drive directly to their server, thus eliminating the upload time as I had hoped. They then sent a link, which is accessed via a simple Terminal command line. No need for any software installs at this end.

Still downloading as I write, but we're receiving about 7GB an hour. Not too bad at all.

Also, excellent customer support and follow-up at all weird hours of the day. Very fair pricing too. Highly recommended.

Clay

Glad you had it sorted out, Clay.



www.strypesinpost.com