OT: Backup to DVD -- larger files

I am backing up a project to DVD-ROM, and have QuickTime video clips that are larger than 5 gigs.

My question is, is there a way to automatically split large QuickTime files (or any format) to fit on a standard DVD?

Thanks in advance!
Casey

Not automatically, that I know of, but the "split" and "cat" commands will do just fine. Say your file is called "foo.mov." This command will split it into four-gigabyte chunks:

split -b 4000m foo.mov foo.

That'll give you files foo.aa through foo.whatever, each four gigs long. To put them back together again:

cat foo.?? > foo.mov

Where are these split and cat commands? FCP? Finder?

Terminal.

Hmm... I renamed a short clip to "foo.mov", and it did split the files, but I got "xaa" to "xae".



www.strypesinpost.com

Gotta input the WHOLE command, Gerard ol buddy. Or consult the man page for an explanation of the syntax.

Ah. My bad. I missed the "foo" at the end.

Okay. There's another alternative, which is the disc spanning feature in Toast. I haven't tried it yet, though..



www.strypesinpost.com

Here's a better way -- get Toast -- it will make a set of Data DVD's that you can span as far as you'd like -- create one bit BACKUP disk in Toast - then make it a MAC only DVD Rom -- and start feeding your machine DVD's - it will span large files with one index file to reload anyting you want in future - works even with Blu Ray DVD roms - very nice way to back up - Andy

Do you have to use data DVDs? They burn as slow as the devil compared to a USB or FireWire file copy. External-drive storage is really cheap now.


www.derekmok.com

Agree Derek - but hard drive storage is very iffy -- just pulled something off the shelf from 3 years ago on a firewire drive we'd archived -- drive died - unrecoverable...we'd also backed up to Optical DVD rom's -- (10 of them) and that saved the day

I like Andy's idea...I didn't know Toast would do that. I tried it out on a large file and it worked great!

Derek--I'm not in any hurry with this stuff...I'm backing up the individual tapes from my wedding to QuickTime files, since my wedding was 8 years ago, I want to do that before the tapes become unplayable. It's more for long-term backup. Speed isn't an issue for me.

I didn't really want to get into the question of what's the best way to backup data (quite a controversial topic!)...I heard hard drives can fail if they're sitting on a shelf for years without being turned on. My plan for this footage was to be data DVDs (multiple copies and locations to be safe...then make duplicates every few years, or put them on BluRay or solid-state media). I already have the video footage itself on DVDs that we can watch, and several copies of those are floating around.

Thanks!!!
Casey

DLT is also excellent - but expensive

A few ideas:

Yes, Toast will span large projects over discs, but here is the hitch:
If any of those discs becomes unreadable, the ENTIRE PROJECT is history.
A better way is to use the Split & Concat software from:
[www.xs4all.nl]
It's free, and it works great.
You could also use UnRarX from
www.unrarx.com/
Also free, or
Or, Ajoiner from
[www.digicowsoftware.com]
Which again is free.

You are still up SH1t Creek if any of the pieces gets corrupted, but unlike a DVD project spanned over multiple discs, requires much less time to reconstruct, and is easier to backup in general.

Thanks treatment!

I was planning on only spanning on an individual file basis...plus having multiple copies of the discs should help me if one disc becomes unreadable.

Casey