Software for cross platform file transfer?

[Josh Bass]

Hi gang. Here is a very common (for me) real world scenario: You are shooting something, then simply handing off footage to a client. However I have an Imac at home or a Mac laptop in the field, client has Windows/PC formatted hard drive. I either have to erase their drive and reformat or I can't dump files from cam/cards onto that drive.

I believe there is software out there to aid in this? Google results have not been super helpful. Anyone have any solutions? Thanks.

[Bryan Cantwell]

Have you considered requiring your client to give you EXFAT formatted hard drives?

[Vince Pachiano]

Originally Posted by Bryan Cantwell

Have you considered requiring your client to give you EXFAT formatted hard drives?

Or, if this is something you commonly do, buy & format the hard drive your self, and give/loan/expense it to the client.

[Josh Bass]

I'm definitely not shipping my own drive to anyone ever again. Did that for awhile, one person kept if for like 4 months before finally sending it back. So that's not happening again.

I will certainly request the EXFAT thing if that will work, but sometimes people just a bring any old drive that already has a bunch of stuff on it so unless they knew beforehand to format that way, that wouldn't work.

I'm certain there is software out there to aid with this, just don't know the name of it.

[Bryan Cantwell]

Or you could just build the price of a hard drive into every shoot, and off you go. Client gets what they want, and you don't have to deal with the hassle of trying to get a drive returned.

Other than buying a windows laptop to use in the field I'm not sure what your options are. I'm not familiar with any software that will do what you're asking, it seems a complicated answer to a simple question.

[Josh Bass]

That's not a bad idea. Unfortunately I work at the tier where that extra $100 for the HD plus shipping (on the cheap end) can make or break the budget/lose me the job. Rather not expense that kind of thing unless I have to.

I know there's software for allowing Macs and PCs to talk each other, figured there'd be something to aid with transfer. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Maybe an ultra cheap windows laptop is something to look into. Something bare bones enough to simply aid with field transfers/home transfers that doesn't need to be powerful enough to do anything else (except preview/verify clips I guess).

Just seems weird in this day and age that this whole thing is still an issue.

[Ralph Gereg]

Depending on how big/how many files you need to share... I've found that DropBox comes in very handy for collaborating with colleagues in other states. Also works very nicely to sync files between my multiple computers and mac.

[Josh Bass]

Yeah, that's always the first thing I want to try but keep in mind Dropbox (free anyway) has like a 2 GB limit.

Google Drive apparently is like a 15 GB limit. If you're trying to send raw footage, that ain't much even in a more compressed format like XDCAM EX (16 GB is about 55 mins at the higher quality setting).

[Ralph Gereg]

Good point Josh, I'm currently using a free upgrade in my space I received with my Galaxy Note 3 phone. If this is a one-time thing.. I see that you can sign up for a 14-day free trial of Dropbox for Business... it gives 1TB of space. If two weeks is not long enough it is 15$/mo, I didn't see if they require any kind of long term agreement or anything.

[Josh Bass]

$15/month is not a bad deal at all. my shooting work is totally inconsistent so i never know when im going to need to deal with this stuff until i do. if you can do it month by month instead of committing to a year or some duration that might just be the thing. only use it when i need it, dig?

[Seth Bloombaum]

We are running Paragon NTFS for Mac in our college mac labs and it is DEFINITELY the thing.

No more worry about 4GB size limit on flash drives, no need to make students go crazy cleaning drives so they can reformat to EXFAT... which you have to do on a Mac, IIRC, and students walk in with their NTFS drive and can read/write like any other HFS or HFS+ volume.

It's great. It's seamless. It's up to date with the latest OS. It costs $20. What a problem solver, I love it.

Maybe when I can have gigabit upload/download speed at home I'll think that 20 or 100GB into the cloud is no big deal, but for now it's a really big deal!

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hi Josh.

I bought a cheap used Windows laptop and then converted it to Ubuntu Linux. Now, I can read and write both PC formatted external drives and Mac formatted external drives. This is built in to the newer versions of Ubuntu. So, I have a cheap Mac USB Passport drive and a cheap PC USB Passport drive for that laptop.

So, if the client brings a Mac laptop or a PC laptop, I can copy to either one. I also have a USB external card reader.

The cheap Ubuntu laptop has really made my life easier on several shoots. I just copied the files over on the spot for the client. Since I bring my external drives along, I don't worry about what the client has or doesn't have. I haven't seen a client laptop yet, either PC or Mac, that doesn't have a USB port.

The older USB2 Passport drives are around fifty bucks. Not very fast, but very compatible.

Sometimes I only need to plug my card reader into the client's laptop, but if they aren't in a big hurry, it's safer to copy the cards to MY harddrive first, then copy to their laptop. That way I have a backup in case they mess up and lose the files later somehow. (Maybe you've had clients like that too!)

Hope this helps.

[Christopher Young]

Being Widoz based here we use Transmac Used it for years with no issues.

TransMac Windows software to open Mac HFS+ Disk and DMG files and convert DMG to ISO

Allows us to plug in any Mac drive and move files back and forth from PC to the mac drive. It can also format new drives to Mac format should you need that capability.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Paul Anderegg]

Hi Chris. :-)

I like Real VNC. Back when I shot P2, I actually used my Lenova and Sony Vegas to render, but had to transcode to a FCP only format, so I hooked up my PC to the Macbook with a standard CAT5 LAN, and was able to fully control the Mac from the PC and sent files at 1Gbps back and forth to run through Compressor then back to the PC. I have to work while i drive and the Mac was in the back of seat map pocket, and swapping SD cards wasn't convenient.

Real VNC control software is free, but you need to pay a small fee to activate the file transfer function. Once you activate that on your computer, the client can download the simple Real VNC viewer software, install it, and you plug into them and do your thing. They don't need to pay to simply receive files once your paid up.

Paul

[Christopher Young]

Hmm sounds interesting Paul. Will investigate further.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney