[QLab] Syncing
Rich Walsh
excellent little app called "ChronoSync", which basically keeps the
folder on the designer's computer in sync with the folder on the
playback computer.
Now, that would be dead handy when you're working with a dual system -
and even more useful in our paradigm, which is designer's laptop,
studio machine, rehearsal room & dual playback system all in sync with
the backup copy of the show on our server.
So, the question is, has anyone used any such solution and run into
any difficulties? In particular, I've found a similar product called
"Synkron" that is not only cross-platform (for the things that aren't
done on Macs), but also free. Is it any good?
I think there's a question in there; if not, then it's a tip for you -
it's certainly something we'd never looked into before...
Rich
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Kevin Faulhaber
> Now, that would be dead handy when you're working with a dual system -
> and even more useful in our paradigm, which is designer's laptop,
> studio machine, rehearsal room & dual playback system all in sync with
> the backup copy of the show on our server.
For that many different machines, I would use dropbox, though all the
machines would need to be connected to the internet.
If you are handy with the command line, rsync will do all that as well.
Kevin
Rich Walsh
> On 8/9/09 6:06 PM, Rich Walsh wrote:
>
>> Now, that would be dead handy when you're working with a dual
>> system -
>> and even more useful in our paradigm, which is designer's laptop,
>> studio machine, rehearsal room & dual playback system all in sync
>> with
>> the backup copy of the show on our server.
>
>
> For that many different machines, I would use dropbox, though all the
> machines would need to be connected to the internet.
>
> http://getdropbox.com
I had looked at that, but being connected to the internet isn't an
option - and would you really want to do that with 20GB+ of files?
They all have to go to the internet and back, don't they (at least
once)?
Plus, I think I like the idea of manually choosing for it to happen -
and GUIs are good too: I can fumble my way through the command line,
but I can't assume all our designers will be able to do that.
It's a minor thing, but our IT department's nanny filter also has
Dropbox as a blocked website, which doesn't help! Mind you, it thought
"Sound Ideas" was a spam site...
Rich
Jeremy Lee
library over multiple discs- home/ studio/ portable. It's great, and
will do everything you need it to do if you can stand a little manual
preference editing. And I don't have to worry about where I am or
what drive is connected. Next time I sync, everything will update
itself.
On Aug 9, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Rich Walsh wrote:
> OK, next question. I recently worked with a video designer who had
> an excellent little app called "ChronoSync", which basically keeps
> the folder on the designer's computer in sync with the folder on the
> playback computer.
>
> Now, that would be dead handy when you're working with a dual system
> - and even more useful in our paradigm, which is designer's laptop,
> studio machine, rehearsal room & dual playback system all in sync
> with the backup copy of the show on our server.
>
> So, the question is, has anyone used any such solution and run into
> any difficulties? In particular, I've found a similar product called
> "Synkron" that is not only cross-platform (for the things that
> aren't done on Macs), but also free. Is it any good?
>
> I think there's a question in there; if not, then it's a tip for you
> - it's certainly something we'd never looked into before...
--
Jeremy Lee
Sound Designer, NYC - USA 829
http://www.jjlee.com
Rich Walsh
> I use a utility called Unison to synchronize my iTunes and sample
> library over multiple discs- home/ studio/ portable. It's great,
> and will do everything you need it to do if you can stand a little
> manual preference editing. And I don't have to worry about where I
> am or what drive is connected. Next time I sync, everything will
> update itself.
I think I looked at that one - way too complicated to install for me
to be dishing out to visiting designers... I had Synkron up and
running in seconds.
As for Dropbox, another issue I noticed is that it's $20 a month for
100GB; between sound and video across 3 performance spaces with up to
8 shows in rep we could end up using a little more than that, which
will be expensive.
The one advantage Dropbox does seem to have other the others is a kind
of "push" approach to changes, which makes it possible to sync
multiple copies of the same folder - but presumably involves a
background process running at the same time as QLab. The other tools
seem to all be geared towards manually syncing just two folders, which
does create an interesting problem:
1. Sync a copy of the show on a server to QLab #1's audio files.
2. Sync QLab #2's audio files to the server.
3. Delete a file from QLab #1 & resync; it is deleted from the server.
4. Sync QLab #2 and it _puts the file back on server_ because it's not
there any more!
Conceptually I can't see a way round this. I guess the thing is not to
worry about deleting anything until you've finished, then just use the
spectacular bundle tool to wrap up what you've actually used on the
show and then propagate that.
Rich
Paul Gotch
> Conceptually I can't see a way round this.
You need a networked digital asset management system with support built
into QLab for it. Then all assets are just URIs into the system and you
don't give a monkey's where the file actually is until you bundle into
a standalone show(1).
This then leads you down having to design a revision control system for
the assets. In general you just can't merge changes to media files so
this gets hard as well.
Conceptually you could merge changes to the same QLab file itself but
since even the best merge heuristic would fail in some cases it's
probably not worth the bother.
-p
1) Really must get round to writing one of these one of these years
since all the current systems are either:
- Shockingly expensive
- Huge piles of "Enterprise" brokenness
- Tied to to something like Avid or Final Cut Studio
-p
--
Paul Gotch
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