File Sharing With Customers

Overview Our goal is to efficiently send files to customers.  The challenge has been to send these large files in a timely manner.

We upgraded our internet from Shaw's 5/50 to Telus' 20/100Mbps in order to send files faster to our customers.

We tried sending a 1GB file using DropBox and Paul's LicketyLink (Amazon backend) and they both show speeds of about 1.4Mbps.  Google Drive showed about 17Mbps.  When I checked the route trace it show 3 hops for Drive and about 13 or 14 for the other two.

Now we have a Synology NAS set up and we just tried the file sharing using a 1.56GB video file.

Hans had some trouble with Chrome and Edge hanging and got it to work with Firefox....took more than 1 hour.  Han's download speed with Shaw is 7Mbps.  Assuming 1 hour for Hans...his speed was less than 3.5Mpbs (and this was during a busy internet time...afternoon).

Doug also tried the same file and downloaded it in about 15 minutes using Chrome.  Doug has Telus and 25Mbps download.  Assuming 15 minutes, Doug's speed was about 14Mbps.

Conclusion

We will now start using the NAS file sharing capability to send files to our customers.

How

Log into the NAS.  Browse to the file you want to share  on U or R.  Right click the file and select the share option at the bottom of the list.  Place a password on the file, leave the default of valid for 1 week, and capture the link.  Past the link into an email to the customer.

Download or Upload Speed Calculator

Here's a cool download or upload speed calculator that can quickly calculate how much time it takes to upload a certain sized file: http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/downloadcalculator.php

Our Internet Stats

Our current (Nov 2012) internet speeds (according to http://www.speedtest.net/)  are:

Upload: 2.94Mbps

Download: 48.61Mbps

Current speeds July 23, 2105 at 11:36am (I am running a large upload to dropbox currenly that may be affecting the results of the upload speed):

Upload: 2.51Mbps

Download: 57.95Mbps

With these speeds a 1GB file would take:

1 hour to upload.

3 minutes to download.

Stats on Reel to Reel Tapes

Reel to Reel tape (or Open Reel Tape) came in many shapes and sizes. The most common to the average consumer is 1/4" tape. Reel to Reel tape came on many different sizes of reels. Most common among these are 3 inch, 5 inch and 7 inch. Larger 10 1/2" reels were also made but not as common. Most Reel to Reel machines were able to record and play back in three different speeds. Unlike most forms of recording media, it's impossible to determine how long a Reel-to-Reel tape may play for, or how much the final conversion costs will be, even if we know the size/length of your tapes! The reason for this is that reel-to-reel tapes may have been recorded at several different speeds and on as many as four separate tracks. As you can see from the chart below, a small 300ft reel may play for as long as 2 hours or as little as 7.5 minutes depending on what speed it was recorded at and on how many tracks! To make CD's from the large, slow playing reels means we have to break up the digital file into a length that will make the CD be no more than 72 minutes long. (See charts below). (information from: www.copycatdigital.ca)

	REEL SIZE	APPROX RUN TIME PER TRACK
	Tape Length in feet	1 7/8 ips	3 3/4 ips	7 1/2 ips
	(300ft)	30 Mins	15 Mins	7.5 Mins
	(600ft)	60 Mins	30 Mins	15 Mins
	(900ft)	90 Mins	45 Mins	22 Mins

Time Chart	Recorded On Both Sides (directions)
	150 FT.	300 FT.	600 FT.	900 FT.	1200 FT.	1800 FT.	2400 FT.	3600 FT.
1 3/8 IPS	30 MIN.	1 HR.	2 HRS.	3 HRS.	4 HRS	6 HRS.	8 HRS.	12 HRS.
3 3/4 IPS	15 MIN.	30 MIN.	60 MIN.	1 1/2 HRS.	2 HRS.	3 HRS.	4 HRS.	6 HRS.
7 1/2 IPS	7 1/2 MIN.	15 MIN	30 MIN.	45 MIN.	1 HR.	1 /12 HR.	2 HRS.	3 HRS.

What to do when a film was pulldown at the wrong speed

If you are doing editing on a film and you notice that things are moving too fast or too slow, you will need to figure out the correct frame-rate and fix it. For the most part, film is recorded at standard speeds, but there are always odd-balls because older film cameras can do whacky things.

Step One: Do The Math

Look at how many frames per second (fps) your film is currently being played at, and then speed up or slow down your film to figure out the true speed.  The best case scenario is if you have access to the computer that did the pulldown, you can use it's program to preview the film at different fps speeds!  Once you know the new speed, use this simple equation:

New FPS / Old FPS = Playback Rate

And you take this rate, and simply right click on the event in Vegas and change the Playback Rate setting to this number.

Step Two: Stretch the Event

Once you've set the playback rate different, you'll need to stretch the event on the timeline longer so that you aren't clipping the end of it.

Step Three: Open MyFilms

Go to www.film2hd.com/myfilm/ and login with the admin password.  Go to the tab "Manage Films".

Step Four: Find the Film

Sort by Client ID, and your film is likely near the top.  You can scroll down and find the film by it's relative ID, which matches the filename's ID from the timeline.  Else sort by whatever is more relevant and find it.

Step Five: Change Values

There are two parts that need to be updated in the MyFilms database: Duration & FPS.  You should already know the fps, but if you only guestimated by stretching the clip, reverse your math to figure it out:

Playback Rate x Old FPS = Approximate New FPS

Of course, it's very doubtful that you got it perfect, so round it off to a real FPS count (12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 30). For the duration, enter the exact number of seconds that the new clip is at.

Transfer Speeds Between Harddrive and ?

Good article on transfer speeds between harddrives (HDD's) can be found (includes Ethernet, USB, Firewire(IEEE1394), etc): http://www.lyberty.com/tech/terms/usb.html

In summary, to transfer data from our system to a USB 2.0 HDD should take an average of 20-25 MB/s (from the article - "....actual data transfer rate [of USB 2.0 High-speed] will be lower than 480 mbps (57.2 MB/s). Our measurement result of data transfer rate with USB 2.0 storage device (HDD) is about 20 - 25 MB/s on average.")

USB 3.0.....how fast is it? Theoretically USB 3.0 is 10 times faster than 2.0, but in actual tests it is closer to 3.5 times faster.  Real world tests have shown 3.5 times faster so use a rate of ......70 - 90 MB/s

NOTE: 1 GB of data to a hardrive with.....

USB 2.0 will take......  41 to 51 minutes

USB 3.0 will take......   12 to 15 minutes....tests below show this as being more like 30 seconds

Tests

Setup

USB 3.0 cable connected to Xavier.  Date of test: Feb 4, 2013.  Using a 1GB WD Passport with 350GB of free space.

Test 1: copy 205MB from C's USER directory took 25 seconds (included 3/4 overrides) .  Result: 125 seconds per GB.

Test 2: copy 10.9Gb d:genealogy directory took 6 minutes 58 seconds.  Result: 38 seconds per GB (26 MB/s).

Test 3: copy 63GB (2 30GB files) from RAW on Space took 18 minutes 58 seconds.  Result: 18 seconds per GB (57 MB/s)

Summary:

USB 3.0 speeds ranged from 18 to 38 seconds per GB.  Average speed is about 30 seconds per GB (34 MB/s).

References:

http://www.everythingusb.com/speed.html