ZIP'd DDP's to DM often -- Never had an issue.
I was told by my mentor NEVER to .ZIP an audio file. Is that no longer true? He said zipping an audio file can lead to unrecoverable errors at the other end.
Normally I like to work with Disc Makers. They have really nice people working there and produce a very nice product. I sent them a DDP of a project on Monday and somehow some of the files "disappeared" from the down load location. I resent the files and they too disappeared. The last time I sent a Master CD to them they lost the CD. I guess they are just getting too big and have too many jobs going at one time. They also asked me to .ZIP the audio files from the DDP but I have had problems in the past with doing that so I sent them uncompressed.Anyone else have similar "stories"?
Hi Thomas, sorry for the hiccups with your uploads. Unfortunately it does happen from time to time that some files do not make it through during the upload process. It's hard to say the exact cause. It could be your ISP, something along the route the data is traveling, our ISP, or our servers getting hit with traffic at that particular time. I am confident in saying that "most" of the time uploads are successful though. For the year we're in the neighborhood of 2000 DDPs uploaded to us by studios/engineers. I do realize me saying that doesn't make your particular situation any less frustrating.As far as zipping/stuffing the DDP file set we actually do recommend that for DDPs. The "What is this?" link on our upload page takes you to an FAQ where we mention that.It has already been mentioned, zipping is an extra layer of security. Typically if the zipped folder opens on our end successfully we can be reasonably certain that the data inside is fine. We do occasionally receive a zip that won't open for us, but it's pretty rare. A checksum, either a CRC32 or MD5, of the entire zip folder, or one for each individual file really makes it a 100% secure process. Myself or one of the other two engineers who handle uploads for DM(Doug or Eric for the record!) verify every checksum if present. If the checksum fails for one of the files we will reject that file set and request a new upload.And as Laarsų mentioned, I'm pretty accessible. If you're having any audio/upload issues at Disc Makers feel free to call me and I will do whatever I can to help.I may put this on my biz cards:No need to trip. Please, just do the .zip. Don't give me no lip, Sri. Ask for Brian Lipski. Brian LipskiThe SoundLAB@Disc Makers1-800-468-9353
A zipped file is more robust than an unzipped file in that if there's an error it will fail to open.