R/E/P Community
R/E/P => Mastering Dynamics => Topic started by: Viitalahde on May 17, 2011, 02:25:37 AM
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OK, I'm venting out here.
Zipping incoming material seems to be impossible for most people. I've tried to phrase the zipping instructions in every possible way, and if I manage to get zipped material in, it's usually that each track is separately archived.. Unbelievable, and a lot of clicking for the client if it's an album they're sending.
It's annoying to be slightly worried every time if the material is OK or not. Sometimes the tails might be abruptly cut, and I need to reload, check, call back if it it was always like that - a lot of extra hassle that could be avoided if people just used the zip.
I have even seen professional engineers who don't know how to use the zip. But opening archives seems to never be a problem, I can't recall a single time with someone asking "what kind of a file is this?".
Phew.
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I always go with .rar when I'm sending mastered files out to clients, as I believe .rar is better optimised for PCM audio files than .zip is, but .zip does seem to be a lot quicker than .rar. Most clients send me uploaded .wav or .aif files, and I have given up asking them for .zip or .rar. I think they both contain checksum error checking. I know Bob Katz makes a good case for .flac being the file transfer format of the future, as it is a faster encode/decode than .rar or .zip, compresses the file size more, and still contains a checksum.
Sorry, not really answered your question (although maybe you didn't ask one and are just venting?) ;) Just a few observations of my own after too much coffee!
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I ask everyone to place all audio files, track sheets and comments in one folder, zip that folder, and then select that zipped file with the upload tool on my site. Seems to be clear enough. It saves everyone a lot of clicking and a successful unzip is nice assurance of a successful file transfer.
GR
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This is something I was previously concerned about, now I do not need to worry about it.
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This is something I was previously concerned about, now I do not need to worry about it.
Thats great! So what did you do? Or not?
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This is something I was previously concerned about, now I do not need to worry about it.
Did you lose all of your clients?
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https://www.wetransfer.com/
Awesome free file transfer site. It zips files for you upon uploading. I recommend all of my clients send files to me through WeTransfer and always send files back to them through WeTransfer.
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https://www.wetransfer.com/
Awesome free file transfer site. It zips files for you upon uploading. I recommend all of my clients send files to me through WeTransfer and always send files back to them through WeTransfer.
Hi Mark,
Have you ever had any issues with WeTransfer?
I had a client that was using it to send me files and it locked up on me a couple of times during download. Just curious, it may have been a fluke.
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https://www.wetransfer.com/
Awesome free file transfer site. It zips files for you upon uploading. I recommend all of my clients send files to me through WeTransfer and always send files back to them through WeTransfer.
I've been using wetransfer a lot lately and I really like it. I don't trust it to zip files though, I've had corrupted zip archives twice in the last few months when the client relied on wetransfer to do the zipping. I ask all clients to put everything in one folder and then zip that before uploading, it has been working well.
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Hi Mark,
Have you ever had any issues with WeTransfer?
I had a client that was using it to send me files and it locked up on me a couple of times during download. Just curious, it may have been a fluke.
I'm not Mark, but the only real issues I've had were the above. I do find it wants you to be on latest version of Flash and it's not as tolerant of bad connections as some services (yousendit for example). Otherwise it's been a great interim until I get my own FTP space up.
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Hi Mark,
Have you ever had any issues with WeTransfer?
I had a client that was using it to send me files and it locked up on me a couple of times during download. Just curious, it may have been a fluke.
Not a single issue here except one time the site was down for about 20-30 hours and I had to resort back to using SendSpace that day. WeTransfer is great. Zips files for you, good speeds, multiple files at once up to 2GB, clean and simple interface, email confirmations both for sent files as well as downloaded files, saves your contacts, etc. I'd give it another go, it was probably just a fluke.
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Ha ha.. :D no I use a different technique now.
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Another thumbs-up for WeTransfer. I still zip beforehand when sending, but it's a great service, and I love how it will drop directly in the folder of my choice when receiving and not just into my cluttered downloads folder. I was using yousendit for a while, but have gravitated over to WeTransfer almost entirely.
Brad
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Good stuff. Thanks for the info.
I've used yousendit for a long time with no issues ever, so I'll probably stay put for now. It seems like there are new transfer sites popping up all the time. I just received files the other day from someone using another site called "ADrive".
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Wetransfer here as well - I was put on to it by a customer last year, and have being using it increasingly.
I like the fact that the amount of traffic is effectively unlimited apart from the 2Gb per single send (nothing to stop you sending as many up-to-2Gb chunks as you wish), and I like the named indication of who has downloaded what, handy if you've sent a number of different data deliveries each copied to several people - Box.net, which I pay for, doesn't do this, only says 'someone' has downloaded. No problems with the auto zipping, BTW.
Short of having my own server, Wetransfer, Dropbox and Filezilla together with Zip and MD5 cover me pretty well for data transfer.
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Yet another WeTransfer user.
I liked it so much I even sprung for the customized branding. I still correspond with clients beforehand to pack everything together into a single Zip because it seems like WeTransfer is Zipping the files server-side which could potentially mean corruption on the way up. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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The problem I've had with DropBox is how people I invite to the file can then invite other people to the file. As I have to worry about copyright issues a lot in my particular circumstances, that kind of activity seriously spooks me.
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The problem I've had with DropBox is how people I invite to the file can then invite other people to the file. As I have to worry about copyright issues a lot in my particular circumstances, that kind of activity seriously spooks me.
I have so many problems with Dropbox, I really really dislike it. Speaking of security issues though how do people feel about wetransfer?
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Drop box is slow and crap.
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I have so many problems with Dropbox, I really really dislike it. Speaking of security issues though how do people feel about wetransfer?
I have no qualms with their security. It simply sends an email notification with a download link to the email you've specified and their servers use a proprietary encryption when sending files.
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I find Dropbox quite useful in the right circumstances: I have a customer who likes me to send completed albums back to via Dropbox overnight, for example.
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i always serve my files through dropbox, either with a link or by sharing folders with regular customers. i have a bunch of clients who like to drop their files in their shared folder so it uploads to my studio overnight. works great for mixchecks, and dropbox has an internal mechanism for checking the integrity of files so no need for zipping anymore.
as for security: i always move the files after a few days to a different folder instead of deleting it. no reuploading needed that way if a client needs it back online.
and, it's the clients responsibity to whom they give the downloadlink. i once got a call from a client asking why the downloadlink stopped working after a week. it turned out they published the url in a national press release, if i could please put it back online for a few weeks more :D
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and, it's the clients responsibity to whom they give the downloadlink. i once got a call from a client asking why the downloadlink stopped working after a week. it turned out they published the url in a national press release, if i could please put it back online for a few weeks more :D
That was one reason I moved away from the Amazon S3 service I was using before. While it was nice to pay only for the bandwidth I was actually using, a few clients who decided to distribute their albums from the link I provided cost me a pretty penny. :P