Avid Pro Audio Community

Avid Pro Audio Community

How to Join & Post  •  Community Terms of Use  •  Help Us Help You

Knowledge Base Search  •  Community Search  •  Learn & Support


Avid Home Page

Go Back   Avid Pro Audio Community > Legacy Products > Pro Tools TDM Systems (Mac)

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #11  
Old 01-02-2004, 03:44 PM
ricren ricren is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Buenos Aires
Posts: 207
Default Re: DigiDelivery

This is a similar concept like the Telestream machines. We use one and is very handy, sometimes. Upload times in a regular ADSL connection are slow, so it really benefits from a T1 line.

cheers

Ric
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 01-02-2004, 03:47 PM
tvent tvent is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Helena, AR
Posts: 401
Default Re: DigiDelivery

I have only been reading about them and saw a quick demo of one at a show recently.

What benefits I saw regardless of upload/download speeds are:
1) it understands protools files
2) it does "lossless" compression
3) cost (many "servers" cost 3grand just for the licensing alone forget the hidden costs of management
4) security (if you are using ftp and think you are secure, you are either naive or don't understand how ftp works)
5) has anyone thought of exploiting this as an inhouse backup device?

What I mean by backup, is that it looked like it was as simple as drag-and-drop and fill in an email address to move a session over to the system to have it sent out. Why couldn't you do the same thing and just not sent it to anyone, or just send it to your own in-house email account? You get done with the session, run the digidelivery client software and walk away - session on your system hard drive and on your digidelivery system. You could even add a second digidelivery system offsite for redundancy to protect against catastrophic facility damage - now your session is backed up in three places and all you did was answer a few dialog quesions and click a few OK's.

Now, 80GB is not enough for this, I know. I'm not sure exactly what is under the hood, but I would imagine that if it is an open-source based OS one could either "hack it" (in the old sense of the word by opening it up and improving it beyond what was originally intended, not in the sense of remotely comprimising and abusing the system) and try adding drive space, or digi could offer a third version of the product aimed at the smaller facility that offered the feature set of the the cheaper version with expandable hard drive space (or facilitate a way for it to talk to LAN-based storage systems that way users could grow the system as their storage needs increased by just simply adding third-party, readily available LANdrive applicances - I think that idea sounds best)

Given the cost of tape backup mechanisms and tape this may not be a bad idea (still not a replacement for a tape in a vault somewhere offsite for literally unreplaceable projects, but much cheaper for the commonman nonetheless.)

Now, two digidelivery systems does approach and even surpass the cost of a DLT system, but there would be no hands-on dealing with tapes. I could even see someone providing off-site digidelivery storage space for a reasonable fee so that you could have peace of mind and not have to buy two units.

Not for everyone, yet, but for those who actually deal with routine backups it may sound good?

Digi, if the backup idea works and takes off, can i get a cut? (or a few accel cards)
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 01-02-2004, 04:04 PM
O.G. Killa's Avatar
O.G. Killa O.G. Killa is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,152
Default Re: DigiDelivery

Quote:
...but I don't understand any time saving benefits to using it use unless you are paying for a T1-T3 line....

...for a project consisting of only 600 megs or so of mixdowns (a typical CD's worth of audio) the file transfer would take 10 to 12 hours (at 128k upload speed) for each individual person recieving the project. Sending a project to 5 different people/locations would take 50 to 60 hours....
Hi, Most of the people that can afford this system will already have a T1/T3 installed. And to answer your question about download times, that is why they have a Gigbit version of the server. With a gigabit server and 5 people downloading at the same time, the only bottleneck will be on their own connection, not the server. And then you can start getting into switches with multiple gigabit ethernet cards and so on...

It's all very interesting and someone complex. but trust me when I say that the server is the one thing that is not going to be a bottleneck.

This is actually a very interesting little device. One of the production companies I do work for is interested in it and is going to check it at the NAMM show. If Digi has their own SDK for it I think it would be a no brainer. Having the ability to integrate the server into a website would be ideal. Especially in the TV and Film industry (which the company I mentioned is mainly in the business of).

If you think about it, a small production company with international clients would benefit greatly from this. Half the time I'm in the studio I'm getting pulled away to help a big name client download a mix of mine off the FTP server. And who has time to setup client accounts on the server and the FTP server itself!!! This production company I do work for has an IS/IT guy that comes in once a week to fix computers and make sure the servers are up and running...we've been asking him for months to setup the FTP server correctly and he has yet ot get to it. And then after he does, who's gonna manage it!?!? So something like this makes total sense. What would be even better is if it can be integrated into a website...

anyway...that's my two cents.
__________________
Derek Jones
Sound Engineer / Producer / Composer

Derek Jones Linkedin
Megatrax Recording Studios
Megatrax Studios Yelp Page
A-list Music Artist Page
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 01-02-2004, 04:08 PM
Shawn Simpson Shawn Simpson is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Olathe, KS
Posts: 1,948
Default Re: DigiDelivery

For what it's worth, I received some training materials from Digi via Digidelivery. The download was about 500MB and it took my computer (cable modem over airport) about 21 minutes to download.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 01-02-2004, 08:31 PM
awestaa awestaa is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: scottsdale, az.
Posts: 7
Default Re: DigiDelivery

Ok, I understand 'why' digi did this but as a geek who runs his own web/mail/ftp servers this thing doesn't help me. When I first read about Rocket Network, I thought the coolest thing about it was the integration of a geographically diverse protools sessions and the ability for remote users to collaborate not in real time, but still relatively quickly. All the file bulk file transfer stuff seemed like an expensive way to get (as others have said) ftp for dummies. Actually, using scp or rsync or any number of other file secure transfer technologies seemed to me able to do the bulk transfer thing easily and cheaply, assuming you have decent ISP accounts. But I digress...

Anyway, what NOTHING else did was give the ability to have someone put down tracks remotely and then allow someone in some other location to be able to quickly review them in a session that both users were 'sharing' (albeit in a compressed format). This seemed like a fantastic idea to me! Then I saw the price and all the intermediate servers they were using and sighed to myself "oh well" another couple of years before any musicians get to try this, I guess".

Then digi bought Rocket Networks "assets" and hope sprang up in me again....then...they release this thing.

Disappointing, at least from my perspective. So I wonder what happened to the technology they bought? Any hope of it ever coming back as an integrated feature of ProTools? Think of how cool it would be if they removed the middle server stuff and made it client to client OR allowed you to configure your own server in the middle of two clients. All they would need would be some configuration settings to specify the connections, reintegrate that old rocket network stuff, and then long distance collaboration could be a reality...well, I can dream right?

Of course there are lots of issues with firewalls and (as others have pointed out" upload speeds and all that but really for this kind of integrated review using compressed files it could be as simple as both clients connecting using the same ftp server and each person using IM for the recording musician to say "ok, I've uploaded it, hit synchronize" and then the collaborator could review it very quickly...if we had this then all that cool work that rocket and digi did to integrate the download into a session could be used again....then at the end of the day if the collaborators like the sessions, they could go back to the old way of sending bulk files however you will, via transfer cd/dvd, DigiDelivery or whatever...any hope for something like that I wonder?
__________________
_________________
www.andywest.com
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old 01-04-2004, 11:08 PM
DigiTechSupt's Avatar
DigiTechSupt DigiTechSupt is offline
Avid
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Worldwide
Posts: 33,877
Default Re: DigiDelivery



Some interesting points made in this string...

Another thing that was not mentioned was deliveries within the same facility, eliminating the "sneaker net". This way all machines would be connected to the DigiDelivery box via Gigabit ethernet (or 100base T) and up loads and downloads of any size would take minutes at most.

This eliminates hot swapping drives, incompatible drive formats (Mac/PC), incompatible disk drivers, lazy interns, water cooler chit chat down time, etc.... you get the point.

Yes this could be done without Digidelivery but not as easy. Drag and drop the session document into the client software and choose the recipient, two or three mouse clicks and it's done.

In response to some of the comments:

Supposedly, the Digidelivery box uses a "shotgun approach", for lack of the technical terminology, that can get your internet delivery delivered in up to 30 - 40% less time. It has the ability to send up to 16 streams of data (per delivery) at once.

Also, Digidelivery is capable of sending more than one delivery at a time so some one's figures on hours and hours of deliveries doesn't really apply.

If a delivery gets dis-connected mid stream (for instance, there was a power outage and the Digidelivery was shut off) When power was restored, Digidelivery would restart the delivery on it's own and pick it up where it left off.

Although many of us Pro Tools users are true geeks, myself included, many of us don't have the true geekness, or desire, to create, manage and maintain our own ftp sites. Digidelivery is designed for those.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

__________________
Avid Audio Tech Support
Help us help you - read this before posting
Support FAQ
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 01-07-2004, 03:05 PM
Mark Wheaton Mark Wheaton is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: LA, CA, USA
Posts: 938
Default Re: DigiDelivery

thanks for the input Jon and it makes me appreciate the advantages of this system. I still think for the small project studio this is something beyond what is really cost efficient. I still think the issue is not the Digidelivery product but the fact that the internet is too slow for anyone outside a big facility. I send files to clients over ftp but I deal with different clients, quite often individuals who will not have this box and want something fairly fast for eval purposes. So I send them a mp3. For commercial agencies, (still many are small and low budget,) I ftp to their site the 30 sec spot uncompressed and it's not an issue. For this to be useful you would need to be in a business where you are transferring lots of sessions somewhere. For this I think it may be a good investment. Meanwhile I dream of a faster internet that would allow regular people to exchange data fast without expensive boxes and without costly ISP bills (dream on)
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 01-14-2004, 12:34 AM
james123 james123 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 11
Default Re: DigiDelivery

This thread looks like it has run its course, but I'm curious if anyone has actually bought one of these things.

Anyone actually put down cold hard cash for this? Or have you found another server appliance solution?
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Digidelivery!!! TAFF Aspera DigiDelivery 1 12-01-2010 11:56 PM
someone please help with digidelivery jonnymacinc General Discussion 1 04-13-2010 01:29 PM
Digidelivery vs ? philper Post - Surround - Video 15 12-24-2007 12:58 PM
DigiDelivery ? mushmouth 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac) 0 08-13-2006 11:50 AM
Digidelivery oilbedamned Pro Tools TDM Systems (Mac) 14 04-25-2006 09:21 PM


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:05 PM.


Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited. Forum Hosted By: URLJet.com