e-mailing Pro Tools files

[scotto]

Anyone had any luck e-mailing someone Pro Tools files? I'm trying to send some 10 mb files via Netscape Communicator 4.5, and am running into problems. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Malmi]

with RAR you can create a self extract compresed archive .If you do in 1.4 mb mode (like if you do for floppy)this are segmented in a small archives that you can send thru email more safetly .

[Don Henry]

I dunno dude. Why not just send it over FedEx or something? E-mailing PT files can be really time consuming like backing up a hard disk. Besides, many servers have a message size limit of 750K. That's only a few seconds of uncompressed 24 bit mono audio.

[Don Henry]

I dunno dude. Why not just send it over FedEx or something? E-mailing PT files can be really time consuming like backing up a hard disk. Besides, many servers have a message size limit of 750K. That's only a few seconds of uncompressed 24 bit mono audio.

[gqkelly]

You have definitely picked a hard one. I am a professional producer and remixer (in LA) and I sometimes send files over e-mail to another producer and A&R guy (Sony) in Japan. What we do (since we both have StudioVisionPro and Protools) is use mpeg encoders to encode the file into a MP3 format, then use the MPeg decoders and expand them back into (it gives you a choice of AIFF, SDII, etc.) regular files to import back into ProTools, or whatever. I also heard that several companies might have plug-ins available soon. Bias, and Steinberg might be some good places to check. Good luck on keeping the quality, especially at 24 bit though! A word to the wise, never try and compress pro audio whenever possible, you never know what can happen, treat them like your baby!

[ratz]

I looked into audio file compression software about 8 months ago to try and save on disk space, but quickly learned it simply should not be done, that is, the quality suffers significantly. However, I was told I could use "lossless" audio compression software which claims zero affect on quality, but when I was looking there was no lossless 24bit compression software, only 16bit. Emagic has a product called "Zap" and Waves has a product called "TrackPac Pro". I checked again about 3 months ago on both of these products, and both still only provided "lossless" compression on 16bit audio files.

[scotto]

Thanks everyone. It turns out that converting the files to mp3 format (only for listening purposes) works the best. These are :60 spots that we are sending to clients for approval. This has worked well so far if anyone else has similar needs. Take care.