real world mezzo

[sweetness]

Okidoke.

how are you guys organizing your mezzo hierarchy? it doesnt seem too clear, alot more than retrospect, but still...

do you give each client their own overview? but then have one media set (AIT drive) that spans several overviews? but then when you have tape with something already on it, it tries to initialize it when you use it in another overview...

appreciate any tips...
thanks

[Steve Kellogg]

Originally posted by sweetness:
Okidoke.

but then have one media set (AIT drive) that spans several overviews? but then when you have tape with something already on it, it tries to initialize it when you use it in another overview...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You can easy do what you're looking for, but you have to decide to do it when you CREATE a Media Set.

FIRST, you need to go to the Preferences, and select 'Enable Advanced Media Sets' under the 'Media Set Options' heading. This will enable an extra options pane when you create your Media Sets.

NEXT, you can create a Media Set that can contain multiple Overviews. You can choose to collect overviews that match a given USER NAME, or a given CLIENT NAME, or that were created since a given CREATION DATE.

For Example, you could decide to create a Media Set that contains All Overviews where the CLIENT NAME = 'ABC WIDGETS, inc." and Creation Date Since January 1,2003.

You can even decide to create a Media Set where only your SESSION FILES are backed up. (This would allow you to store all of your SESSION FILES on a hard drive mirror, for example, while FULL project backups are still backed up to your TAPE Media Sets).

This helps greatly in the process of keeping multiple backups of your important work, since you can create a Media Set specifc to each overview, but then create an EXTRA Media Set that contains GROUPS of overviews.

In the above example, you might create a Tape Media Set of EACH OVERVIEW, but then create a DVDR Media Set of ALL OVERVIEWS for "ABC Widgets, inc." that you run backups to once a week or so.

OR you could create a TAPE Media Set of each overview and then create ANOTHER TAPE Media Set of all overviews for "ABC Widgets, inc". Since Mezzo supports multiple Archive Devices at once, you could even hook up TWO TAPE DEVICES to your system and run both backups at the same time...

For more information on this topic, you can consult Mezzo's online help. Just choose "working with Media..." from the help menu, and click on "Creating Media Sets". You'll find this feature described on the THIRD page of this section.

Best Regards.

Steve

[sweetness]

Hi Steve! thanks for the quick reply.

So I plan to call the AIT drive something like "studio backup#1". and tell it to collect overviews with a creation date of 1900, so it accepts everything.

And then make an overview for every artist. like "elvis" and even a miscellaneous one for the scraps.

and every time i make a new overview, since its created after 1900, the "studio backup#1" AIT will automatically appear in the media set list?

is this the way your commercial studio clients are working?

thanks again
lucid

[Steve Kellogg]

Originally posted by sweetness:


is this the way your commercial studio clients are working?

thanks again
lucid

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You're welcome. This is a BRAND NEW feature in Mezzo 4.5.1, so I'd hate to so who's using this feature already, but yes, that's ONE of the ways you could use it...

We tried to give you as much flexiblity as we could on this. For example, you could keep one set of tapes for each client, or you could keep one set of tapes for each EDITOR, etc.

Steve

[sweetness]

ok. While I figure out the best way to arrange this, are their any other people on here that are using this for commercial facilities? If so how are you laying things out, I want to keep things similar to whatever other PT studios are doing.

and while on the subject, I haven't upgraded this to 4.5, im still 4.0. but from the manual:

Please note that on the Macintosh platform,
support for CD/DVD-R devices is available on systems
running OS v10.2 and above.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So CD/DVD backups are only for osX?

and also, can anyone access a mezzo CD or do they need a copy of mezzo. as it is now, I give the client a copy of the work on CD from toast, which they can always access, including the audio files. I was hoping mezzo could be the same way, but automatically splitting the info up on multiple CDs when needed, and checking the sessions audio files to see if there were missing files.

thanks again...

[Steve Kellogg]

Originally posted by sweetness:
So CD/DVD backups are only for osX?

and also, can anyone access a mezzo CD or do they need a copy of mezzo. as it is now, I give the client a copy of the work on CD from toast, which they can always access, including the audio files. I was hoping mezzo could be the same way, but automatically splitting the info up on multiple CDs when needed, and checking the sessions audio files to see if there were missing files.

thanks again...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">CD/DVDR backup is only for OS X.

YES, you can access the files on a CDR/DVDR backup without the Mezzo software. The disc(s) show up in the finder. The main difference between what you'll in a Mezzo CD and what you'll see in a Toast CD is that the Mezzo CD has a couple of extra layers of folders that are there to take care of the fact that you may have file trees from MULTIPLE hard drives backed up on the CD. Once you get used to that, it's pretty easy to see where the files go if you ever need to restore them via the finder.


BTW, please feel free to file these questions to our tech support staff if you wish. That's what they're there for...

Best Regards

Steve

[Magnetic]

Just to follow up on what Steve has been saying:

Since the enhanced overview functionality is new to this version of Mezzo, we've not yet implemented it in our facility. We do broadcast/commercial/video post projects, must of which are 1Gb or less. We create an Overview and Media Set for each Client, and then drag projects to be backed up as they come in.

For the redundant backup, (you ARE doing redundant backups, right?) we create an Overview and Media Set for a range of dates, say June 2003, and then drag all projects to be backed up as they are completed.

This way, we have two different Mezzo archive structures, so in case a piece of media gets corrupted, we can easily recreate it.

Obviously, this system could be easily adapted to the new Enhanced Media Set functionality in 4.5.x.

BTW, 4.5 rocks. If you haven't upgraded yet, do it.

[sweetness]

thanks magnetic.

Since the enhanced overview functionality is new to this version of Mezzo, we've not yet implemented it in our facility.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">im not quit sure what you are referring to. we have version 4.1.2 for what its worth.

We do broadcast/commercial/video post projects, must of which are 1Gb or less. We create an Overview and Media Set for each Client, and then drag projects to be backed up as they come in.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We get a few one time sessions, which come out to a few gigs, and then have regular clients which run about 10 gigs, and sometimes we give them their own harddrive.

our media is just AIT2 and CD. the AIT2 is 50 gigs, no?

to divide it up. i was going to make one overview and call it house backup. and then make one overview for each of the regular clients. and then have a seperate AIT and media set for each overview.

when the house overview is open, it will automatically check the house drive and update it as necessary. right, if its got a plus sign on the drive in the file tree. if an overview isn't open it wont check or try to update it?

and then when the regulars come in, we change to their individual overview, and get out their AIT and back it up for them, after the house backup does its thing.

For the redundant backup, (you ARE doing redundant backups, right?) we create an Overview and Media Set for a range of dates, say June 2003, and then drag all projects to be backed up as they are completed.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">redundant meaning its regularly updating the backup? or a safety backup? i guess this AIT is the safety really, and the CD is the main one the clients take with them.

should we run a second safety with the all overviews since "creation date" option? so you create one of those media sets on a fresh AIT tape, and then put that media set in every overview, the house as well as individual clients. and then it will automatically backup to to all media sets in an overview... the regular house tape, and the new safety multioverview media set.

Im still confused how you specifically tell an overview to update to a specific media set in its list, or its supposed to backup to them all automatically. telling you when to insert new tape.

ok, now i have to stop typing!

[Magnetic]

Originally posted by sweetness:
I'm not quit sure what you are referring to. we have version 4.1.2 for what its worth.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The new version, 4.5.1 has the Enhanced Overview capability that Steve talked about in his post(s).

when the house overview is open, it will automatically check the house drive and update it as necessary. right, if its got a plus sign on the drive in the file tree. if an overview isn't open it wont check or try to update it?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Close, but not exactly. Since 4.x, Mezzo checks all the Overviews in your Library for changes, so if you've imported your "client" and "house" overviews, changes you make to your projects will be tracked by both. Obviously, they won't actually be written until you insert the tape.

redundant meaning its regularly updating the backup? or a safety backup?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Just that you have at least two copies of everything. Your "house" and "client" scenario gets that done, but if you are planning to give the "client" tape to them, you might consider making a safety of that to keep as well, since they might misplace theirs. It just depends on how paranoid you are. In my experience, a piece of backup media will occasionally fail. You need to decide how thoroughly you want to be covered when that happens.

I'm still confused how you specifically tell an overview to update to a specific media set in its list, or its supposed to backup to them all automatically. telling you when to insert new tape.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">As long as you have dragged the Project to both Overviews, Mezzo will track the changes as they occur, and flash the blue "Media Needed" light in the bottom right corner of the Main Window to alert you that you need to insert a tape.

As I said in my earlier post, 4.5.1 is the bomb. I would suggest that you upgrade, even if you don't need the OSX compatibility.