OT: Organizing Sound effects

VMP wrote on 5/25/2007, 1:14 PM
In the past years I have purchased / recorded many sound effect material.

I am now thinking of making a good folder structure for these files.

How do you guys organise your SFX material?
Any one use the original Sony Pictures SFX series folder structure?

Is there any 'industry standard' folder structure that filmmakers use?

Thanks for any advice,

Comments

DavidSinger wrote on 5/25/2007, 5:44 PM
I keep all sound effects, including captured dialog, on a laptop. Generic sound stuff I store in folders named something that describes the generic sound, under parent folders of the source. I always need to credit/prove the source, so I don't strip files out of their source folders. Thus I might have several different "\Elephants" folders, one for each source. Fortunately, it is easy to do a search on folders called "Elephants" to find 'em all, regardless of source (provided they are all on a huge gb drive).

Anyway, I have the laptop networked to my editing computers. Each project gets its own 250gb hard drive. All project folder structure is based on project scenes, and within each scene I have
\DATA
\Renders (and within that \Final & \Intermediate)
\Veg

That way each scene gets its own Veg and Renders, and the \DATA is the host for the copies of the audio/visual/etc that are used in a particular scene.

Redundant? You bet. I'll have some sounds copied to a dozen different directories, and some video copied to 3 or 4 different scenes.

But, with 250gb per project (only costs me $79 for the working drive, and $79 for the backup drive, and I can plug 'em in at will) I don't worry about 'saving space' any more. If a scene requires an "elephant" sound, I search my laptop, then drag a copy into that scene's \DATA folder - making sure to re-name the sound copy to include the path on which the original sound can be found on the laptop. And THAT is a snap to do: highlight/copy the address path from Windows Explorer, right-click "rename" on the file, and insert the path name in the file name I just copied into \DATA. Presto, documented right within the Vegas editing environment. And if I'm not satisfied with that particular sound, I know exactly which "elephant" sound to not bother listening to again.

I can grab any project's hard drive, plug it in, and have 100% of the source material immediately available to all the veg files. Moreover, all documentation of source material includes name of source (because that's how I name the parent source files on the laptop} and is sitting right there on the hard drive. "Hey, were'd we get that elephant sound in the zoo scene? Is that ours or did we buy it?" "Well, let's just look in the Project\Zoo\Data folder..."
VMP wrote on 5/25/2007, 8:26 PM
Hi DavidSinger ,

Thanks for your reply.

The HD you are talking about are they internal or external?
I am guessing they are external drives?
Because they are easier to add-on/ remove.

So for every project you have 2 X 250g HD (backup+ original)
that you put away in a shelf etc when it is ready?

My usual projects takes up around 200g too.

But when comparing (good) external H drives VS DVD+R, DVD's still come much cheaper.
So until now I have put my finished projects with source media on DVD's.

For example a project folder of 50g I split into parts by using Winrar.
I set Winrar to split it onto parts of no more than 4.2 g (Single layer DVD+R size).

Depending on the media the total final zipped/rared project size will be also smaller for example 40g instead of the original 50g.

So that will be 4.2g /divided by/ 40g = 10 DVDS.


A Digiconnect 250GB external drive is around 80 euros here in EU.

For 250g you need -/+ about 60 DVD's
Single layer.
That comes to around 48 Euros.

80 VS 48.


DVD Option
###

Good side of the DVD options is:

1. It is cheaper.
2. If you have a fast good internal drive on your system you can work smoothly after extracting the files.
Compared to the slower USB external drives.


The bad’s are:

Luckily I don't need to get on my past projects very often.

Otherwise it is really a pain in the **.

Because
1. You need to extract all the disks.
2. You need a temp disc for using these files.


EXTERNAL DRIVE
##

The good side:

1. (Especially when you are re-using your projects) It is much easier to access your files.
2. Above 200g more compact in physical size.


The bad side of External HD:

1. Pricey.

2. Slow data rate (The cheaper USB version)

---------------------

I cant say much about durability of both storage media.

It all depends on how you handle it I guess.

HD breaks if you drop it.
In the years I have learned that cooling is a VERY important factor for HD life.

DVDs are useless if you scratch them.

But looking as it is going I am sure that I will step over to 'one piece' easy accessible storage media in the future too.
Coursedesign wrote on 5/25/2007, 10:35 PM
In the years I have learned that cooling is a VERY important factor for HD life.

This was truly critical until the latest generation hard drives.

Major in-house research at Google found that current drives are not very sensitive to increased temperatures, and this was over a VERY large number of drives of many different brands.
VMP wrote on 5/26/2007, 7:30 AM
Current drives are not very sensitive to increased temperatures, and this was over a VERY large number of drives of many different brands.

I mainly use Western Digital internal drives.
It is possible that they are now more resistant to high temp.

Bu I have lost two discs last year, I think they are about 2 years old.

Luckily only the 'reading pins' get damaged not the discs itself.
So the data could be put over to a new disc by the computer stores.

Although the guaranty is now over maybe I can repair the pins by myself?

But I get quite nervous now when I think about HD problems so I have put a cooler fan on each drive.
I have about 4 internal drives in my system.
So counting back and front, I have about 6! fans that cools the system.

Makes a lot of noise, but rather that than loosing my data.

I cant seem to get over the HD fear problem ;-)).

I have thought about building my system in a cabinet with inside sound cancelling material etc for the sound problem that I have now hehe.
VMP wrote on 5/26/2007, 9:20 AM
BTW what are good external price/quality balance H drives?
Say around 250G.

And what do you need to store them away?
Maybe a HD rack?

V
Coursedesign wrote on 5/26/2007, 3:25 PM
You may have noticed that Western Digital cut their warranty period from 3 years to 1 year, not long ago.

Did you wonder why?

I have switched from WD to first Seagate, and more recently to Samsung Spinpoint, both with 5-year warranties and they're more quiet, faster, and more reliable than WD, as confirmed not just by my personal experience but by many many others.

Did I mention that they have good prices too? With 500GB drives going for $119, why bother with anything smaller? OK, for project drives maybe.

If you want external drives, make them yourself with a good external enclosure with an Oxford chip if you prefer firewire, or SATA/eSATA if you want/need much better performance.