Setting up your home studio for computer music production can take a little time to get right. I think that if you have the available budget then a Mac would be the best option for a computer music machine. For example the background sounds you hear when you open and close windows. Turn off all network sharing (files, printers. These days, the inside of a PC could be very similar to the inside of a Mac, yet both. Unless you buy from a specialist music retailer who checks this out for you. Of moving the goalposts with the fixed specification of their new Mac models,. Which uses the Dante digital audio networking technology to offer up to 256.
Video editors will often find that they need to share files between a PC and a Mac. Use these steps to format external hard drives for both operating systems.
Top Image via Hard Drive Labels
As a video editor or Digital Imaging Technician, you will often need to share files with others. Eventually you will find out that you may not be working on the same operating system (OS) as others. If you work solely on a Mac, but need to send files to someone working on a PC, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. Let’s take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production.
Formatting the Hard Drive
A vast majority of video production will be done on a Mac or Windows operating system, so we aren’t going to cover Linux. Hard drives set up for use on Windows machines only will often use NTFS, while Macs will use HFS+. That said, if you are using both a PC and Mac in the workflow, you’ll need to use a different format.
Image from Shutterstock
You may be using only Macs or PCs in your own office, but you will also need to take into account what type of machines your client is using. If you need to send them RAW files or an edited sequence, you will need to make sure the external hard drive is set up for both operating systems. To do this, you will need to use either exFAT or FAT32 formats. This will allow you to use the hard drive on both a Mac and PC.
FAT32 is often used among general users, but FAT32 has limitations that can affect filmmakers. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 GB per file. The limitation affects both Mac and PC users. A single high resolution file can easily go over 4 GB, so Fat32 may not the best format. The best format for video production is exFAT. The maximum individual file size for exFAT is 16 EB. 1 EB, or exabyte, is 1 billion GB. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes — FAT32 can suffice.
Format Hard Drive (Mac)
1. Connect the external hard drive to the computer.
2. Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities.
3. Open Disk Utility.
4. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side.
5. Click the Partition tab.
6. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.
7. Click Options, Select Master Boot Record, and click OK.
8. Name the hard drive with a name of your choice.
9. Click the Format drop-down menu.
10. Select exFat (or MS-DOS FAT for a FAT32 format).
11. Hit Apply, then click on Partition.
Formatting Hard Drive (Windows)
Image from Shutterstock
1. Right-Click on the Windows icon in the lower left-hand corner.
2. Select Disk Management.
3. Right-Click on the external hard drive in the Volume tab.
4. Click Format.
5. Name the hard drive.
6. Select exFAT (or FAT for FAT32).
7. Click OK.
Naming and Labelling Hard Drives
If you will be using multiple external hard drives on a project, you’ll want to make sure to keep them organized. This includes the way you name the drive and how you label it.
One of my personal tricks is naming all drives after an actor. For instance, one project had several external drives, all of which were named after different Will Ferrell characters — Mugatu, Megamind, Lord Business, and Ron Burgundy. Another project used Tom Hanks characters — Forrest and Woody.
Remember that external drives should be used temporarily — and all footage should be backed up elsewhere. Use checksum verification to make sure everything is copied correctly.
There are plenty of ways you can label your drives. You can simply use some masking tape or gaff tape, and then write the name of the drive. You can also use hard drive labels, which are the awesome stickers featured above. You easily put them on your external drive to keep track of them.
If you are a parent, like myself, you can also use any stickers you have lying around the house. I recently had Kermit the Frog and Optimus Prime hard drives.
No matter how you label your hard drives, just make sure you keep track of them. You never know when you will need that footage from a three-year-old project.
Got any hard drive organizational tips to share with the community? Let us know in the comments below!
- Hardware >Computer
These days, the inside of a PC could be very similar to the inside of a Mac, yet both platforms still come with their own pros and cons...
Although the cases and, in particular the operating systems, of a PC and Mac still have a somewhat different look and feel, after so many years of fundamental internal differences it still feels slightly bizarre that nowadays you could find almost exactly the same set of hardware components inside. Nevertheless, for the musician there are still a few fundamental differences between the two platforms to bear in mind, which can prove both a blessing and a curse.
The PC musician still benefits from the intense competition between many PC and component builders that drives hardware prices down, compared with Macs of an almost identical specification. However, the resulting huge number of PC-component variables can also be a curse, because it's almost impossible to guarantee compatibility with audio hardware/software, unless you buy from a specialist music retailer who checks this out for you. Finding a PC laptop that provides good low-latency audio performance is a particularly tough challenge nowadays, as you can't swap out components that cause audio interruptions, as you can with a desktop machine.
Conversely, the Mac musician benefits from Apple enforcing a largely fixed specification and set of components for each of its computer models, because audio interface manufacturers then find it far easier to make sure that their products are totally compatible. Indeed, a few interface manufacturers, including Apogee, have totally abandoned PC support — partially, I suspect, for this very reason.
The Format Wars
Unfortunately, Apple also have a habit of moving the goalposts with the fixed specification of their new Mac models, and — for instance — their recent abandoning of Firewire ports hasn't endeared them to the host of musicians who already have a serious investment in Firewire audio interfaces, and who subsequently have to find another (and non-standard) way to plug them in when they upgrade their computers.
On the plus side, Apple's replacement for the Firewire ports is the new (and potentially wonderful) Thunderbolt technology, which has been enthusiastically welcomed by many computer users because it can transfer a huge amount of audio, video and data in both directions, at high speed, to a chain of external devices. Apogee, MOTU and Universal Audio have all expressed great interest in developing new audio products for it but, sadly, Thunderbolt has yet to arrive on PC, because Apple helped finance its final development and, hence, got first dibs on it.
USB Who?
But what about USB 3, offering 10 times the transfer speed of its USB 2 predecessor? Well here we have the opposite situation: many new PCs now sport USB 3 ports, but Apple have largely ignored it — at least until now — with rumours that they are exploring its integration into future Macs.
Coming soon to a PC near you? The AVnu alliance already includes plenty of heavyweight pro audio companies who are promoting a new format of audio-visual streaming using the once humble Ethernet port.I feel sorry for the poor audio interface manufacturers, whose customers are openly clamouring for new devices in the new USB 3 and Thunderbolt formats, neither of which are currently cross platform. Some manufacturers do seem to be quietly abandoning Firewire as it disappears from the Mac and suffers from increasing compatibility and driver efficiency problems on the PC platform, and moving over to USB.
However, a few manufacturers have already abandoned these format wars in favour of more traditional I/O ports that are more likely to remain on both Mac and PCs for the foreseeable future. Focusrite, for instance, are now championing the humble Ethernet port with their new Rednet interface range, which uses the Dante digital audio networking technology to offer up to 256 simultaneous channels of high-resolution audio (128 in and out channels at up to 96kHz, reducing to 64 in and out at 192kHz), with a claimed round-trip latency of less than 3ms.
Meanwhile, Avid and a host of other professional audio companies, including Presonus, the TC Group and Yamaha, are promoting a competing Ethernet networking standard named Audio Video Bridging (AVB), using the same Ethernet port and with a claimed latency of significantly less than a millisecond. Find out more from the AVnu Alliance (www.avnu.org).
So where does this leave the PC musician about to choose a new interface? Well, it's always wise to wait until the dust has settled when new formats emerge, to make sure that products have been put through their paces and teething problems eradicated. At this point, it's almost impossible to say which, if any, audio interface format will be the clear winner.
![Production Production](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125309635/234513482.jpg)
PC Snippets
Five thousand of these Samsung Tablets running Windows 8 were given away to software developers at Microsoft's recent BUILD conference in California.Windows 8 gets the boot: It looks as though we can expect significantly faster boot-up times from Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, even compared with the improvements found on Windows 7. Using a new hybrid shutdown and boot process that combines a normal cold boot with a modified 'resume from hibernate' mode, only the operating-system kernel processes get hibernated, but not applications or user data. The resulting hibernation data is therefore much smaller, and Microsoft claim boot times will be 30 to 70 percent faster than with Windows 7. Those with Windows 8 installed on Solid State Drives can apparently expect their PCs to boot up in around eight seconds — just the ticket when inspiration strikes!
First Windows 8 Tablet: Meanwhile, the huge mobile-phone manufacturers Samsung Electronics have collaborated with Microsoft on a new tablet computer running Windows 8, which was unveiled at the Microsoft BUILD developers' conference in California in September 2011. Prior to this, Samsung relied heavily on Google's Android operating system, so let's hope that this heralds wide acceptance of Windows 8 for future tablets: we need some stiffer mainstream competition for the ubiquitous iPad, and plenty of new music PC-based apps!