PHP-Based Offloader

[Andrew McCarrick]

I'm looking at programing a PHP based off-loading system and I'm wondering if it be possible to get a PHP program to talk to the RED-Drive for formatting/deleting footage and the like? Anything in the SDK for this sort of thing?

[David Didato]

I think it would be possible with either file IO, "exec" or "system" commands. I've managed files through php before. I probably have the code in my libraries. Let me know if you would like to collaborate on this. I'm interested.

[Conrad Hunziker]

The thing about a php-based system is that you generally have a huge overhead with that. Youd need the server (apache) to process the requests and apache generally doesnt like to hang around while things take time. In addition you'd have large amounts of data flowing, which apache/php isnt very good at either. (If you think about it apache and similar servers werent designed to handle 2Gb input streams). And of course youd have a lot of setup youd need to do to if you want to replicate the downloading station across many systems.

We went with C to avoid those issues entirely.

Im not allowed to discuss what is in or not in the SDK, but if you want to use PHP with the SDK you wont get very far.

[Andrew McCarrick]

We went with C to avoid those issues entirely.

Yeah, I decided the samething last night. I was just thinking PHP so it be browser based and therefore platform independent; but I guess it's not that hard to get it to work on both PC and MAC via C++. Although I will be using PHP for a web-based preview system to upload proxy versions of material as well as other information. As well as working in a Schedule System, so call sheets can be done electronically, just check the website the night before. And possible a budget system for producers to keep track of expenses. So I'll need a way to cross from C++ to PHP to move files up into a MySQL database (metadata, links to proxy clips, and what not) and webserver to upload the clips.

David, would you be interested in working on the C++ to PHP and MySQL side of things? I'm still working on finding people willing to work on the primary system, that can code C++.

[JanneJansson]

Probably something like this:
In a file called "download.php"

<?php
echo "offloading REDDRIVE...";
exec('mount -t fat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/reddrive');
exec('rsync -a /mnt/reddrive/ /mnt/driveDownloadTo/');
exec('umount /dev/sdb1');
echo "DONE!";
?>

[Andrew McCarrick]

What would you think if I worked in LTO system control right into the program for backing up right after importing? Plug in a LTO unit, plug in RED-Drive or CF Card, import material, back-up RAW files, then work with the files themselves all right in the interface.

Also looking at doing a Video Assist system... Stand Alone and intergrated into the off-loader/R3D file/ LTO back-up control app.