Best Offloading software and laptop for on-set

[Michael Reiken]

Hi

Not sure if this covered elsewhere, but wondering what you guys use to offload media on-set. New to RED and have some big/all day shoots with multiple locations and wondering what people's DIT/offload workflow is. I usually shoot solo or with assistant. Usually bring my old 2013 MBP with two hard drives but it's USB 2 and now getting old. I want to wait till the new MacBooks come out in a few months but need a solution now. Would a 2016 Macbook Air with USB 3/ Thunderbolt 2 be fast enough? I know on my 2015 home 27" iMac transfers very quickly but it's too big to lug around. I only use Mac and do not want a PC.

Is this good software? https://www.redgiant.com/products/offload/

Or this one better? http://www.imagineproducts.com/?main_page=product_info&products_id=2

Thanks!

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

I use Offload personally. Sometimes it messes up, but only in an annoying and non-issue creating way -- plus it's few and far between when it does. Love the ease of it. I offload a lot of the stuff I shoot myself at night in hotel rooms when on travel gigs and it's usually after a 12hour day so I'm exhausted. The simplicity makes it the perfect solution for me.

Your offloads will take a VERY long time because it does the slowest but most secure data checking (I think it's checksum verification). There are no options inside the app to change it. This is very much a What You See Is What You Get scenario, which is why I turn to it.

I also use Shotput Pro, or should I say I used to. I used to use a very old version back in 2008-2010 and it was great. It was robust, lots of features, auto-naming, etc. Sometimes I just felt like I couldn't quite get it to automate the way I wanted and it seemed over-engineered. That being said, being able to decide which verification type was hugely helpful back when we were shooting R1 to CF media and we needed to turn things around quickly.

If you are doing the 1-man-band gig, buy Offload and put extra money into more media. If you've got a dedicated DIT, get ShotPut Pro and let them handle it.

 

[Chad Lancaster]

check out Hedge

https://hedgeformac.com

 

[Louis Maddalena]

There are 2 that I use regularly that I like:

ShotPut Pro: http://www.imagineproducts.com/?main_page=product_info&products_id=2

SilverStack: http://pomfort.com/silverstack/use_cases.html

Silverstack is a better more full fledged program that lets you check your footage, offload it and generate reports. Definitely more for the professional DIT and something you should keep in mind if you are looking to work on a set.

Shotput pro is great for one man band offloading footage as you go.

 

[kevinjoelson]

+1 for Sliverstack!

 

[Trevor Meier]

RapidCopyPro is my favourite. In 2x minimag -> 2x SSD testing it's 30% faster than all of the others (when using xxHash for checksums) because of its threading model. Simple, fast. Love it.

 

[Michael Reiken]

Thanks all!

RapidCopyPro is my favourite. In 2x minimag -> 2x SSD testing it's 30% faster than all of the others (when using xxHash for checksums) because of its threading model. Simple, fast. Love it.

Does RapidCopyPro let you copy to two hard drives at once?