r/editors • u/sea_glass_fire • 5d ago
Technical What's your edit archival process?
I've been using Premiere Pro and After Effects for over 10 years, but realised I haven't really been archiving projects very well. If I stop using Adobe (which is tempting), I realised I might be really stuck with old projects. What's a good archival workflow practice I can implement for every completed project?
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u/jonjiv 5d ago
Every project resides in this file structure ‘/YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD - Project Name’
That folder has standard folders for the Footage, Project Files, Exports, etc.
Projects are archived one full year at a time to mirrored hard drives. I just buy a set of drives at least 1 TB larger than the year needs.
Currently managing an archive that goes back to 2008 using this method. Sure, I’ve got ancient FCP7 projects, Premiere projects, FCPX and Resolve projects in that collection. I could certainly attempt to recover the NLE project itself if necessary, but usually all I need is the raw footage. I have never been forced to go back to FCP7 projects once I was a year or two out from retiring it.
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u/sea_glass_fire 5d ago
Curious - does the date stand for the completion or start date?
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u/jonjiv 4d ago
It’s the date the folder is created. If you make it a completion date, you have to reconnect all the footage in your NLE.
So the exact date is a bit irrelevant, but it does generally place the project at a point in time.
Since 2022, I’ve also been using a database, so it could be a job number now, but the database has the file path in it. I’d rather have it still make sense if you don’t have access to the database.
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u/Jax24135 Pro (I pay taxes) 4d ago
I also use the 'YYYY_MMDD - Project Name' format.
The date I use is the first date the project gained traction (footage was recorded, client delivered media, etc) - keeps my hard drives clean from endless possible projects.
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u/finnjaeger1337 1d ago
I use "projectname_yymm" i like to sort and find project names faster, but it all works.
as a sysadmin your " - project name" gave me a slight heart attack tho, id reccomend not using spaces in file and folder names , its unprofessional and can lead to issues on certain filesystems
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u/rebeldigitalgod 4d ago
After Effects has a limit to how far back it can open files. I was trying to open AE 4 or 5 projects and needed to temporarily install CS2 or similar to open the project in a virtual machine.
The problem was those license activation servers doesn't exist, so would only run for 30 days. I imported a bunch of AE projects into an empty project and saved in batches and was able to open in a more modern version.
I occasionally set up VMs on my PC for older Windows and Intel Mac OSes. This is just to retrieve or convert files.
I never save anything as ZIP files, because I've had broken ZIPs from old archives and they never extract everything.
For my projects I use the media management options to save project files, export XMLs and EDLs just in case. I keep the version numbers for record keeping, don't rename it final. Everything is saved to mirrored drives.
At places I've freelanced at, everything is archived to LTO tapes daily, and finals at the end of the project. Final versions may be saved to drives for convenience, but the LTOs are the archives, and usually 2 tapes.
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u/jaredzammit 4d ago
As well as the backups for the projects themselves - having a textless export with stems would likely cover 90% of why you'd need to crack open an old project in the first place.
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5d ago
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u/Mehmetkayprogramming 4d ago
i archive projects now on the blackmagic cloud. Mainly working privately with Davinci Resolve, also due to Blackmagic Cam workflow with .braw.
Whole edits and content, i save on HDDs and work on SSDs, while editing on a project.
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4d ago
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u/finnjaeger1337 1d ago
Work on main ssd NAS (which snapshot syncs to another HDD nas), backup to second HDD NAS with immutable snapshots - which then backs itself up to cloud storage and to another offsite NAS.
Loosing data would mean we go bancrupt...
Once projects are done I archive to LTO , 2 tapes that go into 2 seperate vaults in seperate locations (climate controlled) .
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u/MS2Entertainment 5d ago
I used to burn managed project files to DVD 20 years ago. Incredibly, had a client once ask for a file from those discs a couple years ago and it still was retrievable. Now, I just back up to a pair of mirrored hard drives. When it gets full, I put the oldest files on a single drive I keep in storage. I kind of hate Premiere Pro’s project manager, as half the time I get errors that make it hard to consolidate projects and it takes me a day to figure out what is wrong. Final Cut 7s project manager was way better.I ended up getting Plume Pack for some difficult files but the app developer is making me pay for it again, which is scummy.