First up, let me say that I have absolutely no experience with this type
of project. The closest I got to the movie industry was as Technical
Officer for the University of Warwick Film Society (since renamed
Warwick Student Cinema). Cinema and theater are things I love though!
Might it be possible to use Subversion to store the original source
files (the raw images, wav's, etc), then have some kind of ASCII script
file describing how those files get merged together? The disadvantage of
this would be that each person may need to run the processing script (or
at least the part appropriate to them) before starting to work.
Just out of interest, what proportion of the files are binary vs.
textual? Since you talk about animators, compositors etc. this could be
a CGI animation scenario, and it is at least possible that some of the
files (model files etc) *are* textual. (Renderman, for example can use
the binary RIB files, or ASCII ones). Certainly the output files would
be binary, but if they could be recreated it may not be *essential* for
them to be preserved in binary form *within the repository*. Depending
on your confidence in the backups / SAN it *may* be possible to store
the output binaries in a folder based on the SVN revision number. Would
you be better off with a commercial product targeted at your needs?
Quite possibly. Would such a product be worth the price? Only you can
decide that.
Sounds like an interesting project though....
Regards,
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: Butler, Frances H (FHB) [mailto:butlerfh@y12.doe.gov]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 09:22
To: Simon Anderson; users@subversion.tigris.org
Subject: RE: SVN for binary asset management
IMHO, Subversion was designed and is better suited for plain ASCII text
files. The problem is, with binary files Subversion cannot provide a
"diff."
One would have to view the clips and "manually" discern what the
differences are, or ensure that the individuals who check in the files
make extremely detailed log messages to explain to the users what the
changes are (rev. 1 has sound, rev. 2 has sound deleted, rev. 3 has new
music tracks added, for example).
I'd say use at your own risk.
-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Anderson [mailto:simon.anderson@photon.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 9:40 PM
To: users@subversion.tigris.org
Subject: SVN for binary asset management
Hi,
I could use some advice on Subversion's suitability for asset management
in the film industry.
Commercial products such as Alienbrain (http://alienbrain.com/whde.php)
are available for use as a repository/change control solution. I wonder
if Subversion could be used as the basis for a F/OSS alternative.
Generally, the data is gigabytes of (primarily) image and movie files
stored on a SAN. The users are artists (animators, compositors,
lighters, etc.) editors, visual effects supervisors, producers,
administrators and the like all who interact with the data in slightly
different ways. On the back end is a render farm that would also
interface with the repository.
Does this sound like something that Subversion could be good for?
-Simon.
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Received on Thu Mar 31 17:48:42 2005