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FTPing iMovie File becomes TEXT file (9 posts)

  • Started 15 years ago by djkenney
  • Latest reply 15 years ago from Scott McGuire
  • djkenney Member

    I'm trying to send my brother in law an imovie project. He drags the iMovie project (a folder consisting of a main project file and a folder with media clips) from my computer to his desktop via Fetch. When he clicks on the main project file, it opens as a text file instead of opening iMovie. Also, when he tries to open any of the video clips in the Media directory, quicktime says it can't read the movie. I've tried setting the upload and download settings in preferences to both text and binary, but with the same results. Any thoughts?

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • Scott McGuire Administrator

    Hi,

    I'd recommend that you compress the iMovie project as a zip file (what Mac OS X calls an "archive" file) before trying to transfer it. That will ensure that all the important properties of the iMovie project will be preserved during the transfer. Then your brother-in-law can unzip the archive on his end and it should work properly.

    If you're using Fetch 5.1 or later to upload the file, Fetch can automatically zip the file for you when you upload it - choose the "Zip Archive Format" from the Format submenu in the Remote menu before uploading. (Fetch 5 and later can also automatically unzip files on download.)

    Or, you can use the Mac OS X Finder to create the zip archive before uploading. Select the iMovie project in the Finder, go to the File menu, and choose "Create Archive" (Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier) or "Compress" (Mac OS X 10.5 and later). Then upload the file (it should be uploaded as Binary, which Fetch should choose automatically for zip files). Your brother-in-law can decompress it by double-clicking on the zip file icon (if it is not automatically decompressed during the download).

    Please let us know if this helps or not.

    Thanks,

    Scott McGuire
    Fetch Softworks

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • djkenney Member

    Thank you very much. This actually worked.

    Now, if I set it to automatically zip while uploading, will that take longer? It's already a slow process to upload a 20 GB file, so if it's faster to zip first with Finder, I'll probably do that.

    Also, if I set the upload/download settings to "Binary", shouldn't that transfer the iMovie file without altering it's properties so I don't have to zip it? Because I set it to Binary but it still appears as a text on the other end (when I don't zip it).

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • djkenney Member

    Another question-

    I'm trying to send my brother in law a 3.5GB iMovie file zipped. He just now told me that it got to 3GB and all of the sudden says that the connection with server failed, and can't finish downloading it. I'm transferring directly from my computer to his. Any ideas?

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • Scott McGuire Administrator

    Hi,

    I'm glad to hear this solution is mostly working for you.

    > Now, if I set it to automatically zip while uploading, will that
    > take longer? It's already a slow process to upload a 20 GB file,
    > so if it's faster to zip first with Finder, I'll probably do
    > that.

    Fetch zips the file on your Mac before uploading it to the server, so it should be just as fast to let Fetch do it as it would be to zip it in the Finder first and then upload it using Fetch. (In other words, Fetch does the zip-with-Finder step first, and then uploads it.)

    > Also, if I set the upload/download settings to "Binary",
    > shouldn't that transfer the iMovie file without altering it's
    > properties so I don't have to zip it? Because I set it to Binary
    > but it still appears as a text on the other end (when I don't zip
    > it).

    While the Binary upload format does not alter files' contents in any way, it does not preserve any special Macintosh information that may be associated with the files in the Mac Finder - in some cases, the Finder stores special properties about files that are not directly part of the files' contents, so the Binary format does not upload them to the FTP server (and an FTP server wouldn't know what to do with them if it did). In some cases, some of that special information helps the Mac tell what kind of file a file is, and what program it should open in. So for some kinds of files, you need to use a format that encodes the files in such a way that the special Macintosh information will be preserved and can be reconstructed when the file is downloaded. The zip archive format is one such format that does this.

    So the problem may be that since iMovie projects consist of a collection of files, somewhere in there is some special information that tells the Mac how to tie them all together, and that tells the Mac Finder to associate the files with iMovie.

    Does that help clarify what's going on?

    > I'm trying to send my brother in law a 3.5GB iMovie file zipped.
    > He just now told me that it got to 3GB and all of the sudden says
    > that the connection with server failed, and can't finish
    > downloading it. I'm transferring directly from my computer to
    > his. Any ideas?

    Hmm, in order to best answer that question, it may help me to understand your setup better. You say that you're "transferring directly from my computer to his" - so are you not actually uploading your files anywhere? Or are you uploading to another one of your computers, and he is downloading from that computer?

    But some general advice:

    Make sure that he didn't try to start downloading before you had finished uploading.

    If he just had this problem once, it may be that there was some transient problem that interrupted his connection. If he's using Fetch, he should try using the Resume Download feature to pick up downloading the file where it left off.

    If he has the problem constantly, we can take a look at a transcript from him and see if we have any suggestions.

    Thanks,

    Scott McGuire
    Fetch Softworks

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • djkenney Member

    Excellent information. Thank you. I found out that my internet provider changes my IP address daily. In this case, I am the server, so would this explain why my brother has the error in the middle of the download? I've now contacted the provider and will be paying $6/month extra for a fixed IP.

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • Scott McGuire Administrator

    Hi,

    It's possible that could cause an interrupted transfer, but I think it's unlikely.

    Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

    Thanks,

    Scott McGuire
    Fetch Softworks

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • djkenney Member

    I've contacted my internet provider and am now paying a little extra per month for a static IP address rather than a dynamic address (it doesn't change). This worked great and in 5 days time my brother in law was able to upload 5 gigs of a 9 gig file to my computer (which is acting as the server). For some reason my connection was interrupted yesterday which stopped the transfer. Here's my question:

    It's easy to resume an interrupted transfer when you are downloading the file onto your computer (just double click the fetch icon on his desktop), but is there a way to resume an upload transfer?

    Posted 15 years ago #

  • Scott McGuire Administrator

    Hi,

    Glad to hear that a static IP address seems to have improved things.

    Yes, Fetch has a resume upload feature. Not all FTP server software support the resume upload command, but it's worth giving it a try.

    For information on using the resume upload feature, see the Resuming uploads topic in Fetch Help (or just click the link here).

    Best,

    Scott McGuire
    Fetch Softworks

    Posted 15 years ago #

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