Video Software on External Hard Drives

[cgmoseley]

What's going on? Just got a an email saying my account here was near expiration so I figured I'd ask a question.

My question is (it's kind of a statement too)- I installed Video Studio 3 on an external hard drive last year. I read about this type of installation in a review so I went ahead and installed the program on an external hard drive.

I have no problems with the software. Works fine and I love it, but should I go ahead and install the software on my laptop. I've got the room, but the review I read inferred that keeping the software on an external hard drive would decrease the chances of burning up my primary machine's hard drive. Is this a this true opinion?

Thanks!

[teknisyan]

The usual setup is that the software is installed on the PC's hard drive then use the external drive to store your project files as well as the videos.

[Terfyn]

I still remain confused on how VS addresses stored folders. If I store my folder of raw video in my external drive, the Library will request to restore links. So what is the easiest way to restore these links? Can the links be made to point to the external drive?
In short, what is the best way to "housekeep" video, both raw footage and .vsp files?

[Ken Berry]

If you ensure that your external drive always has the same drive letter, the relinks should not occur. The problem is, of course, that left to the default settings, the drive letters for external drives are not fixed. So your external video drive one day could be D:\, but then you disconnect it and later connect, say, a USB stick drive which is then assigned D:\ and you then reconnect your video drive, and it is then assigned E:\. Then a relink becomes necessary since VS cannot find the files on the new drive D:\.

[BrianCee]

You can manually assign a drive letter to an external drive and then it keeps it - I have three assigned X, Y, and Z and they have not changed for a year or more.

details of how to do it on the Microsoft website here :-

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/wind ... ive-letter


....

[Terfyn]

That is worth knowing. If I move my raw footage or my .vsp files to an external drive, how do I force VideoStudio to look at the relocated folder? Do I have to return the files to the original folder where they started as the result of the Capture (and create Library) or can I force the relink process to look at another folder on, say, an external drive?

[BrianCee]

You can set your working folder to any where on you computer system - there are a number of places you can do that - in preferences for instance and on the capture screen and in the create disc module VS will just send everything there - I create a new folder for every project so they are all kept separate. You have complete control over where you store and keep your videos and projects.

If you move all your videos images etc. on to another drive then you will have to browse to the .vsp then when you open it - you will get a message that the files are missing - don't panic, their not - it's just VideoStudios way of telling you it does not know where they are. One of the options in the error box is 'Relink' - click that and then you simply browse to the first "missing" file and select it and VS will then usually relink all in that project.

The only problem is - as has been said - that external drives have a habit of changing drive letters unless you manually assign - the only problem with the changing drive letters is that you have to relink again.

[lata]

Hi

If you wish to move everything associated with a particular project you may be best creating a Smart Package.
This makes copies of all clips used in the project and saves then to a new folder, you simply move the entire folder.

You may be prompted to re-link, but as all files are within the same folder all clips will be re-linked in the one go.
Then allocate the folder as your working folder.
If you add other files to the project timeline first move them to the Smart Package then insert to timeline, that way the working folder/smart package folder holds everything associated with that project.

Its just a matter of good housekeeping, keeping your files in one place