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AAKK!!! The large mac files on my hard drive don’t show up on a PC!

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Yeah, this is something that comes up once in a while with us. Producers or editors send us a hard drive to which we are to transfer their master videotapes as Quicktime movies.

But when we ship back the drive with the new Quicktimes (.MOV files), they can’t open it on their PC. Then the dialogue goes like this:

 

____

BETASP TO DVD.COM

But you told us you wanted to use the files on a mac for Final Cut Pro?

 

PRODUCER

Right, but we also need the files to work on a PC so our client can use them.

 

BETASP TO DVD.COM

Oh, in that case… You’re screwed sucka! Just kiddin’ ya. Let’s say you have a 25 GB file that you want to put on a hard drive for cross-platform viewing.  There is no easy and free way to do that unless you by software called MacDrive to install on your PC.

 

PRODUCER

But…. But… But…

 

BETASP TO DVD.COM

No buts. Let me break it down for you:

Hard drives need to be formatted as either Mac OS Extended, FAT32, or NTFS.

OS Extended holds unlimited file sizes on Mac, so that’s cool if you want to use the files on an Apple machine.

FAT32 works on both platforms perfectly. But guess what? FAT32 has a file size limit of 4 GBs!  Jeeze. That’s not even big enough to hold an hour of video. Ridiculous!! Further more, FAT32 has a maximum partition size of 32 GBs.

 

PRODUCER

What??!! Are you kidding me?!

 

BETASP TO DVD.COM

Yeah, that’s pretty damn lame, considering your iPod can hold more than that! 32 GBs is so 1994!

NTFS formatted discs, on the other hand, are capable of holding terabytes of info in one folder. But watch out, that format only works for PCs.

 

PRODUCER

So what am I supposed to do with big files that need to play on both PC and MAC?

 

BETASP TO DVD.COM

Okay. Here are the solutions to choose from:]

1)    Break your files into small junks of only 4 GBs or less and use the FAT32 format.

OR

2) Buy software such as MacDrive for your PC

OR

3) Transfer your large files onto one disc formatted with MAC OS Extended, and another disc formatted with NTFS.

OR

4) Scrap the whole idea and go surfing here.

 

– Kirk