Creating Discovery tapes

LTO tapes sent to Discovery need to be LTFS formatted with an XML metadata file.
YoYotta with one or more LTO drive options will put this file into the LTFS tape index partition.
Also validate tapes to ensure they conform to the Discovery format.



Here are the footage types for RecordingFormat
P2U - Panasonic AVC Ultra
P2A - Panasonic AVC Intra
P2H - DVCPRO HD
P2S - DVCPRO SD
PAVC - Panasonic AVCCAM
XDCAM - Sony XDCAM
SAVC - Sony NXCAM
XAVC - Sony XAVC MXF
XAVCS - Sony XAVC MP4
XOCNS - Sony XOCN ST
XOCNL - Sony XOCN LT
SR422 - Sony SStP 422
SR444 - Sony SStP 444
SRAW - Sony RAW F5/F55
SRAW8 - Sony RAW F65
CnXDCAM - Canon XDCAM
CnAVC - Canon AVC
CnRAW - Canon RAW
GPAVC - GoPro MP4
RED - RED R3D
CINDM - Cineform MOV
CINDA - Cineform AVI
CINRM - Cineform RAW MOV
CINRA - Cineform RAW AVI
DnX - Avid DNxHD DNxHR
PR422 - Apple ProRes 422
PR444 - Apple ProRes 444
DPX10 - DPX 10 bit
DPX16 - DPX 16 bit
PhRGB - Phantom CineRGB
PhRAW - Phantom CineRAW
StTiff - TIFF
Audio - Audio
Stereo_3D - 3D
ANIM - Animation

Create metadata XML file

Download the Discovery XML template.
Open the downloaded metadata.xml file in a text editor.
Set RecordingFormat to True for each footage type that will be on the tape.
Also edit the OriginatingNetwork, ProgramTitle, SeasonNum, ProductionCompany, AspectRatio, VideoFormat and Language fields.
Save the file. Ensure that file name is metadata.xml


Sort content

Create a folder on a source drive that will contain the footage folders.
Drop the edited metadata.xml file into the source folder.
Then make subfolders in the source folder for each footage type. Use the exact same names from the list above. In this example RED and SRAW.
Then copy or link material into these folders. YoYotta supports symlinks, these are the same as the way apps like FCPX link to clips. If you link material then make sure Copy linked files and folders is turned on in Preferences.



Setup job

Drop the folder into the job table.
Add the tape as a destination.


Setup destination tape

Remove all the tokens from the destination path, so that no extra folders are created.
Turn on Save to destination for MD5. Turn off other destination reports.
If delivery to Discovery is a regular workflow, then save this as a Discovery preset.


Completed tape

The completed tape is exactly the same as the source folder, plus it has an MD5 checksum file.


Validate Discovery tape

Ensure that Extract Metadata is turned on in Preferences. Then load a tape and add it as a new job. Open the Source Browser or click the refresh button above the Job table. This will mount, index and validate the tape.
YoYotta will check the XML metadata format, ensure it's in the index partition and check that the correct media folders are present. A summary will be shown in the log panel.


View tape in Source Browser

Open the Source Browser to see the tape layout. Click on the metadata.xml file to see a green tick, which means that the file is stored in the LTFS index partition matching the Discovery specification.

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