ShotPut Pro has been the de-facto standard copy and verification program used by major movie studios for years. While the program has always been bulletproof, times have changed, and the user interface was starting to look a bit long in the tooth. After receiving customer feedback, Imagine Products set about to completely redesign the user interface in their latest version – ShotPut Pro 6.
The new user interface still includes the traditional preset mode, but they have now included a new destination mode. This makes for a much more intuitive drag and drop system. You can also give your files an offload identifier so ShotPut Pro will automatically create a destination folder for you on the drives you have selected.
Automate media offloading or manually select files with ShotPut Pro 6 for Macintosh. This application from Imagine Products copies entire disks, creates copies of specific files, or can output to multiple locations simultaneously. Learn more about it. New in ShotPut Pro 6.2.1.0: ShotPut Pro 6 for Windows offers a completely new user interface, significantly faster media offloading, and many other new or improved features that give users much.
What I like about ShotPut Pro 6 is that you can now also just drag and drop between drives or individual folders without it automatically creating new output folders. This is very quick and easy to do and you can avoid the confusion of copying the same material to multiple different folder names on the same drive.
Another nice feature is a new status bar shown when backing up and verifying your files. The bars are different colours depending on what the program is doing. Light blue for copying, dark blue for verifying, orange if you have cancelled the offload, and green for once it is completed. There’s also a time remaining indicator, so you know exactly how long the file is going to take to copy.
Aug 19, 2016.
One of the most useful features is that ShotPut Pro 6 can pause and resume the copy process if it is interrupted. Even if you eject hard drives or camera cards or shut the lid on your computer, as long as you don’t close down ShotPut Pro you can go back and continue the copy process from exactly where it left off. One thing to bear in mind: this only works if you’re copying multiple files, if you are just copying one long file, it will not let you pause the copying process.
Also new is the ability to create customisable PDF reports with a company logo, offload name, metadata and thumbnails for each video file. As with previous versions of ShotPut Pro you can also have the program text or email you a report once your offload is complete. This gives you peace of mind and you don’t have to sit around and wait and check if your files were offloaded and verified.
Shotput Download
The only negative thing I found about using ShotPut Pro 6 is that the copy and verification speed was quite a bit slower than Hedge For Mac. I did a test copying and verifying the same file (13.2GB) from one hard drive to another. The same file took 6min and 5 seconds when using ShotPut Pro 6, and 2 minutes and 39 seconds using Hedge For Mac. This is a significant difference in speed. I spoke to Imagine Products about this and I was told that if someone enables the PDF report option with thumbnails, that of course costs some time since the files are further interrogated to extract metadata and thumbnails. I also found out that in the Advanced Preferences settings, the default is to read the source files a second pass when calculating checksums. The idea behind this process, while it too costs a bit more time, helps detect failing cards, over-heating cards or card readers giving off inconsistent data. These are potentially disastorous errors that if your serious about your data back up, are worth the cost of some time to catch.
ShotPut Pro 6 certainly has a lot of features and the new improved user interface is nice to use. I love the email and text alerts notifying you when files have been copied and verified. The ability to pause and resume copying is also extremely handy. The customisable PDF reports are great if you’re working on a large set and allow you to provide accurate information about exactly what has been backed up to clients or editors. While it isn’t as fast or as simple to use as Hedge, it does offer a lot more features that may be better suited to users who require a more in-depth program.
ShotPut Pro 6 for Mac is available for download now, and if you are a Windows user, don’t worry, there will be a new version available for you in the next few weeks.
How to Purchase ShotPut Pro 6 for Mac
Stand alone new purchase $129 US Upgrade ShotPut Pro 5 to ShotPut Pro 6 for $49 US We’re offering an upgrade special for $29 until September 10. Buy it now to take advantage of this deal. To upgrade from the ShotPut Pro 5 application: Open the application menu and select “check for upgrades” you will be prompted from there to log into your account and purchase the upgrade. To upgrade on our website: Log into your account and select the My Products tab. Select the ShotPut Pro 5 license you wish to upgrade and click “upgrade to ShotPut Pro 6.” If you own more than one license of ShotPut Pro 5 you will need to upgrade each one of the licenses. 01 Nov ShotPut Pro 6: What Jon Collins thinksJon Collins is our freelance Self Shooting P/D who has worked on projects for London Heathrow, Aldi and Macmillan Cancer Support. When he isn’t on set or reviewing software, he likes to cook, cycle and canoe (but not at the same time!).
For some time now, secure offloading software has been available. Whilst it’s widely used by DITs and Data Wranglers, there is a slow but gradual uptake of use by camera operators, editors and videographers. I’ve personally been using ShotPut Pro 5 for the last year and whilst it does double the offload times at the end of a shoot, to have the knowledge that all the data is securely transferred to two separate locations and checksum verified, I can go home without worrying that I’m going to get a call in the morning from a client who’s data corrupted on transfer.
So how often is that likely to happen? Well, not very often otherwise everyone would be using it by now! But I always ask myself why take the risk?
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For me personally, it comes into it’s own when using Sony’s dreaded XQD reader. A slight knock when it’s plugged directly into the USB and the transfer fails. You might not always pick up on it so having a piece of software that tells you it didn’t transfer successfully and displaying a warning message, is important in my mind.
The other aspect is that I like to have a minimum of two copies of all my footage during a project. This just means in the extremely rare event a mechanical failure or misplacement of the drive, I’ve still got a backup of the important stuff elsewhere. Offloading software will automate that process for you.
ShotPut Pro 6Shot Put Pro 6 Download Mac
This is where ShotPut Pro 6 comes in. As the latest version of Imagine Product’s DIT suite, it brings a couple of new feature’s to the table. Namely improved licensing, faster speed, better ability for individual files and a rather cool PDF summary of each transfer.
An introduction to ShotPro 6
Shot Put Pro 6 Download Mac Pro
Speed was one of the important factors for me. Currently, a 121GB XQD file offload going to two locations (one G-Technology Studio RAID and one single LaCie Rugged [non-SSD]) using ShotPut Pro 5 took 1hr 38mins to transfer. Using ShotPut Pro 6 it took just 50mins. That’s obviously a great improvement after a long shoot day when you just want to pack the kit down and get home!
My next favourite feature is the PDF summary. As a real world application, I’m not really sure when this will be of use to me, but it is pretty cool… As well as including all the numbers, locations and file details it features thumbnails of all the files. I guess this could be useful if you wanted to quickly scan through the cards without booting up Sony Catalyst or your NLE.
Individual file and folder transfers have also been greatly improved in version 6. Now, there’s the ability to just drag and drop different folders from one location to another. This is a great way of securely moving files around numerous hard drives in the edit suite.
Shotput Pro
Notifications also have some interesting new updates. On this version, you can program ShotPut Pro 6 to email or text you once the transfer has finished. Again, I’m not entirely certain when I’d personally need this, but I’m sure there are a number of people that would find this feature really handy!
The final feature that I was excited for (weirdly) was the licensing. ShotPut Pro 5’s licensing was pretty dire. Like pretty much everybody in our industry, I run a couple of machines; my main edit suite and a location laptop. ShotPut Pro 5’s licensing meant that only one activation was included in a purchase and if I wanted to run the software on the other, I’d first have to deactivate it on the other one. This isn’t easy when your out on location and realise the edit suite is still activated. When contacting Imagine via Twitter about this, their response was simply “Buy another license then…”. Exactly.
ShotPut Pro 6’s licensing system is actually still rather confusing and over complicated. In a world of Adobe Creative Cloud, if you’re going to implement a licensing system that pings a server, why not aim for something that’s as intuitive as that? Instead they’ve developed an overly complicated, clunky system whereby you individually generate keys and then revoke them via their website for each activation of the product. Whilst I can revoke a license when I’m out on location, it’s still extremely complicated for a piece of software that’s supposed to simplify my production process.
The overly confusing new licensing system
In summary…
All things considered, if speed is of the essence when out on shoots and DITing footage, it’s worth the upgrade purely for that. As for the other features, they are interesting but I don’t think they would swing me from ShotPut Pro 5 alone. I think the software will continue to develop and I’d like to see ShotPut Pro 7 come out next year, with even faster verification, a simpler interface and a licensing system that doesn’t drive me nuts.
For now though, I’m safe in the knowledge that my footage is corruption free and not likely to get misplaced. Unless I’m really careless…
To see Jon Collins’ work, head to his TCC online portfolio or to our showreel gallery.
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