[Info-vax] [OT] Home media files and backup, was: Re: SBB's

[Simon Clubley]

On 2013-01-02, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
> Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote 2013-01-02 19:11:
>> In article <kc1bti$j07$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley
>> <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>
>>>> Now, as much as I low VMS, I (only) use VMS for things that VMS does well.
>>>> Acting as a repository for the families files (sound, music, digital
>>>> pictures and such) is *not* one of those, IMHO.
>>>
>>> Strongly agree with this. VMS is even less suitable for viewing and
>>> playing said media files in a fixed environment and impossible in a
>>> portable environment.
>>
>> What's wrong with using a web browser (wherever) looking at JPEG files
>> on VMS served by a web server on VMS.
>
> Nothing at all: http://jescab2.dyndns.org/tradimg/
>
> It's the "problem" with getting the files there in the first
> place that is the issue. Serving them to a browser is easy.
>
> But, as I said in another post, these files are there for a reason.
>

Serving a unchanging static list of jpegs across a HTTP connection is
one thing that VMS can still do, but this one task is certainly not the
typical usage pattern for home media these days (as is also implied by
Jan-Erik in his response above).

However Phillip, I would like to set this within the full picture of
my requirements so that you can see where I am coming from whenever I
comment in this area.

Even with just a series of jpegs from some photography, the above would
not meet my requirements. For example, I need to be able to quickly walk
through a series of photographs to decide what to keep and what duplicates
to delete. I might want to, for example, resize some of them as well and
I want to be able to do all this on a desktop without having to use a web
browser.

But even working with photographs is a small part of my home media needs.
I also need to be able to maintain, copy to portable devices, play and
add to my MP3 library. I also need to be able to transcode DVDs as well
as play them directly on a desktop. You are not going to be doing this on
a VMS system.

Phillip, if you maintain a MP3 library, what machines and tools do you use
to maintain it ? Do you also maintain a transcoded DVD library as well for
use on portable devices ?

BTW, Hoff is right about disk sizes. :-) With audio/video media, storage
usage can quickly add up and the current disk sizes you are talking about
can seem small indeed. Even on my current portable device I currently have
~4GB of MP3 audio and ~5GB of DVD transcoded files. (I just checked. :-))

I also carry around about 60-70GB of backups of the important stuff on
USB sticks attached to keychains. (I also have other and more complete
backup methods, BTW). I personally consider those figures to be small
to medium by today's standards and not anything out of the ordinary.

VMS seems to work for you at home for your usage patterns, but you cannot
assume that because it works for you, it is suitable for everyone. :-)
Especially with everything else I do on a home desktop, I stopped trying
to make VMS fill that role about 7-8 years ago (and even that was with a
very small subset of what I currently do at home.)

The way I look at it is that once I look at the full scope of what I do
at home, you realise that trying to use VMS for the small portion of it
which it can still do is inappropriate when you have other options which
can perform all the tasks you need.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world