Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: exFAT formatted drive?

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Posted by Joel Shepard (Member # 4264) on 06-03-2013, 01:48 PM:

We've received an exFAT formatted drive with a DCP file on it. Our Dolby DSS220 server does not see the DCP file, though if we plug the drive into a computer we can see that the file is there. I called Dolby and they said they do not support exFAT (though the person I talked to had never even heard of this format). The producer who sent us the drive, though, insists that a recent Dolby software upgrade enables their servers to read exFAT drives.

Anyone out there have any knowledge on this?

Thank you.

Posted by Gavin Lewarne (Member # 5397) on 06-03-2013, 01:59 PM:

why not copy it to a ntfs formatted drive using your computer that can read it?

even usb powered hard drives work on our DSS200 and so far it has read ntfs, ext2, ext3, ext4 and hpfs from a mac!

Posted by Joel Shepard (Member # 4264) on 06-03-2013, 02:01 PM:

Yes, that's what we're doing. I'm just trying to educate myself for the future about this exFAT formatting, and whether or not Dolby supports it.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-03-2013, 02:14 PM:

Some servers support certain formats only on USB Sticks, not on USB-mounted harddiscs.

To distribute content on exFAT drives is nothing but dumb.

- Carsten

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-03-2013, 02:58 PM:

I would be more excited about exFAT if hard discs formatted in it were more universally supported by various kinds of devices.

For example, my Playstation 3 can only "see" hard discs formatted in FAT32. With all the updates I have to install on the PS3 it would seem like Sony would add something like exFAT compatibility. I can understand Sony never adding NTFS support (they would have to pay Microsoft a bunch of licensing fees). Apparently exFAT doesn't really have fully open source licensing at this point.

The only big advantage I can see with using exFAT on external hard discs: if you own a Mac and Windows-based PC and want the hard drive to work on both computers without the limitations of FAT32 (namely the 4GB size limit, not to mention very inefficient cluster sizes).

Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 06-04-2013, 01:03 PM:

The last time I tried exFAT (unsuccessfully) on a Dolby DSS200, I think I was running Dolby System 4.3. Since then, I haven't seen any mention of exFAT or any other new filesystem support in the release notes for 4.4, 4.5 or 4.6...

But it sure would be useful to know if they have indeed added exFAT support.

And since it was brought up, what about Doremi et al? As far as I know, exFAT has no native support in the Linux kernel, so I wouldn't be surprised if none of the Linux-based servers could read it.

Posted by Gavin Lewarne (Member # 5397) on 06-04-2013, 01:15 PM:

exFAT support isn't in the native linux kernel tree as of 3.9.0

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-04-2013, 04:41 PM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#exFAT

The guy obviously did not know what he was doing and is now trying to blame others for his ignorance.

- Carsten

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-05-2013, 08:03 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Apparently exFAT doesn't really have fully open source licensing at this point.

There's no open source licensing at all. It's proprietary, doesn't even have its specifications released in full, and even if one reverse engineers it MS asserts software patents related to it that they own which means an open source version would actually be illegal.

And while there is a non-native driver available (that uses the FUSE library), a commercial outfit that included the driver would probably be opening themselves up to a lawsuit as opposed to the fact that MS wouldn't go after individual users.