What filesystem do DTS/Datasat/ATI USB sticks use?

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  • David Ferguson
    Pro Film Handler
    • Jan 2020
    • 269
    • Edinburgh, UK

    #1

    What filesystem do DTS/Datasat/ATI USB sticks use?

    Bit of an odd/niche question here, but I know that the XD10/XD20 supports loading files from USB with either the FAT32 or EXT2 filesystems. Does anyone know which of these are used for current modern releases? I'm not lucky enough to have seen one of these sticks in person, but if anyone has one still, or knows what filesystems they typically or always use, that would be useful to me!
  • Jim Cassedy
    Film God
    • Jan 2020
    • 1450
    • San Francisco

    #2
    An unfortunately timed major power failure in San Francisco corrupted a DTS thumbdrive
    for KILL BILL T-W-B-A (70mm) that had just started to load into our XD-10 when the lights
    went out. Brad M sent me a link where I could download new sound files onto a 'spare'
    thumb drive here to ingest into our XD-10. The process below 'worked like a charm'.

    His instructions for the thumb drive were:
    1) The thumb drive had to be 8gb or smaller;
    2) The drive had to be formatted as FAT 32
    3) The drive had to be named "DTS"
    4) It had to be a 'clean' drive. (No other junk files on it)

    I dug through a drawer full of old trailer thumb drives and found an 8gb one,
    and then wiped it clean and followed the instructions above and had no problems.

    Comment

    • Michael Zarits
      Film Handler
      • Jan 2020
      • 85
      • Austria

      #3
      David, make sure the drive is absolutely clean before formatting. If you previously had some other filesystems on the drive there is a chance that there is another tiny hidden partition on it and the XD10 won't read it unless there is only one FAT32 patition on the drive. It took me forever to find out why the XD10 did not want to read from one of my USB drives. Since then I always use DISKPART with command CLEAN to completely wipe the drive before creating the FAT32 partition.

      Comment

      • Marco Giustini
        Film God
        • Jan 2020
        • 1169
        • Reading, UK

        #4
        In my experience I found that the files have to be in a DTS folder - I never realised that the fact that my USB stick was also named DTS was a requirement. 16GB sticks worked as well for me. Linux is just a bit fussy, for the life of me I couldn't get some USB sticks to work, not even after cleaning them with DISKPART

        Comment

        • Ryan Gallagher
          Film God
          • Nov 2022
          • 2855
          • Austin, Texas, USA

          #5
          I think more important than the disk/partition name is the partition table "TYPE". When I was working with my personal XD20 I found it would fail with modern GPT type partition tables, but was completely happy with legacy MBR type tables. This applied to the upgrade/install specifically, but it might also apply to the sound track drives?

          It might be a while before our booth sees another datasat issued thumb drive, but will try to answer the OP question if no one else examines one by then.

          Comment

          • Jim Cassedy
            Film God
            • Jan 2020
            • 1450
            • San Francisco

            #6
            Originally posted by Ryan Gallagher
            It might be a while before our booth sees another datasat issued thumb drive,
            but will try to answer the OP question if no one else examines one by then.
            The three 70mm prints we played just before the Christmas holidays were all shipped
            out last week, but I do have a couple of 70mm trailers that I use for testing, and I've got
            the 'official', original DTS/DataSat issued thumb drives too, and I can confirm that:
            1) It's an 8gb thumb-drive.
            1) The drive is formatted FAT-32
            2) The drive is named "DTS"
            3) The drive has one folder, also named "DTS" which has the audio data files inside.

            DTS_USB.jpg

            As others have mentioned, and as I learned from experience a long time ago,
            it's important that the drive is "clean" and has no other 'garbage files' on it.
            I do a lot of my work on MAC's, which leave a couple of extra files unique
            to the MAC IOS on a USB or thumb-drive when ejecting it. I believe the
            extra files have something to do with MAC's file indexing & search functions.
            These extra files originally caused me issues with certain playback servers
            when I started making my own DCP's a decade or so ago. Those files would
            also confuse an audio editing program I was using back then too. I wound up
            buying a 3rd party program, which automatically removed those extra files and
            that took care of the issue. It was only $5 and it works on all my MACs.

            Comment

            • David Ferguson
              Pro Film Handler
              • Jan 2020
              • 269
              • Edinburgh, UK

              #7
              Thank you Jim - that answers my question! macOS cannot natively read the EXT2 filesystem, so these must be FAT32. I suppose the XD10/20, being Linux, will support EXT2 so DTS list that in the manual - but it seems (all the examples I've seen, plus this thread) that FAT32 is the filesystem actually used.

              Comment

              • Ryan Gallagher
                Film God
                • Nov 2022
                • 2855
                • Austin, Texas, USA

                #8
                Originally posted by David Ferguson
                Thank you Jim - that answers my question! macOS cannot natively read the EXT2 filesystem, so these must be FAT32. I suppose the XD10/20, being Linux, will support EXT2 so DTS list that in the manual - but it seems (all the examples I've seen, plus this thread) that FAT32 is the filesystem actually used.
                Just a minor note, I don't know when they started, but current MacOS can in fact "read" ext2. But it mounts them in read only mode by default. But that is still handy if you are pulling a DCP off a CRU for re-making etc. It is more challenging on Win and requires 3rd party drivers to read (and maybe write if you are brave).

                I was using a brand new M5 macbook recently and put in my dual Ext2/vFAT drive, both partitions showed up and were browsable, just RO on the Ext2 one.

                Comment

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