vcs for hefty video and graphics files

[Masklinn]

On 2010-11-22, at 19:09 , Harry Putnam wrote:
> 
> Which of the main contenders:  cvs subversion mercurial git bizarre 
> Maybe  a few more I don't know about, would be the best candidate for
> the usage and user described
> 
Subversion would be the least bad of those, if you enable and set needs-lock on all your media files.

DVCS (git, hg, bazaar, darcs, …) are *not* an option in a binary-heavy workflow, and even less so for projects in the tens of gigabytes range (let alone the hundreds of gigs, which a modern HD video project can easily blow through). Not an option at all.

The truth is, most open-source developers are that: developers. They don't deal with binary files that much, let alone with huge purely binary projects. This means you'll only find true love in proprietary stuff. From what I know, most of the A/V versioning tends to use tools close to the video gaming industry, and that's generally Perforce or tools built on/around Perforce.

If you're a "lightweight semi-pro", p4's $740/year license (per user, but I assume you'd be the only user of the system) might not be seen as a good investment for now, so I'd suggest starting with svn.

In any case, do not even attempt to handle such projects with a DVCS.