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FCP “Unity” style
Greetings Herd,
I am looking to get anyones thoughts and info on using FCP in shared environments ala Avid’s Unity.. Is it possible to effectively share projects somehow? And how is sharing media? Would love to hear/read any ups and downs that anyone can share, in particular from folks who have also worked with Unity/ Lanshares on the Avid side..
I have various clients interested in persuing this over Adrenalines..
Thanks much!
Liam Lawyer
3Ghz/ 4 gb ram/ xserve raid 7tb -
6 Replies
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It’s called XSAN, and the company behind MTV’s THE RAL WORLD and THE SIMPLE LIFE utilize if very successfully. In fact, I believe they have the largest shared network of edit stations around. At least in the US.
https://www.apple.com/itpro/profiles/bunim-murray/
Shane
FCP Preferences set to UNCONTROLLED ADVICE
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Liam,
Apple’s version of Unity is called “X-SAN”. There’s a board here on the Cow devoted to it, and there’s plenty of info on the Apple website. Do a search.
What do you want to know? It does everything a Unity does… for much less money. We’ve been operating X-SAN for almost three years now, having switched over from Unity. For almost a year we had one Unity and one X-SAN system operating side by side. If you’re looking for an alternative to Adrenaline/Lan Share, FCP/X-SAN would be a fine choice. There are other cheaper “SAN in a can” systems out there, but they have limits on connnectivity and sharing (Volume based vs file based).
X-SAN has enabled us to let “everyone jump into the pool”… meaning everyone with a computer on their desktop (Yes, even PC’s) have access to the media. Because FCP is quicktime based, and not propriety avid codecs, you don’t even need FCP to read the medai. A garden variety PC with quicktime player can access the media. That has opened alot of interesting workflows opportunities for us. (Think story department on iMAC’s)
Finally, X-SAN, like Unity, is a serious installation that requires some serious planning and operating skills. It’s not a afternoon’s “plug and play” installation. I would highly recommend NOT trying to “do it yourself”. Contact a trusted VAR and have them do your install.
mark
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Speak of the devil…
Shane
FCP Preferences set to UNCONTROLLED ADVICE
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Thanks so much for all the info! I am familiar with Xsan a bit and the fact that it makes sense to have tech help/planning to set it up..
Some further questions..
– is it possible to share projects like Unity where more than one person can be looking at a seq?
– does it have the same workspace control as Unity where an administrator can easily setup and change ‘drives’?Thanks again!
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[macfreek] “- is it possible to share projects like Unity where more than one person can be looking at a seq?”
you can have more than one person look and edit the same project at the same time, unlike Unity though it will not update and it becomes a “Save war” last person to save to that same file name wins…so it’s not recommended that way but you can save it as another file name.
[macfreek] “- does it have the same workspace control as Unity where an administrator can easily setup and change ‘drives’?”
No, you cannot resize partitions like in Unity. But you can expand storage in the future without deleting media. You can Expand but you can’t make things smaller. XSAN uses Affinities (folders that point to different storage pools) to help manage bandwidth and control which group of drives the data within that folder is written to.
Hope this helps.
Shane Sokolosky
SAN Product Manager
ProMax Systems inc.
16 Technology Dr. Ste.106
Irvine, CA. 92618Office (949) 727-3977 x108
Toll free (877) 776-6292
Fax (949) 727-7002
Website-https://www.Promax.com
shane.sokolosky@promax.com -
[macfreek] “- is it possible to share projects like Unity where more than one person can be looking at a seq?
– does it have the same workspace control as Unity where an administrator can easily setup and change ‘drives’?”If I had a penny for everyone who’s asked this question…!
The thing you need to understand is that FCP’s project structure is NOT like AVID. In Avid, the “project” is everything. In FCP, the “project” is meaninglesss. You can have several Projects open simultaneously. With FCP, it’s the sequence that counts. And… yes, with proper discipline, you can have multiple editors working on the same project simultaneously. We regularly have multiple editors working on the same episode simultaneously. Even with Avid, you can’t have two editors working on the same timeline.
This all comes down to careful naming and saving. So, after three years of FCP/X-SAN and hundreds of hours of completed network TV episodes, I can safely say that the “networked workflow” is alive and well with FCP and X-SAN.
Workspace control? Well, frankly, X-SAN was so cheap compared to Unity that we went from 24 terrabytes to 48 terrabytes of storage. Therefore, the need to manipulate workspaces is negligible.
Good luck.
Mark
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