Avid Media Composer and sharing media on a SAN

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Creative Cow management team,
these gentlemen are asking for advice on a shared storage system, that is pointing to an alternate solution to Facilis Terrablock.

You can see how uncomftorable of a situation this is. I have praised the wonderful Facilis Terrablock system in this thread, but these gentlemen are looking for an alternate solution – even though I have mentioned several brands in casual conversation – I am very uncomftorable saying “oh, you should look at this great solution” – when every post is being routed to the Facilis forum.

If this was on the SAN Networks forum, or even the AVID forum, I would be able to answer their question, but because it is routed to “everything Facilis”, I cannot answer their question, or offer a solution, as I will NOT preach another product, other than Facilis on something that shows up on their forum.

It is my opinion, that this should be addressed.

Bob Zelin

[Erik Freid]

David,

What we are trying to tell you is that there is no way in Avid to just point to media on a SAN and just “use it” unless you have only one Avid on your SAN. It is not about project sharing, it is about SAN file access management (and Avid system database management)so you do not corrupt your media, or delete it all together. If you are using FCP on a SAN you are using X-SAN which is doing this for you. You need SOMETHING to do this that works with Avid (X-SAN does not, nor does stornext which is the same thing) If you want a cheap solution, Fibre Jet or SANmp both are between 1000-1500 per seat, and you need it on all systems accessing the media.

If money is not a concern then just get an Avid ISIS, Terrablock, Editshare, GraniteSTOR, SAN solutions, or another per-configured system that is known to work with Avid (and most will also work with FCP systems).

Regardless, a SAN is not easy to build, hire an integrator like Bob, Matt, or Steve, they will all do you right and save you money in the log run by avoiding downtime or dead end solutions.

Erik

Erik Freid | MediaSilo, Inc
207 South Street | Third Floor | Boston, MA 02111
t. 617.423.6200, m. 617.306.8632, f. 617.507.8577
http://www.mediaSilo.com erik@mediasilo.com

[Ryan Stoutenborough]

Hello, I’d like to clear up a few mis-conceptions about our software and hardware solutions please.

SANmp is $499 per seat and it works with iSCSI or FC. There’s also iSANmp for $199 per seat (iSCSI only). This software works with most 3rd party storage solutions.

EVO is our shared storage server solution. EVO comes with unlimited free licenses of SANmp. There are no per-seat license fees if you are an EVO customer. EVO also does SMB and AFP file sharing utilizing our “Share Browser” feature for managing cross platform permissions. Mix any combination of 1/10Gb & 4/8Gb fiberchannel to meet all your connectivity needs. Supports Mac, Windows and Linux. EVO also works with XSAN, Storenext, MetaSAN.

We have many referenceable Avid installs throughout the world. Give us a shout if you would like to learn more: Ph# 877-537-2094 or visit: https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/video-san.php

Ryan Stoutenborough
Studio Network Solutions
http://www.studionetworksolutions.com

[David Norden]

Hi David! We are working on a software that will let you do what you are asking about. I can send you a BETA if you are interested?

I hope I am not violating any COW-rules by offering this…

All the best

David

[Andrew Kasson]

Hi David,

Throwing another hat into the ring – you also may want to look at GB Labs Space (https://www.gblabs.com/products/Space/). It is a high performance network appliance that works with Final Cut and Avid media (or Premiere, etc.), is very low maintenance, and costs less per TB than anything in its class.

In the US it is a fairly new solution (they are based in the UK, but have just opened US offices) and we only recently picked it up (as a reseller/integrator), but every place we have put a demo unit has resulted in the client keeping it.

A lot of our clients are in the same position as you, and there is no clear direction for current FCP houses to follow. So definitely make a decision that won’t diminish your flexibility.

Andrew Kasson
New Media Hollywood

[Bob Zelin]

Hi David Norden,
I am interested in your beta. Please contact me off list at
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

Bob Zelin

[David Norden]

Hi Bob, I Will get in touch with you very soon.

All the best

David

[Eugeny Korkhin]

[Bob Zelin] “AVID writes a .msm and a .mdb file whenever you launch Media Composer, and if you are on one common volume or partition with two or more systems, the second (or third) Media Composer will overwrite the first guys .msm and .mdb file, and you will see MEDIA OFFLINE on your AVID on your edit 1 system.”

False. Not gonna happen.
Avid updates .pmr file when you quit, and both .pmr and .mdb if you add or delete media files. (There’s no .msm file at all) But that doesn’t matter. Updating and overwriting doesn’t result Media Offline. If .mdb file changes, another system starts scanning (which I must say may last forever depending on how much media you have in Avid MediaFiles folder). But after the scan is complete, that newly ingested or imporetd media becomes online for the second editing station. But .mdb changes also if you render(which means creating media) to the volume it resides on. And that makes collaborative work an endless scanning.
That’s what gonna happen.
Or you need to render to the separate volume and avoid ingesting (or importing) during the editing session.

[Bob Zelin]

Eugeny,
I am reading all of your recent posts with great interest, including your replies to Walter Biscardi on his testing with MC6. I understand that you are not seeing a lot of this with Win systems.

You state –

“If .mdb file changes, another system starts scanning (which I must say may last forever depending on how much media you have in Avid MediaFiles folder). But after the scan is complete, that newly ingested or imporetd media becomes online for the second editing station. But .mdb changes also if you render(which means creating media) to the volume it resides on. And that makes collaborative work an endless scanning.

Or you need to render to the separate volume and avoid ingesting (or importing) during the editing session.”

Now, I do not have access to multiple MC6 systems, so I am reading all of this with great interest. Are you saying that if you let the second and third MC client system scan the shared volume, once the scan is complete, you will be able to read all the media without giving anyone “Media Offline ” ?
And are you saying that if I create separate volumes for rendering for each editor (easy to accomplish), while multiple editors use this media from the common shared volume to edit with, I will be able to work without issue ?

As you can imagine, when multiple editors work, they need to ingest (or import) because they are on different jobs. But if they are on the SAME shared volume, this is unavoidable. So how would you get around this (without creating a volume based system – one volume per editor) ?

I look forward to your reply.

Bob Zelin

[Eugeny Korkhin]

[Bob Zelin] Are you saying that if you let the second and third MC client system scan the shared volume, once the scan is complete, you will be able to read all the media without giving anyone “Media Offline ” ?

That is exactly what I am saying. No offline media.

[Bob Zelin] And are you saying that if I create separate volumes for rendering for each editor (easy to accomplish), while multiple editors use this media from the common shared volume to edit with, I will be able to work without issue ?

You will be able to work without scanning. Unless you add something to the shared volume.

[Bob Zelin] As you can imagine, when multiple editors work, they need to ingest (or import) because they are on different jobs. But if they are on the SAME shared volume, this is unavoidable. So how would you get around this (without creating a volume based system – one volume per editor) ?

That’s the point to argue. All of that depends on a workflow. I used to work at the company (companies) with a special “ingest team” who would ingest all the material prior to the editing (usually at night). Editors had no right to do that. They even had no possibility to do that as the editor’s place was a keyboard, a mouse and a couple of monitors. And no access to the ingest room. Need to capture something – call “specialist”, give him a tape or whatever you have and wait for your time in his “ingest table”. Some kind of distribution of duties. A bit silly. But that’s not a solitary instance, so I think we may call it a workflow. As a side note, all that took place in an ISIS environment. Thus, there are certain situations, when it is possible to avoid ingesting during the editing session.
But in case the editor ingests to the shared volume while he works, that’s not gonna work. You gonna be watching Avid scanning the drive all day long. And that’s not what an editor expected to do, I think))

Let’s get back to [David Parker]:
The way we work now is generally with one station for ingest and a few edit stations…
…the ingest creates “bins” of new material, and the edits can all read those same bins?

Yes, they can read those same bins or if you don’t want to open the same bin from different stations for safety reasons the ingest distributes that bin to editors’ project folders (on a Finder level).

Can the ingest update those bins and the edit stations do some sort of refresh to see the new stuff?

Yes, you can either update those bins, but, at first, editors should close them if they have them opened (not so comfortable), or you can distribute additional bins to editors as mentioned above, or use the MediaTool in Avid.
But beware of scanning))

How can the edit stations pass back and forth the projects or timelines (in fcp terminology)? Like if we are working on a long form doc, and have two edits working on separate parts of the film, how do they eventually come together?

Simply by copying bins, containing the sequences and combinig those separate sequences into one.

Again, everything depends on a workflow. The possible solution here I think could be:
– Ingesting most of the media in advance;
– Each editor has a local (or mapped) drive for rendering, titles (they also generate files in Avid Mediafiles folder);
– In case the editor needs to ingest or import something – use that local (or mapped) drive as a temporary storage and consolidate to the shared volume at the end of a day (when there’s no one “on the other side of a network” with the Avid launched) and “plan” scanning for the night time.

Of course, that’s a work-around, but finally it works. For free.