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COVID-related internet throttling
Still think we can move everyone to the cloud for business? Especially our business?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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40 Replies
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[Oliver Peters] “Still think we can move everyone to the cloud for business? Especially our business?”
Yes.
There are much less of us, then there are Netflix users. ;D
And no, working from the cloud is going to be slow and difficult.
I am trying to work with SNS’s Nomad solution all though TeamViewer from the home to the mothership. We need better relinking in FCPX, like today, as a special coronavirus pandemic update/what-was-going-to-be-a-NAB-release release.
This is literally one time that I am envious of Adobe Premiere.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “There are much less of us, then there are Netflix users. ;D”
Yes and no. Wait until everyone wants to be on the cloud and with full resolution. The aggregate bandwidth might not be that much different.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I am trying to work with SNS’s Nomad solution all though TeamViewer from the home to the mothership”
Good luck with that. The fallacy of this approach is that you still have to have a manned facility somewhere that does not run on auto-pilot.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “Good luck with that. The fallacy of this approach is that you still have to have a manned facility somewhere that does not run on auto-pilot.
“Yes, the footage has to come from somewhere.
There’s lots of ways to attach the storage to cloud services. I can have the footage download to the server, for instance, and then the EVO creates really low weight proxies.
I can then quickly organize a Library over TeamViewer, run Nomad on the appropriate media, and then send the Library and the Proxy files up to the cloud and download at home.
The issues I am running in to is that FCPX won’t relink an MXF original file to a .mov or .mp4 proxy. There’s a way to trick FCPX in to relinking, but it’s super involved.
But if all your media is .mov from the jump, this works today, right now without much fuss.
I am still working on trying to get this to work with MXF, but FCPX is the limiting factor. If we were using Premiere, this would be working.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I am still working on trying to get this to work with MXF, but FCPX is the limiting factor. If we were using Premiere, this would be working.”
Let’s hope Apple have a nice new version ready to go that fixes this – although to be honest I’m losing hope of any more major developments to FCPX at the moment!
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I have been playing with remote editing for a long time, and now of course, everyone is asking for it. No matter whose system you have, you are at the total mercy of your internet connection – mainly from the “mothership” server’s upload speed. As everyone seems to know already – the only way to accomplish any of this is with proxy footage (or optomized media). Downloading more than 100 Gig in an 8 hour period seems pretty unrealistic. (and who knows once internet throttling starts to really happen – if you will even get this).
Jeremey mentioned Teamviewer. This is what I use, and what most pro support companies use, but it’s expensive, because once you start using it on a regular basis, its no longer free. So I have been experimenting with Splashtop (which is cross platform) and Google Remote Desktop (which is cross platform). Splashtop is about $60 for the year, and $17 for a remote client, and you can get in whenever you want. Google Remote Desktop is free, but someone has to give you the code at the remote end, and you have to “confirm” that it’s ok for them to take control of your desktop. Which means that SOMEONE has to be at the mothership (where the server is located).
But with all of this said – if you simply had remote access to your powerful computer at work (via remote), and you had FULL BANDWIDTH to your server (because you are controlling the computer in your office) – is that enough ? You can’t add new full res media to the server. It would take forever.
So is any of this worth it ? If you had full remote access to your powerful computer at work, you could run Adobe Media Encoder, EditReady or Apple Compressor (or just upload right there to Frame I/O) – but is that enough ?AND if NO ONE is in the streets, and NO ONE is in the office, couldn’t ONE person go into the office to add that new media to the main server ? I mean – there is no one else in there for them to get sick from ?
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
[Bob Zelin] “and you had FULL BANDWIDTH to your server (because you are controlling the computer in your office) – is that enough ?”
I find that trying to actually edit through the internet is too hard, so no, it’s not enough. Maybe with a dedicated system like BeBop (but if TeamViewer is expensive, then BeBop is super expensive).
[Bob Zelin] ” If you had full remote access to your powerful computer at work, you could run Adobe Media Encoder, EditReady or Apple Compressor (or just upload right there to Frame I/O) – but is that enough ? “
I think this is the most practical. You have to make REALLY light proxies though. And the trouble with any software encoders at the moment (like compress and media encoder) is that you can’t compress the audio along with the video and keep the same number of channels. For instance, we edit with a lot of MXF files with 8 channels of audio. If I try to cook those in Compressor or Media encoder, in order to get 8 channels out, you need to set the audio to “passthrough” which keeps it uncompressed which keeps the files sizes big.
The SNS EVO server will compress the audio along with the video, so the file sizes are very small. I can get very light, 8 channel, h264 file. The 50+TB on our server now is about 350GB of proxy files. Even if I had to upload the entire server, (which I don’t yet), I could do it.
[Bob Zelin] “AND if NO ONE is in the streets, and NO ONE is in the office, couldn’t ONE person go into the office to add that new media to the main server ? I mean – there is no one else in there for them to get sick from ? “
That would be my plan too. One trip to and from the office, plug in a hard drive, set it to transfer, and do the rest remotely and extremely low risk of contamination.
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I could be wrong (and I usually am) – but in the same way that the old writers strike spawned reality television – this current incident could spawn the future development of real life full time remote editing. Of course, companies like Amazon and Google would have to get serious about buying out the Comcast’s and Spectrums of the world, so they could run dedicated fiber (as Google has already done in a handful of cities).
And in the same way that “reality television” became accepted instead of scripted television – will proxy delivery as final shows ever become “good enough ?
Bob
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I think this is the most practical. You have to make REALLY light proxies though.”
Bear in mind that I have only tested this. But look through my review of Postlab, which is ideal for FCPX.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/03/07/a-first-look-at-postlab-cloud/
But more important to this discussion than how Postlab works was moving the files. I created very lightweight proxies that could be moved easily and cheaply through Frame. Granted you could use other services, too. But if you are only concerned about craft editing at home, this would be one way to go. Naturally you could just as easily copy files to a drive, but it is one way.
However, for edit proxies, these need to be a wrapper format that properly supports your audio channel configuration and TC, otherwise relinking is an issue. So MOV or MXF using a range of codecs, such as DNxLB (not with FCPX), XDCAM35, ProRes Proxy, or even H264 (wrapped as MOV).
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Anything other than highly compressed h264 mov or mp4 would be impractical for a true cloud workflow for us as projects are routinely many TBs of material.
Right now, my only issue is not being able to batch relink Mxf master files to h264 proxies in fcpx. I can do it one by one, but not in a batch very easily. I can get a batch to work with some super high level trickery that is almost impractical due to the amount of files and errors it might create. But in a pinch, we can do it (either one by one or a tricky batch) and everyone stays home.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Right now, my only issue is not being able to batch relink Mxf master files to h264 proxies in fcpx”
Relinking with FCPX is terrible. Generally it either works or not at all. Premiere is muuuuuuch better at that. My guess is that your folder names and paths do not perfectly match. For FCPX, it also needs matching TC and audio configurations, but you probably know that. It’s also not a good app for anything MXF.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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