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Cross-platform situation…need advice
I need some advice on a project that I’m working on that will be cut on MC on both a PC and a Mac. At work they are on HP workstations running Windows XP, but at home I am on OSX as most of my freelance work is done on FCP. I will now be working mostly from home, however, and will need to be able to transfer media and project files between the Windows XP set up at the office and my home OSX system.
I know there are multiple options when doing so, so I am hoping to get the benefit of all of your wisdom to start off on the right foot. Should I:
A. Run MC in OSX at home and format an external drive as FAT32 to be able to take the media from the Unity at work to my RAID at home? (I am aware of the 2GB file size limit)
B. Run MC in Windows XP under BootCamp at home and format an external RAID to be PC-only and just take that back and forth between the office and home?
C. Or another option I haven’t considered?
I know the software is the same regardless of the OS, so all of the project files should be interchangeable. Right? So this is more a question of media transfer. I’m willing to spend a little more money to get the best work flow and system stability, but of course want to be as economical as possible.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Trip
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7 Replies
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Cop media to a NTFS drive at work, mount and copy to your local Mac formatted drives at home. Same with projects and bins. Just be aware of mediafile structure on a Unity versus single system.
Michael
anything 24fps
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What would be the best way of dealing with the Unity mediafile structure? What exactly should I be watching out for? Thanks.
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Would another option be to use Sebsky Tools to export from the Avid MC at the office and just work in FCP at home? All the true media would remain housed on the Avid Unity at the office and I would use Automatic Duck to export OMFIs from FCP that I would then bring back into to the Avid for finishing work. I would, of course, save all of the graphics heavy work for when I am actually at the office and do it directly on the MC. A viable option?
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I would need the complete Automatic Duck FCP bundle, though, to be able to import and export the OMFs…correct?
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Unity creates subfolders for each workstation within the OMFI folder. You need to bring the media up to the surface level of the OMFI folder on your standalone system.
Don’t do the FCP / Avid / Automaitc Duck dance if you can avoid it. We handle projects that way on occasion and it is only used when we HAVE to, not a pretty workflow.
Format your dives for Mac and copy the media from the Unity onto them on one of the PC workstations with MacDrive installed. That will allow you to read and write to your Mac formatted drive.
Once the media is copied over, you only need to move the project file back and forth. Renders will need to be redone on each end unless you keep copying them back and forth.
Make sure any fonts you use are resident on the PCs.
The old style Color Effect doesn’t look the same going from Mac to PC.
If you use Pan and Zoom or Moving Picture, make sure you create ONE dedicated folder for all of your source pictures that you can easily move to the PC workstation.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
If the Adrenalin does not have MacDrive, how would one modify this workflow?
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Do as MichaelP suggested. Take an external drive formatted to NTFS (for Windows), copy your media to it, then hook it up to your Mac. You won’t be able to write to it, but you can copy your media from it (you can read from it). Transfer the media from the NTFS drive to your Mac drives and edit away.
Michael.
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