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FCP X 10.3.2 and QNAP shared storage
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[Oliver Peters] “I’m taking the HDMI from the CalDigit rather than the Mac, because this enables me to keep 2 UI monitors.”
Does that mean FCP X knows which is the secondary display? Whenever I’ve tried a similar set up using the HDMI port on the Mac Pro, it was nothing but aggravation. Sometimes FCP X would consider the HDMI monitor the secondary display, sometimes it wouldn’t. This was a few versions ago, but I basically gave up. I can take only so much.
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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here. -
[Brett Sherman] “Does that mean FCP X knows which is the secondary display”
On the Mac Pro, when you plug a monitor into the HDMI port, it becomes the secondary UI monitor, subject to priorities in sys prefs. In FCPX, under preferences, you see that monitor as the option for a/v. If you have a separate device connected – in our case, an UltraStudio – you’ll have a pulldown menu and can choose between the device or the monitor. When you pick the monitor it becomes the full screen a/v output.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
We’re about to invest in the new QNAP 12+4 NAS TS-1685, finally moving away from this sneakernet chaos.
Still researching how to backup this monster.. Is there anything special to keep in mind regarding NFS, SMB and backups regarding FCPX using hard links when consolidating footage?
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Hi Marco –
the TS-1685 is a brand new unit. As you browse the web, you will see that you cannot even find a price for this system (it starts at just under $3000 – no drives of course). All the QNAP products are amazing – even the cheap ones.
‘Plug that 10G port into a Netgear 10G switch, and you will have an amazing system.
As for backing it up – first, (this is not backup) – make sure to create a RAID 6, so you can have 2 drives fail. But the bottom line answer here, is that if you have 12 xxx size drives (lets say 12 6TB drives) – then your “backup system also must have 12 6 TB drives. I must tell you, that to purchase two of these units not an expensive investment.
The SAS expander for the TS-1685 (which requires the optional 12G SAS card, that you must install yourself) is the
QNAP REXP-1000 Pro, which is $1200 empty. now, this is only 10 drives, not 12 drives, so it’s too small. You could certainly buy the much cheaper TS-1635 (12 bay) as the backup chassis, but you are still buying another 12 drives, which is the bulk of the expense.You can use a generic program like Carbon Copy Cloner or Chronosync to do the backups, or you can use the built in QSync or RTRR to clone and sync the two QNAP RAID chassis.
If you need help, let me know. I do this every day now.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Hi Bob,
yes, our current plan was actually to buy two NAS boxes, one main NAS and another 12-bay, most likely the same model, for backup and ideally offsite storage. The price difference between expansion unit and a full NAS is negligible considering the main cost is 24x 8TB or 10TB drives.
With two boxes we’d have nearly no downtime if the main NAS itself fails or any kind of disaster strikes at one location, just switch to backup NAS. That’d be neat.Of course RAID 6, and I like the idea of using local snapshots and then RTRR to the backup NAS. Main problem is our slow Internet connection (30Mbit up/down), so RTRR over the net won’t really do. And driving a full 12bay NAS back and forth every week or so isn’t really feasible either.
Ideal would be a way to make a kind of diff backup via sneakernet and copy only the delta since the last backup to external usb disk and then to the offsite NAS.
Or a completely different backup strategy, I don’t know yet. Quite complex with so much data…
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I should add to this thread some real world experience from today. Most of our jobs on the 16-drive unit have been a mix of resolutions, usually ProRes HD and 4K. Typically shorter clips. Performance has been good. I mentioned earlier that I’ve been able to loop 4K stringouts and they plan fine. However, this is not real world editing.
Today I have a job that’s all 4K 24p slomo (shot at 40fps). It plays fine, but when you get to skimming, scrubbing, fast play, etc. the system chokes. This is a just a 1 1/2 hour stringout of clips that I’m whittling down. Nothing exotic. FCPX deals with it better than Premiere, but it’s still not perfect. And today I’m the only person connected to the SAN.
When I compare the performance, with this type of 4K job, to a direct attached Thunderbolt 2 Pegasus 8-drive RAID, the Pegasus is clearly the winner. Now, that’s not to slam either system or software. It simply points to the fact that SANs in general max out with HD, for real time “online” editorial work.
Unless of course, you want to go the Fincher route and invest in Open Drives all-SSD SANs.
So, since I’m doing this in Premiere, I’ve resorted to using ‘render & replace’, which generates HD media from all of the source clips in the timeline. Much easier to work with and I can still go back to a 4K clip if I need to punch in.
I would also add this this may well have a lot to do with the individual apps and how Macs handle networking as it does with the storage system itself.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
where are you located Marco – can’t find you on the web.
BobBob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Happy to hear some real-world experience as well. I don’t think that the issues you experience with the QNAP have anything to do with the apps. They certainly don’t have anything to do with “the way Macs handle networking”. We have dozens of all-Mac installations with anything from 6 to 26 connected users users that run perfectly in online 4K environments, either on Premiere or Final Cut Pro. But I think you hit the nail right on the head when you say “SANs in general max out with HD, for real time online editorial work.” With one important little correction, if I may: replace the word “SANs” with “cheap NASes”.
And to illustrate this I would like to share another real-world experience.
In November last year, during the FCPX Tour Barcelona, Spanish post-production manager David Lopez explained the workflows they use on the award-winning tv show “Salvados”. If you haven’t had the chance to read about this yet, here’s the link to an article about this show including a video from the presentation:
They used to shoot in HD, then they started shooting in 4K (3 to 4 C300 cams) and they moved their post production to a big post house in Barcelona. 6 weeks ago my friend Jesus Perez-Miranda in Barcelona called me to say they were having lots of issues working with FCP X in 4K multicam on the 24-bay Qnap shared storage system at the facility. They couldn’t work natively, everything needed to be transcoded to proxy mode if they wanted to avoid spinning beach balls, and the FCP X thumbnails and waveforms took a very long time to generate on long clips (which are typical with multicam). The facility blamed FCP X (of course).
So I jumped on a plane to Barcelona to see what was wrong and we took a little 8-bay JellyFish Mobile from LumaForge with us to test their workflow performance bypassing their current shared storage solution. We connected 6 users direct to the Mobile in their server room (without needing a switch) in less than 20 minutes, then we spent 2 hours waiting for their media to be transferred over to the JellyFish. Then they started editing their show with 4 editors over 10GbE and the difference was mind-blowing. Thumbnails and waveforms generated fast and they even could edit their 4K multicam show in native MXF instead of having to convert to optimized or proxy media.
The 3 engineers of the post house who attended the test were baffled to see a little 8-bay portable server handle this show faster than the 24 bay rack system they had set up. When I asked them why they had chosen their current server solution, they replied: “because it was cheap and because it worked well with the HD projects we have tested”. We are currently looking into replacing their solution with another one.
My conclusion: Qnap indeed offers decent and cheap shared storage. Especially when you work with only a few editors in HD and you can hire someone like the great Bob Zelin (whom I absolutely recommend because I have worked with him on another project) to assist you. But when the going gets tougher, I’m not sure if the cheapest solution is always the best one. If it were, I think everyone who sells solutions that cost over 15 grand would be out of business by now. But they aren’t, quite the opposite. I will leave any further discussion as to why and how to people who have the time for this. As an editor I only care about real-world performance.
– Ronny
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My situation was having two Displayport monitors with an HDMI monitor for full-screen playback. But half the time it would interpret the HDMI monitor as the Secondary Monitor and not the AV output monitor. So I’d have to make FCP X show on a single-display, then set up the HDMI monitor as AV. Then turn on the secondary monitor again. It was just too much trouble because you’d have to do it often when relaunching FCP X. Ultimately I gave up on it.
Where in the OS do you set monitor priority? I know you can set placement, but I’m not sure how with 3 monitors FCP X determines which is the secondary display.
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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here. -
Hi Ronny –
I don’t know how often you are in London, but I did a large QNAP install for Gramafilm (using Premiere, not FCP-X) and they have no issues. What I would REALLY like is for you to get your hands on a QNAP – something like the Jellyfish (but much cheaper) like the QNAP TVS-871T, or 1282T, which has 8 drives, four 1G ports and 2 10G ports, just like the Jellyfish, and TRY IT. The London dealer is https://www.span.com, and if they won’t give you one for eval, let me know, and I will arrange it with QNAP so you can get one without having to pay for it. If going to The Netherlands is more convenient for you, I also did a couple of systems there, that you could check out. Email me, and I will get you contact info directly to them.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com
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