FCPX and SAN

[Michael Kammes]

Apple has answered some sharing issues here…and how to move them…

https://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/professional-video-editors-weigh-in-on-final-cut-pro-x/

EXCERPT:

Complaint: You can’t share a project with other editors. In professional editing companies, editors routinely exchange projects. But in FCP X, “all of your project organization is now globally contained in the application rather than in your project file. You literally have to give that other editor your entire computer,” writes one blogger.

Answer: Not true. You can share your project, your files, or both.
If the other editors already have the raw video files, you can hand over the project file. The other editors can inspect the Project Library; on its Info panel, they can click “Modify Event References” to reconnect the project to their own copies of the media files.

If the other editors don’t have the raw files, the various commands in the File menu let you move the project file, the media files, or both to another computer on the network, to another hard drive or whatever.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Gregorio Paolini]

And what is supposed to be the workflow in a workgroup if the media files are stored in a shared storage (san)?

[Dominic Harland]

We have had no issues with SPACE running with FCP X, runs its media straight from our drive on multiple suites with good performance. I have not tried mapping to movies folder yet other than with OD which did cause issues each time FCP was launched as previously reported on this thread.

Speed was good and time line responsive, if other FCP X niggles can be sorted looks like it could be good!

[Bob Zelin]

And you can move projects on FCP X from room to room ? So that the project you start in edit 1 can be worked on in edit 2 ?

Bob Zelin

[Dominic Harland]

Yes we can, works very well, I have now had 3 edit suites running FCP X all using SPACE for the media files. I can move ‘projects’ from suite to suite without affecting other ‘projects’ the suites have.

[Jordan Woods]

Just to post on this thread as well as what I posted to the Xsan thread. YES, FCPX will work with your video files on your SAN. You can import the footage and retain the footage on that location. Here is a growing FAQ list from Apple: https://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/

-Jordan

[James O’connor]

Hi Steve,

I use Small Tree products (and GraniteSTOR) here in my business… great stuff. I’m curious about your “good sharing” practices though. You mentioned the symlink which you showed me previously. My question is this (and it’s a biggie):

If we symlink, or find another way to let FCPX access events and projects on the SAN, then you will have multiple editors all accessing one “FCPX Events” folder and one “FCPX Projects” folder. When you open FCPX the project and event browsers show you ALL the projects in those folders. Even if other editors have them open and in use. Now, if you accidentally click on a project that you aren’t concerned with it loads the project. Now… in this case, which editor is writing to the metadata database? … and what is the result of such action? Corruption? Version problems? FCPX, like iMovie does a lot when you load it up, depending on your preferences, it may start doing colour/shake/audio analysis on content that another editor was busy modifying.

Plus, project sharing, the “new Apple way” is all well and good but editor ONE will wrap up his work and “share” a project for someone else (great if the media files are all on the server, reconnecting will be a good experience) but, now instead of just telling someone else to open the project, we have a copy on different machines because we shared it out. Now we have to track who’s got the most up to date version, and choose to delete surplus versions. Does this scare anyone else? Can someone please put together a workflow for the rest of us? I feel as though I haven’t really cracked this yet.

In the meantime, my guys ARE using FCPX but projects/versions are staying put on local machines and I DON’T LIKE IT!! 🙂

When we figure this all out, I’ll be sure to post back. But in the meantime, I need all the help I can get!

James

[Steve Modica]

[James O'Connor] “If we symlink, or find another way to let FCPX access events and projects on the SAN, then you will have multiple editors all accessing one “FCPX Events” folder and one “FCPX Projects” folder.”

Absolutely. Don’t do this!!!!
I was simply running a test to see how smart the thing was about this stuff. If you had 3 machines at your house and you were the only user, I think this could work, but I would never suggest something like this for a real shop.

There was a suggestion to create disk images using disk utility. I liked this a lot. Then you can duplicate your project to that image and had another editor a nice .dmg file on a stick he can use. Assuming he’s imported the same clips as you, it should all work.

Steve

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[James O’connor]

[Steve Modica] “but I would never suggest something like this for a real shop.”

Thanks again Steve. You’re helping and I really appreciate it. If that’s how most “real shops” are doing it now then we have to infer that you’re also not recommending FCPX to those same shops. If that’s the truth we’re facing then the question is: does anyone think Apple is going to deal with this issue?

I have to confess the only reason we’ve been “playing” with the software is because we are merely believing that Apple is going to tackle this. What worries me is that it’s such a fundamental change at the I/O level that Apple would not have risked adding it after, at the risk of creating problems for those who have projects that will need to be “moved” to the now permissible “right” location.

However, it won’t be the first time. The first version of their pro photo editing app, Aperture, launched with the inability to reference files outside of the sanctioned library. THEN they later added the ability to do that but denied people storing their Aperture library on a network drive. THEN they later added the ability to do that.

All we can learn from this is that they are: Crazy. But Talented. Anyway… any ideas?

J

[Steve Modica]

My not so humble opinion on “sharing” is that people over do it.

At SGI, we wanted to have all our source code in one place for all 600 engineers to access. So we had a giant machine that ran NFS and that eventually led to cxfs.

People want all their “stuff” in one big bucket because then they don’t have to organize it. However, it still has to be organized!

I think FCP X is “fine” for new people that don’t have existing customers that force legacy workflows. I think Apple realizes (as they do with many things) that they could either revamp FCP 7 or for the same engineering effort, create the newest thing that grabs the new market. Once again, they push down market.

If only SGI had pushed down market rather than building bigger and bigger onyx machines. Perhaps we’d all be running with SGI video cards and workstations?

Steve

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications