New SAN older FCP issue

[Bob Zelin]

Welcome to shared storage within Final Cut Pro ! Sometimes you see errors when you log and capture, or log and transfer (only within FCP across an ethernet network) that are greater than 2 Gig (or 4 Gig) files. Capture locally – no problem. Drag your large 8 gig file across the network from client to server – no problem. But within FCP – CORRUPT FILE. Sometimes – it depends on the file structure, the media type, the network protocol you are using.

SO, what do the bigshots at 1-Beyond have to say ? Arent’ they experts ?

We are now ok in LOG AND CAPTURE across an APPLE AFP network with any size file (up to about 1 hour long captures), but with LOG AND TRANSFER, 4 gigs it the limit ONLY WITHIN FCP, not with any other product. There is a fix if you are using P2 or SxS cards – you run Calibrated {Q} for MXF files, and it eliminates the Log and Transfer process for P2 and XDCamEX files. But if you don’t use this plug in, you cant’ log and transfer >4Gig in FCP, unless you do it to a local drive, and then drag these files to the shared volume. THANKS APPLE. I have much more detail on this, but I can’t share it on this forum.

SO, what does 1-Beyond say about all of this ?

Bob Zelin

[Darrel Harrison]

With my new MacPro’s and decklink card I did a 3hr capture to the 1beyond SAN with no problem.

It’s only the G5 with FCP that hits the 2G limit on the SAN.

Support at 1beyond is researching the issue.

I’m stumped.

Darrel Harrison
Director of Engineering
WSRE-TV

[Walter Soyka]

Can you work around the problem by limiting the Capture/Export file segment size in FCP’s scratch disk settings?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Darrel Harrison]

Tried that. What happens then is multiple 2G segments get written to the SAN. It actually writes 100 place holder files and after it writes the first 2g file names the next one “-1”, then “-2” etc.
When you stop the capture the unused files are deleted.
Wierd!

Darrel Harrison
Director of Engineering
WSRE-TV

[Walter Soyka]

[Darrel Harrison] “It actually writes 100 place holder files and after it writes the first 2g file names the next one “-1”, then “-2″ etc. When you stop the capture the unused files are deleted.”

I think that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen; FCP will write multiple files, but it should treat it all as one clip in the Browser.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Eric Hansen]

i’ve never worked with NTFS and SMB with Final Cut. but i had a similar issue with AFP, a G5 and Final Cut 6 captures ending at 2GB. the solution was to change to NFS instead of AFP. not really sure the technical reasons why it worked, but it worked. but i think whatever bug causes this is fixed in FC7. i can’t confirm that because i haven’t tested it myself though.

at a newer installation i’ve done, we don’t do much tape capturing since almost all the formats we shoot are tapeless. but for Log and Transfer, i read the P2 cards from the SAN and write the ProResHQ transfered files to a local scratch disk. when i’m done, i move them over to the SAN. or i read the P2 cards from the field drive and write the ProResHQ files to the SAN. either way, having the source and target on different devices really speeds things up.

Eric Hansen – http://www.erichansen.tv

[Bob Zelin]

Eric –
download Calibrated {Q} from https://www.calibratedsoftware.com, and
eliminate “log and transfer” for your P2 and 2Gig problems.
It’s a free trial download, so you should try it – it really works.

Bob Zelin

[Eric Hansen]

hey bob

thanks for the link. i’ll give it a shot. but i’m kind of leery of anything “native” in Final Cut, because we still have to render anything that doesn’t match the sequence codec. especially the MPEG-2 based codecs. i like transcoding everything to ProRes so everything is the same resolution, frame size, and codec so the editors can just edit. i may change my mind if a future version of Final Cut can support better RT effects. i would rather spend the time upfront doing the conversions (with cheap labor) than have expensive editors getting out of their groove on an edit because they have to render something that if it was in ProRes, they wouldn’t have to render. for similar reasons, i would totally support a hardware version of Final Cut for a few thousand dollars more if it made almost all effects full res in real time.

does anyone agree with me on this, or am i nuts?

a plug-in like this would make sense for our field editors though.

e

Eric Hansen – http://www.erichansen.tv

[Bob Zelin]

I only mention this because of the >2G or >4Gig issues. Certainly, if no one objects to doing a local transfer of the P2 files, and then draging these files to the shared volume – then this is a “non issue”.

Bob

[Rob Mcdougall]

I object!

Bob – can you provide any more tips on how to fix this issue? I seem to be getting it with the SAN at my office – connecting over NFS, we’re able to read small .MTS encoded AVCHD memory card backups (with correct file structure) but anything larger (e.g. 11GB “private” folder) causes Log and Transfer to behave very strangely. The initial “loading” bar will appear at the bottom for a half-second, then disappear. No error messages… Anyone else noticed this same behaviour?