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OSX 10.6 + FCP7 + Avid Unity = 1 Giant Headache
I did a pretty exhaustive search on the COW forums and haven’t really found any solutions to my problems yet. I’m trying to get four Mac Pro 12 core machines running OSX 10.6 and Final Cut 7 to play nicely with our existing Avid Unity MediaNetwork. Problems I’m experiencing:
– While in Final Cut and after rendering the entire timeline, if I switch to an app outside of Final Cut and then switch back, I’ll lose the majority of those renders (red bars for both audio and video). I’d love to adjust the sequence to match my footage but it’s all PhotoJPG encoded .mov files and the PhotoJPG decoder in Final Cut has some serious brightness and contrast issues after applying filters and transitions and previewing. My clients won’t take “it won’t look like that after a full render” as an answer. I realize that moving my scratch disk to a local drive will fix this issue but as multiple people work on these projects, it would be great to be able to store the render files with the project file so we’re not eating up space across four machines.
– Occasionally when we open up FCP projects stored on our Unity, make changes, and attempt to save, we get the “File is Locked” error. If we navigate in Finder to where the project file is located, we can then save the file. This tells me the the drives are going into a suspended state or “sleep”. Not that I think it would make a difference with Unity mounted workspaces but I do not have the “Put drives to sleep” option selected under the Energy Saver system preference.
Here are the specs for everything:
Avid Unity MediaNetwork 5.1.3
Mac Pro running OSX 10.6.6 (under 32bit kernel)
– 2 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors (12 cores total)
– 16 GB RAM
– ATTO Celerity Fibre Channel Card Model FC-41ES
– Unity Fiber Client 5.2
Final Cut Pro 7.0.3PLEASE let me know if you have experience similar issues and where you currently stand on them. I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall here…
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21 Replies
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Jason,
FCP in a Unity environment would NOT be my first choice for a smooth operating environment. I understand why you may want to leverage existing storage and infrastructure, but as you’ve noted, there are consequences for wandering away from best practices. Going down this road, as you’ve discovered, can be a bumpy ride.
I’m sure there are people who have successfully integrated FCP into Unity shared storage environment… I am NOT one of them.
How knowledgeable are you or your support staff regarding all things FCP? Some of the workflow that you’ve described seems a bit convoluted.
If you’re determined to make this work, then you’re going to have to commit to experimenting, adjusting work flow, and training/educating your editors.
I’d suggest hiring a qualified/competent FCP expert to help you sort this out. You’re not going to get a quick answer here that fixes everything.
Good luck.
Mark
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I’m having my own issues with the Unity today but you’re are might be easier to fix.
1) You’re client drivers for the unity are outdated. They my clients are on 5.3.1. From the read me:
“The Avid Unity MediaNetwork v5.1.4 client software fixes this issue so that Final Cut Pro clients can render effects and function normally when switching between the Finder and back to the Final Cut Pro application.”5.2 brought support for snow leopard but had finder issues. 5.3.1 fixes these.
2) I have my clients work locally and back up to unity. This keeps the files from being locked when trying to save. It also keeps people from working on the same project and overwriting.
Maybe this will help you, as for me, I’m putting everyone on local storage to see if my issues clear up…
Mike
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Put your render files locally?
Also why do you have to render?
Because of filters ?
Pretty Much all HD formats playback without any rendering in a matched timeline. -
I personally wouldn’t use a Unity for FCP but I understand why someone might if they already have one. And there shouldn’t be any reason why it wouldn’t work – FCP just sees it as another hard drive.
However there are two other things you mention that I wouldn’t do either…
1. I wouldn’t use Photo Jpeg as an edit codec. It’s quite a dated codec and except for a small number of older offline presets created by Apple back in the day they don’t work in RT.
2. I wouldn’t keep the projects on the Unity. I’ve never put our FCPs on a Unity but I work with an XSan all the time and we never work our projects from it. They become corrupt and if someone else accesses your project you will lose everything.————————
FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London -
I’ll try the updated client but reading the white pages Avid made it sound like this version should only be used if you are transferring data from a fiber connected Unity MediaNetwork to or from an ethernet connected Unity ISIS.
Reading through the other comments, I think we’ll have to try and work locally. Coming from an Avid background I was apparently spoiled by having the source footage and project file in the same location. Guess it’s going to take quite a bit more work to figure out a solid FCP workflow.
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It certainly has been a bumpy road.
Can you elaborate on what seems convoluted? I’m coming from an Avid background so maybe my FCP workflow isn’t as efficient as it could be.
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I’d prefer to keep my render files on the Unity as it eliminates the need for each editor to have an identical copy of the render files on their machines.
The story as to why I’m having to render is a long one. I’m editing with animations created and rendered from a post house and they deliver them PhotoJPG encoded. I’ve noticed that there are quite a few visual bugs that show up in FCP when working with PhotoJPG footage in a timeline setup to decode PhotoJPG. To fix this visual issues so our clients don’t complain, I have set up the timeline using a different decoder (ProRes 422 HQ). What I may have to do is insist that our posthouse delivers using a different codec or uncompressed. They are working in a PC environment so encoding to ProRes might not be cost efficient.
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Yep. I’m working with an existing Unity and at the moment, it’s all I’ll be getting for SAN storage. I can utilize the Unity as network attached storage no problem.
For now I’m stuck using PhotoJPG (see my previous topic reply) if I want to use the native files without transcoding (something I’ve been avoiding for the sake of time). I may just have to suck it up and transcode whenever we receive assets from our post house until we can find a solution that works for everybody.
If your project files are stored on the local machine, what is your workflow when that same project needs to be edited on a separate machine?
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A few other notes:
Expect a 30% hit on performance when using FCP on Unity. Known issue, although some will debate the 30% hit. Maybe yours is 20%. But it’s there.
Once you verify Fibre card driver, firmware, and OS settings.. ..(VERY IMPORTANT)
I’m willing to bet you’re in a 64bit Kernel. Try booting into a 32bit kernel, and see if things get any better. Did you install the client software in 64 or 32? 32 is supported.
~Michael
.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com -
I think Edit Share is the only system that allows you to truly share a FCP Project. I haven’t used it for about 5 years though so that might be wrong.
We all work off local projects and share media. If you need to share a sequence with another editor then you have to create a new project and copy the sequence into it. You then put that somewhere where the other editor can access it so they can move it to their local machine. It’s not as painstaking as it may sound.
Maybe one of your issues is that you are thinking of FCP projects in the same way as you would an Avid project. They work differently and you could maybe think of an FCP Project more like an Avid bin. Remember you can have multiple FCP projects open and you can copy between projects. A lot of people when workjing on bigger projects will have multiple projects open – one for current sequences, one for old sequences, one for rushes, one for graphics, one for music etc, etc…
I know it sounds like a lot of organising but once you start working this way it becomes second nature and it makes your edit system much more stable.
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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London
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