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QT Reference files from Leopard to PC-Based compression station?
Hey there.
We upgraded to MacPros a few months ago. On my machine, I’ve two boot drives. One for FCP and one for Avid. I currently use Avid more than FCP.
We’ve also got a dedicated PC that processes all of our compressions via watch folders on our network. This compression station runs Windows XP, and all of our compressions are done through Sorenson Squeeze 4.3.302.4.
In the past, we used PC-based Avid systems, and when we wanted to compress something, we just exported quicktime reference files (with network resources enabled) to our network, into whichever watch folder we wanted. Sorenson would see them and drop the resulting compressed files into a ‘compressed movies’ directory on the network. This worked flawlessly for us.
Since upgrading to Macs, we’ve seen that the quicktime reference file route doesn’t work (it doesn’t seem to matter if it comes from FCP or Avid). When a QT ref is dropped into any of our watch folders, Squeeze doesn’t like it, and says that it can’t see the media. As a result, we now drop Uncompressed QTs or Same as Source QTs into the watch folders, and that does the trick, but it’s just very cumbersome. It takes longer to export, and the files are HUGE.
I’m not sure if there’s a setting I’m missing somewhere that’d let those QT reference files work again. I remember setting my Mac and being asked if I wanted to make it available for network rendereing, and I selected ‘no’. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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3 Replies
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That’s a pretty messy workflow.
There are a few reasons why your Mac ref files won’t work on a PC, but if you’ve made the move to Mac why don’t you just use compressor or cross-grade to a Mac version of Squeeze if you prefer it to compressor?
(Network rendering has nothing to do with it AFAIK)
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Please post back saying what solved your problem. It could help others, and saying ‘thanks’ is free! -
I do use Compressor on occasion, mostly for MPEG-2 files that I bring into DVDSP.
However, the vast majority of our compressions are WMVs and FLVs. We’ve got watch folders set up for the particular specifications of each of our clients, and we’re still feeding our PC ‘compression station’ with files from the old PC edit boxes, which we still use.
As far as the workflow goes, it’s always worked well for us — freelancers don’t have to worry about figuring out the compressions — they just drop a file in the appropriate folder. And our AEs and project coordinators do the majority of the interfacing with our clients, and they always know where to look for the latest version of a particular edit.
Anyway, I was just looking for a possible solution based on what we’ve got, without throwing too big a wrench into the existing workflow, and without spending anything more.
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Can you verify that the PC workstation is seeing the folders on the Mac where the actual media lives? What codec are the ref files referencing? If it is DVCProHD or DVCOPro50 you can get codecs on the PC from Raylight and then the PC might be able to read them. Once we got the codecs we can drag DVCPro HD or 50 clips into Vegas and use them natively.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media
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