Sharing media across Wifi

[Sean Oneil]

[Cristian Colbert] “Would getting the new airport extreme with the gigabit architecture help?”

It would, but I highly reccomend using wired gigabit ethernet. The way your situation sounds, you can live with some wires running through the hallway if need be.

[Cristian Colbert] ” Also, I could convert the footage to the ProRes format to help with bandwidth if necessary.”

ProRes uses more bandwidth than DVCProHD. Not less.

[Michael Sacci]

[Cristian Colbert] “My dilema is, how do I share the media across 3 MacBook Pros so that all three editors can cut at the same time without having to clone the 5TB of drives 2 additional times.”

There is no way to have 3 people accessing the same files at the same time without XSan or similar.

[David Bogie]

[msacci] “There is no way to have 3 people accessing the same files at the same time without XSan or similar.”

How about three Airpots, erm, Airports?

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Cristian Colbert]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[msacci] “There is no way to have 3 people accessing the same files at the same time without XSan or similar.”

Are you sure this is the case? Keep in mind, I am not trying to have them accessing the same project file, thus needing r/w permissions. Just access to the actual media files. This is just common file sharing, correct?

[Mark Raudonis]

Christian Colbert,

Give it up! You’re trying to cram a five pound load in a four pound bag. Not only are there bandwidth issues, but there’s sharing/ permisions/ access issues as well. A networked workflow (which is what you’re asking for) requires a few basic parts to function. You don’t have them.

For a professional SAN, look up Facilis’ “Terrablock”. There’s also a solution called “Metasan”, and of course Apple’s X-SAN. None of this stuff is cheap. Don’t expect a miracle soluion to your situation.

Mark

[Cristian Colbert]

Mark,

Thanks for your input. Although your response lacks much in the way of polite communication skills, I have to admire your passion.

FYI, I’ve worked with serveral SANS systems, XServes and Avid Unities, so I’m familiar with the permission issues. And while I agree that they are extremely necessary to collaboratively work on a single edit project, that is not exactly what I was seeking to do. Nonetheless, since my last response I was able to experiment further and have arrived at a suitable solution for my specific situation. I only need everyone to be able to drink from the same fountain, not contribute to it. So that resolved my permission issues aside from common file sharing. I’m using a wired router with my G5 basically as a server. It’s ugly, but all little “miracles” don’t have to be pretty.

[Patrick Sheffield]

I must admit, I have had multiple editors sharing the same DVCProHD media over 100 baseT and Gigabit wired Ethernet (that worked better – less lag). But you’re not gonna do it wireless. We all edited just fine – scratch disk should be set to a local drive so renders are cached locally, but it was a very effective workflow. The lucky one who had the drives mounted on their system had no lag and those accessing via ethernet had a slight delay after pressing play before everything would start churning. We didn’t use any RT.

Patrick

[Cristian Colbert]

Patrick,

Yeah this is exactly the solution I arrived at. I set all renders, autosaves, etc. to the local drives. And if things get really choppy I’m prepared to just copy over the media needed for each edit to the respectively MacBook’s local storage. Just finished up testing and it seems to work fine. Glad to hear it is working for someone else too.

[Sean Oneil]

[msacci] “There is no way to have 3 people accessing the same files at the same time without XSan or similar.”

That is incredibly untrue.

Three people is nothing. And DVCProHD has a relatively low bitrate.

Granted, in a solid, stable, fast working environment, you should have a SAN. But 3 people accessing DVCProHD, for one job – you can absolutely use ethernet file sharing. Wifi, probably not a good idea.

54mbps wireless G is not fast enough for this. Wireless N, the brand new kind, might work.

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

[Cristian Colbert] “FYI, I’ve worked with serveral SANS systems, XServes and Avid Unities, so I’m familiar with the permission issues. And while I agree that they are extremely necessary to collaboratively work on a single edit project, that is not exactly what I was seeking to do. Nonetheless, since my last response I was able to experiment further and have arrived at a suitable solution for my specific situation. I only need everyone to be able to drink from the same fountain, not contribute to it. So that resolved my permission issues aside from common file sharing. I’m using a wired router with my G5 basically as a server. It’s ugly, but all little “miracles” don’t have to be pretty.”

Christian,

Take this advice. If you have a newer G5 (the one with PCIe slots) or a Mac Pro, then your built in ethernet adapter supports something called Jumbo Frames. Use it. Just make sure the switch and all the other Macs also support it.

Sean