Will and SAN built for AVID also work with FCP 7 and Premiere Pro

[Bob Zelin]

AVID ISIS 5000
Facilis Terrablock
EditShare

these solutions will work perfectly with AVID and everything else.

If you are ok with a volume based system so will Studio Network Solutions.

If you only want FCP 7 and Premier, any of the shared storage systems will work just fine. AVID is the trick here.

Bob Zelin

[Matt Geier]

Hi Dustin,

When it comes to specialized applications and platforms like what Avid (and real time media and video solutions in general), you’ve got to pick the “just right” solution for it to work with your workflow.

I know that Small Tree has a new real time video shared storage solution launched this year that supports FCP 7, FCPX, Avid, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, just to name some.

All in all you’ll find some great solutions that are feature rich, and some that are not so much but still work and are reliable to accomplish your needs.

Regarding your question on LTO —
When I was at SGI I sold a lot of LTO Tape solutions. Mostly those from Storage Tek at the time….now owned by Oracle. You have options of tape solutions from Single Tape drives like those which are common among us now, or larger enterprise type of tape libraries and autoloader products that have massive amounts of storage space.

LTO is a great way to put something away safely for a very long period of time. It’s long lasting and dependable.

You’re budget probably only allows you to do something small….but take a look around and see what you can find. Again, lots of options for you that utilize LTO.

I wish you luck!

Happy Hunting!

Matt Geier
“I LOVE High Performance Computing and Shared Network Solutions”

[Steve Modica]

Matt beat me to this.
Avid works just fine with a straight up NAS provided you aren’t capturing or rendering to the shared storage during the working day. That changes the index files which causes other users to reindex. Capture and render locally *or* setup shared scratch volumes and use those. Others can see them if necessary, but won’t typically have them mounted.

Since you want to use Pro Res, you’ll probably use Avid AMA anyhow (so you can stay in Pro Res and not have to ingest as MXF files). If this is the case, Avid works exactly like all the other apps. It treats it as a NAS volume.

For a small shop like you, I wouldn’t write off FCP X just yet either. It works well with Xsan and NAS volumes when you use the Sparse Disk Image method. It’s been written up a few times and it’s very elegant.

Steve Modica
Small Tree

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Dustin Parsons]

[Steve Modica] “Avid works just fine with a straight up NAS provided you aren’t capturing or rendering to the shared storage during the working day.”

Wow, that’s great to hear. I have no problem capturing or rendering to one of my internal drives so that definitely opens up a lot more options.

[Steve Modica] “I wouldn’t write off FCP X just yet either.”

I am intrigued by FCP X and I know it has everything I would need to accomplish my work (we’re not broadcast) but right now there’s just not a high enough adoption rate for me to seriously consider it. We work with a lot of freelancers and most of them have gone to Avid or Premiere so that’s influencing my decision as well as the fact that I want to be fluent in programs that broadcast and feature films are cut on so I can easily move in that direction if an opportunity opens up.

[Dustin Parsons]

Matt Geier “I know that Small Tree has a new real time video shared storage solution launched this year that supports FCP 7, FCPX, Avid, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, just to name some.”

Great! I’ll definitely check them out.

Matt Geier “You have options of tape solutions from Single Tape drives like those which are common among us now, or larger enterprise type of tape libraries and autoloader products that have massive amounts of storage space.”

The single tape LTO is what I’m looking for, I doubt I would need anything more just yet. Have you heard of BRU from the Tolis Group? I was looking at their Edit Bay Production Desktop solution but, having never used LTO, I don’t know if it’s a good system.

[Bob Zelin]

Steve writes –
“Avid works just fine with a straight up NAS provided you aren’t capturing or rendering to the shared storage during the working day”

REPLY –
this in my opinion is pretty unrealistic for normal operations. A fellow on this forum – Eugeny – “confronted” Walter Biscardi on his statements about operation with AVID on his shared storage system. Eugeny explained that if a seperate volume was kept for each editor, where each editor kept his project files and render files on a seperate volume, then everyone could work as they normally do – but if this rule was ignored, and saving, capturing and rendering was done during an edit session, the AVID database would rescan over and over again.

this is the trick that companies like Studio Network Solutions and Command Soft Fibre Jet do – volume based systems, where editors are assigned a seperate workspace, and a seperate volume. Any editor can read, but only one editor may write to a specific volume. To tell an editor “don’t render out any files during the day while you are working on your AVID”, is pretty unrealistic, in my opinion.

I do not know what Tiger Technology “AVID Virtualization” does for the MetaSAN product, but Facilis and EditShare have figured out how to get around this issue, while companies like Studio Network Solutions work with AVID ONLY because they are VOLUME based, preventing editors from a common render area – this avoids the rescanning of the media database.

I am not saying that you are wrong – I am just saying that I see that most editors would refuse to abide by these rules and restrictions.

Bob Zelin

[Dustin Parsons]

Good to know – it’s possible to have AVID work with a normal NAS provided that every Editor is extremely careful only render or save to their internal drives.

[Bob Zelin] “Studio Network Solutions work with AVID ONLY because they are VOLUME based, preventing editors from a common render area – this avoids the rescanning of the media database.”

Just checked out Studio Network Solutions and the Evo 3.0 All in One looks amazing! I’ll definitely have to compare it’s prices with EditShare and Facili’s offerings.

[Jeremy Strootman]

Hi Dustin,

Shoot me an email and I will get some numbers over to you for comparison. We can talk a little bit about Avid workflow as well.

jstrootman@studionetworksolutions.com

Thank you,
Jeremy Strootman
Studio Network Solutions

[Shane Rodbourn]

Hello Dustin,
Facilis Technology offers a solution that will fit your needs very well. The TerraBlock offers native bin and project sharing for Avid editors, and we also have project management tools for Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. In addition, many of our customers are doing backup/archive using LTO. That’s a common workflow.

Please contact sales@facilis.com or give us a call at 978-562-7022. We would be happy to discuss the various options to meet both your budget and your workflow needs.

Check us out at Facilis.com Our Booth at NAB 2012 is SL9019.

We also have two Events coming up shortly where we are launching our Version 5.5 software.

L.A. – March 15th at the Federal Bar – starts at 6:00 PM
NYC – March 29th at the MPE Penthouse – starts at 6:00 PM

RSVP to events@facilis.com

Thank you and we look forward to working with you.

Regards,
Shane Rodbourn
SVP/GM Facilis Technology