Allan White
Forum Replies Created
-
Hey Kevin, thanks for the note. I’ll check into that; at this time the Mac Pro isn’t using MetaSAN (though I should check and see if it’s still active somehow).
I recognized it as an OS error code, I think you’re right on that score. In fact…
Ok, that is correct: making a preview movie from my internal drive works perfectly. Hmm. Still, progress!
We’re moving to XSAN next week; hopefully that will address the issue. I’ll bring it up with our integrator.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Does Flow work with 8.08? Definitely looking at that app and want to use CatDV, too.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
I really like CatDV as the “Pre-editor” step before things hit FCP. It’s so much more orderly and team-friendly (including non-editors).
The main need we had that drove us to search for it was a need for a database that sat ‘above’ all the other FCP projects and let us search and draw across multiple projects. I try to push as much data entry, transcription, and even basic edit decisions that direction so the ‘pile’ builds value over time, making future projects faster. The Server product helps with this.
You can search across catalogs with the “browse catalogs” view – just point it at your catalog list and you can search all those, it’s similar (but not as powerful) as the Server query module.
I gave FC Server a hard look, but without cuts-only editing and subclip creation (among other things) it’s a far cry from CatDV.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
We use Event Markers pretty heavily. I usually block scenes or larger clips out and make subclips (we shoot events, or produce docs). I have the person transcribing the dialogue use the Verbatim logger, then those get converted to markers. I’ll go through later and select the markers I want and convert those to subclips, which are then sent to FCP for capture.
The first time someone sees the word search happen, it’s amazing!
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
From your screengrab, it looks like you might be ingesting MPEG-2 – is that right? I’ve had lots of problems with that format.
If you convert your video to another format first, does the problem remain?
It’s not just QT bugs that can hurt this fine app, but QTJava bugs also, I think (a subset, and less maintained than QT). CatDV is the largest Java Swing app I’ve ever seen, which is why there’s some oddities here & there.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Really excited to see a CatDV forum here, it’s an excellent tool and there’s really no other user forum out there. Thanks!
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Talk to Bernard Lamborelle (bernard@tiger-technology.com) for sales info, he’s very helpful.
I’m a MetaSAN customer – it’s a powerful product one but I strongly regret not hiring an integrator to do the job. Learn from my mistakes!
It’s $999 per Fibre Channel seat, though the MetaLAN Gigabit Ethernet clients are only $299, a great bargain for full SAN features for SD or ProRes workflows.
Call an integrator, or get a support contract with the vendor (Tiger uses third-party vendors to sell the software). Yes, they cost money, but you’ll save MONTHS of stress and time lost.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Bob, your sentiments about uniformed users buying SAN systems are right on – but I need to raise a point here.
I was one of them. I needed to build a SAN for my editing team (a non-tech-savvy group) when I came on board at my company. So, I researched it, got as much input as I could, and settled on a 3-station MetaSAN system with an Apple XRAID (going on 2 years ago now). I spent SOOO much time researching it and trying to get it all to work.
If I did it all again, I would without hesitation bring in an integrator to do it, soup-to-nuts. Not hiring one wasn’t worth the time I lost.
My point is this: I want to encourage you integrators out there, make a case for what you do! It’s nebulous and the value isn’t clear to the newbies out there who know enough to KNOW they need shared storage, but don’t know where to go from there.
When I look for “SAN vendors” I get the software & hardware manufacturers, many of which are happy to sell you their piece of the puzzle. Some do encourage you to talk to an integrator*, but the point often gets lost in the mountain of info to absorb.
The popularity of Bob’s DIY SAN solution article is case-in-point for a need for this.
It’s still my fault for not knowing this (though, in hindsight, not sure how I could have learned it otherwise). I guess I’d like to see the experts who can *actually solve the entire business problem* make themselves heard, do so. Vendors: tout your favorite integrators! Make them your “partners” so you move more product.
It’s just a complicated frackin’ problem – too much for a one-vendor problem. Storage, edit station, cabling & networking, asset mgmt. & workflow – all need to be addressed together.
*For the record, Bernard Lambourelle at Tiger-Tech did mention the vendor, but it just seemed simple enough at the time that I went it alone. Learn from my mistake!
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Apparently, this question didn’t have much traction with this community! That’s okay, because I found the answer – I thought I’d post it for the next poor soul with this question. My SAN consultant is an XSAN guru, and as MetaSAN does things a little differently, it wasn’t clear if I should look to the SAN software for grouping LUNs into a volume, or at Apple’s tools.
The solution was to remove the two volumes (created after adding a second RAID set, to fill the XRAID) from the MetaSAN definition, create a RAID 0 (“striped”) set comprised of the two RAID5 sets in Disk Utility. Pretty simple, actually. While it did wipe the first set (it’s okay, double-backed up!), creating the new, combined RAID definition only took a few seconds.
Performance is now excellent (160mb/sec for one client)! Now to copy back allll the data…
PS: MetaSAN/LAN has been great, it’s cheaper and very flexible (as well as cross-platform). Highly recommended, but DO hire a SAN consultant – I wish I had from the start.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN, CatDV Server
-
Consider running the PPT through Keynote. There’s lots of good export options.
I just created a Flash-based project, very like your scenario (with JPG images out of Keynote). I used the Animation codec as my output (with a high keyframe interval, as there was only occasionally a new slide), and encoded to On2/VP6 (Flash 8). Files were small, and they looked good. SlideShowPro is the Flash playback environment.
Note the project referenced here was output at 320×240 to keep it small. I could have gone to 640×480 and it would have looked sharper, but it’s less about data/charts.
Look at Camtasia’s or some of Adobe’s products for capturing demos or presentations – they do very efficient and elegant compression/conversion to Flash for web-based presentation.
– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.
Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, MetaSAN