[Allan White]

Ah, I may have found the answer: it looks like control-clicking on a heading will allow one to edit the columns. Man, I looked everywhere – so I thought! Page 66 in the FCP manual.

I guess one has to know what to look for sometimes.

Update: The ‘Keywords’ and ‘Script ID’ (formerly Master Comment fields) come across, but not ‘People’ (a multi-select field). Looking into it.

Anyone else have anything to add in this area?

[Allan White]

You might check out Automatic Duck’s translation products. You could send it to FCP, then send to Motion, though I’m not sure how that last bit would work (that’s a lot of roundtripping!).

I think there is a way to translate tracking data between the two – but not sure where. I read that somewhere. Motion 3’s new tracker is quite nice – very fast to use.

[Allan White]

I just read last night that the Motion 3.01 update is supposed to address the Kona output issue. (more here)

I’m not convinced, based on some other reports, that Motion is going to effectively utilize all 8 cores in normal use (though it would in rendering, I bet quite well). To me, it’s all about how snappy it is when I’m creating stuff – rendering I defer until the last minute.

I would bet that multicore utilization will be greatly improved with Leopard, based on its new CPU scheduling code. Soon!

I just played with Motion 3.01 on my new Quad 3Ghz – not butta, but it’s pretty smooth with 3D and HD material. It’s going to be fun to play with!

[Allan White]

Apple seems to have a history of designing software that’s just ahead of the hardware curve. Aaron’s specs are unfortunately not the best for running Motion.

I use it now on a dual G5, 4GB RAM, and Radeon X800XT. It’s a bit of a challenge to keep Motion projects simple enough to render quickly. I would consider this performance sub-par. After Effects + Nucleo Pro is wonderful on this system.

Motion seems to perform *much* better on Intel hardware – the greater memory bandwidth and faster RAM is likely one reason, as are having access to faster cards.

My new Mac Pro arrived yesterday: 4x3Ghz, X1900 card, 10GB RAM. I’m installing FCS2 right now – I’m guessing Motion is going to run a little faster now. =)

Don’t forget to fix your layers’ resolution to the canvas size! That speeds things up quite a bit.

I find Motion great for lower thirds, backgrounds, and other elements – but once stuff starts getting complicated I reach for AE.

[Allan White]

Sean, thanks for replying. It would be nice if there was some RSS feed or email list to keep MetaSAN users informed, rather than finding these things out on our own. =)

I’ll try the master setting – that’s interesting. I have a dedicated Xserve that was going to fulfill that role, because the other machines have a lot going on (high CPU usage, capturing, etc.).

Any PPC vs. Intel experiences here?

[Allan White]

There’s some great points in this thread here. I just purchased a 3-seat MetaSAN license, with some MetaLAN ethernet clients (read rest of thread). It’s working well, and Bernard was a huge help. =)

However, I do think that Terrablock has a great product (that seems well reviewed), and were I a really small shop or editor that just wanted a plug-and-play solution, I would look hard at the Terrablock solution.

To design and implement my shared storage for my 3-workstation group, I had to do a TON of learning & research as an editor: storage RAID sets, understanding Fibre Channel, SANs, volumes, LUNs, HBA’s, cabling, connectors, dos and don’ts, and more. This is why SAN consultants are probably worth their weight in salt! I think of the hours spent… at least I know how it works, right?

I also had other requirements that led me to MetaSAN (namely: price of the LAN licenses is a steal) and there were other things I wanted our server to do. But, if simplicity is the goal, Terrablock has a strong offering.

[Allan White]

There are alternatives out there. Facillis “Terrablock” for example.

Mark – Terrablock looks really impressive and simple to implement. I wish I’d heard about them! There are some advantages to the approach I chose (Xserve+XRAID+MetaSAN) but they’ve got a great concept with their all-in-one storage/SAN unit. It’s a good price point, too.

[Allan White]

Hey Steve, I know how you feel. I am just now assembling a simple SAN system for three FC-connected workstations and two more Gigabit-connected laptops, all connected to an XRAID.

The cost is significant, but there’s just not many options for high-speed group networking yet. 10 Gigabit ethernet isn’t cost-effective yet, so we have fibre channel, which requires expensive hardware.

I balked at XSAN because it required a dedicated backup metadata controller (another Xserve), and cost $1k/seat regardless. I ended up choosing MetaSAN from Tiger Technology, because they have floating metadata masters (every box can pick it up, so no dedicated one) and cost less. It’s still $1k/seat for Fibre channel, but only $250 each for Gigabit clients like the laptops, which is fine for SD.

There’s a good review here. I’m still working out a few kinks, and there’s a steep learning curve for editors, but it looks like it’s all going to work out.