[Allynn Wilkinson]

I can’t wait to demo the server version (but I have to really get to know the program first)

I’m not sure how many files we have on the FC Server (and it’s down right now!). I work at a University and we do mostly public lectures and some promo pieces. We started with the server in August of 2009 and put mostly standard def, mini-dv projects on it. I’d say we had around 50 long format (1 hour +) projects in standard def. We also had a few HD projects in P2, XDCAM and, more recently AVCHD. The latter (especially) spawned hundreds of ProRes 422 files that eat space! We have, literally, thousands of those files. About 90% of our files are video (probably 30% DV, 70% ProRes). The other 10% are music files, stills, things like that. The one thing I really liked about the FC Server was that it could ingest and fcp project as a bundle and upload all associated media into a folder named the same as the project. Really sweet for archiving (though a space hog!).

I’m not sure our set-up is typical. We used the server mostly for it’s edit-in-place capabilities. There’s an 18 terabyte RAID attached and it’s about half full. Our management was always project based. We never looked for assets or uploaded them individually. Everything was in an fcp project and got uploaded as a bundle. It was easier for the students (and me!) to understand and it was an organization that worked for us. Now that we’re looking at Cat DV, I’m looking at changing to an asset based workflow.

I can barely imagine the headaches you’re having trying to create a migration system (though you will be praised beyond measure if you can do it!). FC Server was a beast that tried to do so many things and it was **so** close to being successful. We call ours “Conan” because he’s really powerful, kind of dumb, and half naked! In the end, however, it was never well supported and I don’t think most places that had one used it to anything approaching it’s full capabilities.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with. I’m really rather passionate about metadata and data management and I think content creators need something powerful, flexible and, most of all, useful! Have you looked at the metadata underpinnings of FCP X? Wow! (shame about the rest, of course!).

And as to my original question.. I have successfully gotten QT proxies of my AVCHD files to be seen in Cat DV! Now if someone wants to write a nice scripting feature to make it easier…. 😉

[Allynn Wilkinson]

That makes sense. I think I might try some sort of watcher folder with something to make little QT videos for proxies. I’m sure I’ll have lots of questions when I try that but, of course, I actually have to come to grips with the software first.

Cat DV will be perfect for my personal video collection. Currently I store all the SD archive on a an external hard drive. With Cat DV I can just build a collection with the hard drive plugged in and still have access to the proxies after I put the drive back on the shelf.

For the University purposes I’m thinking Cat DV Server will be a good alternative to our Final Cut Server. It’s not exactly the same thing of course, but in some ways, it’s more flexible. I think you’ll be seeing me around here a lot in the next few months!

Allynn

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Well I had thought about setting up a bug in a Flash player but then I realized we are heavily committed to iTunes U and, anyway, I hate Flash video! Especially long format pieces. Whatever we do should, ideally, be H.264, m4v for iTunes though I suppose the mov extension would be ok.

Mostly, I have to make sure an ever changing group of student workers can make a consistent product and justify all the money we just spent on the Final Cut Server (which is what started this problem in the first place!

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Yeah… darn bug on a three hour concert is **really** a killer. I’m going to look into the watermark feature but our Communications folks are really fussy about their bug (of course they also want their video delivered over night so…!)

I’m also considering “bugging” after the movie is finished using “add to selection and scale” in QT Pro. I might even be able to script that but the file would be an mov, not a m4v – probably not a big deal. The lack of fade up/fade down would be more problematic.

Oh well….

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Hi Stace,
I wanted to double check before I replied. NTSC-DV Anamorphic – the preset. When I made the original in FCP 5 I set the sequence manually. For a test in FCP 6 & 7 I let the auto-conform take over. Same result – NTSC-DV anamorphic.

What really confuses me is why the G4 mirror front made a smaller file in less time than the other two machines. Obviously, something has changed between FCP 5 and FCP 6&7

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Thanks for the response, Walter.

I know that ref files need to be rendered. What I really want to know is why the ancient mirror front G4 running FCP 5 made the video smaller and faster than either of the newer machines. Something has changed in the way FCP 6 & 7 deal with rendering and ref movies. Instead of just embedding the rendered content into the ref, it now seems to make a self-contained file if there is anything that has to render. This is bad enough but Render –> Full is unchecked by default and this results in my students always making honking huge files, even when they remember to uncheck the self-contained box.

Just a massive workflow nightmare that I’ve only consciously noticed since we upgraded to FCP 6

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Oh, I’m sure.

I wasn’t so I tried it about a half a dozen times!

Tom is right on the money. If Render –> Full is not checked (and it seems to be not checked by default) and anything has to render over the whole video (say, an itty bitty bug) then – BAM! You get a full sized, flattened video.

Try this and you’ll see… Take a five minute piece and put a little bug in the corner. Be sure Render –> Full is unchecked. Export to a non-self-contained QT Ref and see what you get. It should be a self-contained file as big as if you flattened it.

Now I never noticed this behavior before either. So either this is a new “feature” (post FCP 5). Or I never had anything that had to be rendered out “full” before. The second choice is quite likely since we just started adding a bug to our videos this year. I don’t think a simple fade up/down would be a problem.

Allynn

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Hi Tom.

No… my problem was the same as Jeff’s – Render –> Full wasn’t checked.

I’m just curious as to why it makes a self-contained movie instead of (a) telling me I need to render or (b) rendering everything and *then* making a ref movie (like I asked it too!)

I read somewhere else that, when it does this, it holds the render files *only* in the full sized QuickTime file so if you want to do anything else with the sequence you have to render it all again.

We typically make hour long pieces (lectures mostly) and the only thing that has to render is the little “bug” we put in the lower right. Still… that can take more than an hour. It would be nice if there was some sort of workflow that would render everything and then automatically send it out as a QT ref.

Allynn

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Thank You!

I was wondering why my QT Ref movies weren’t working right.

But here’s a question… why does it output a self-contained movie? I could see it throwing an error or taking forever to render the sequence and then outputting a ref movie. But what’s the logic behind outputting the whole thing? And is this a new “feature” in FCP 6? I don’t seem to remember this happening in FCP 5 (though, to be fair, I never worked much with ref movies then)

Just curious
Allynn

[Allynn Wilkinson]

I’m with Alex on this one…

QT ref movies work just fine with Standard Definition files. I have often strung together more than three hours of footage from a three camera shoot; synced it all up on a timeline, added slug to cover tape changes, cut the head so everything starts at the same time and output each track as it’s own QT ref. Then I bring the refs in as files and put them into a multi clip. Works like a charm

HOWEVER….
When I tried to do the same thing with a one hour, three camera shoot on Sony HD last week I got as far as making the multi clip. The refs were under a gig a piece so I had hopes but, no luck. Final Cut could not play all three clips simultaneously. It just gave me a black screen.

To be fair… I’m using an older machine with less RAM than it should have. It probably would have worked with 16 gig of RAM or so. Still… playing 3 HD clips simultaneously is asking a lot of any machine

Allynn