[Craig Alan]

thanks. just checking cause some tutorials refer to it.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Andreas

All true. But take a look at ‘simple finder’. This is an option when setting up a new user account. In simple finder you do not have the ability to mess with the system. You can open apps that are assigned to the account. You can certainly open any documents that you can see with an app’s File>open window. But you cannot mount sparse images. Therefore if all media and projects and files and other student documents are kept in a sparse image (one per user) and if I mount and unmount these sparse images, I think it does the trick. FC projects will auto be saved to the open sparse image. A final draft or word doc would have to be manually saved to the user’s sparse image or be open to anyone one using that account. So they need to save their work properly outside of FC. But so far I think its the best option. But I could be overlooking something.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I looked at the enhancement section in FC. More or less got the gist but wasn’t crystal as to what was really being applied. My biggest wish is to have the audio track show up in the viewer when I’m working with key framing. I just find the mousing and manipulation difficult when its too small.

[Mark Morache] “but there’s also a limiter in the effect that you can use to create a ceiling for the audio levels”

That would be closer to what I’d like to get started – where is this limiter? I use one on my mixer when recording.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Have you tried a different media drive just to see if it might be related?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I see. I think the reason is that in film strip view you cannot select more than one ‘name’. You can select more than one clip but but not the name. A single name can be chosen for renaming. You’re right the help menu misses a step. Maybe it’s a bug.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

[Bret Williams] “In previous X versions it was similar. You could create a compound IN the event and utilize it in multiple projects and they’d all be linked. But if you duplicated or sliced up the compound they were unlinked”

That makes sense to me.

Easy enough to a have a pop up warning that an action will either apply or not apply to other instances. It would be really cool if it brought up a dialog box listing all uses of the compound and you could check the ones you wanted linked to the current change.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Sorry. For some reason I assumed two graphic cards meant a MP not MBP. 2011 means you are under apple care. Bring it in. You do not want to mess under the hood until it is out of warranty. Plus that is a special set of graphic cards that allow OS X to decide which is being used. On the raid call the company. Some folks have had good lick with t and some not. But they are said to offer good support.

Have you tried reinstalling the OS clean and reinstall all apps?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

So is there a way to do it easily on a LAN? I’m worried that setting permissions on all mounted images could be difficult? Plus what if the server goes down? Would LAN management work pretty much the same as external hard drive/raid management? As you can tell I have no experience with setting up net- work. And I know from labs I’ve seen throughout the school that they are often a mess. IT sets things up and teachers have no idea how to maintain them and then they are on a waiting list for them to fix something. Further they do not come from an editing background. And FC has its own set of rules.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

In FC Help>type in “batch rename clips” and it opens several sets of steps to chose from. Very clear explanations. The help menu brings up very good explanations though I sometimes have trouble knowing what to search for. In this case even though you figured it out, you might want to look at different paths they discuss.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks

[Andreas Kiel] “You may start with a sparse bundle or volume which only contains the media and is read only.”

I can see this coming in handy when we are going through editing lessons and all students are using the same media. Would the media be bullet proof in terms of no one student could trash it, move it, change it?

I don’t see that option in disk utility. Do I just create a sparse bundle image and set its permissions for ‘read only’ in get info?

[Andreas Kiel] “Next create a “personal” sparse bundle or better a script to create a sparse bundle which contains an XML to open in FCPX. The script should supply a UID for the project.
Then every student will have his/her own Event/Project sparse bundle.”

I have no clue how to write a script.

For the most part each student will not be sharing media but working on different projects. This is a production class not just an editing class. So I would want each student to have their own sparse bundle image which would include unique media and the final cut pro folders.

The media needs to be private – other students should not have access to it period. Like I said, the simple finder seems to provide this. I would need to launch their sparse images but by so doing it seems I can skip having a ton of passwords and user accounts.

An alternative plan is to create a user account for each student and put the home folders on the media drive. That way, by default, FC folders are kept in the movie folder on the external drive and students could only access their home folder. But I think this is way harder to set up and manage.

Because the computers were bought in small batches and no specifics about getting help networking them, each computer was purchased with an external raid. Each computer may be shared with as many as 18 other students. Now there has been some talk of a network consultant. But I believe stuff when it happens and I have no way of knowing if the person chosen would have any experience with FC or editing.

I got a copy of Apple remote desktop and I believe there will be both ethernet and wireless routing in the class.

From what I see in simple finder I would only need one student account. It just seems like very little can be touched in this type of account yet still allow you to use FC and work with any mounted drives. They could also save their other documents to a folder in their sparse image. If a student needs to move to a new computer I could just copy that image over and I’d be all set. There are gotchas though. Many apps have other programs that must be launched with them. But once I have one master student account I could clone it to the other computers. Plus that’s just a parental control check list.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.