[Eric Hansen]

i’m not super familar with EditShare. i did a quick look at their site and it looks like Final Cut Server and Xsan rolled into one, but it runs over either 1Gig or 10Gig ethernet. is that correct? but it seems like EditShare is mostly a software solution for asset management (like FCSvr) and shared storage (Xsan or MetaLAN/SAN). the stuff i have been installing has no software to it. it just runs Apple’s built-in file sharing protocol called AFP. i called up MetaLAN before my first installation, and they said it was too small to require their software. it sounds like your installation is even smaller than mine. btw, the Mac Pro installation i did uses a smart switch because they wanted the ability to access the server from any computer in the office (FCSvr is in the future for these guys). but if you only need 6 or less connections, you can direct connect. you can also use the 2 built-in ethernet ports on the Mac Pro, and you can even add more ethernet cards if you wish. in addition to the ethernet card, we had a capture card and a RAID card on both systems, so more connections was not an option. on a side note, i’m a bit bummed to see that the new “early 2009” Mac Pros don’t have more PCI slots, or built-in eSATA ports. we had to take out eSATA cards on both systems and are a bit bummed on that.

if you’re having trouble getting your head wrapped around this, which is fine because many of my clients have a hard time understanding it, don’t hesitate to call up a company like Small Tree or Apace, which offer all-in-one solutions for editing over Gigabit Ethernet. they’re service is great. yes they are more expensive than a Build-It-Yourself option, but the labor and work saved is worth it for many. for my clients, having me nearby is a better value than an All-In-One option from these guys. but if theres no one in your area that does this kind of work, these can be a great option.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

in a typical online scenario, i would probably hook up my laptop to the online system via direct Gigabit Ethernet to access the files. i would then use my laptop to try different filters and effects in FCP and AE (on my laptop) that the online system does not have. i would also be using audio filters like Soundsoap. so i wouldn’t be editing per se, and i would be connected to the online system to access the media files. i’m not looking to speed up media file transfers. i’m thinking that an SSD would just make everything snappier overall, since they are supposed to excel at small random read/writes (which is what happens when you boot the computer, or start an application). since i would just be jumping around in different programs and applying different test filters, don’t you think an SSD would help speed these programs up, especially if i’m constantly switching to different ones? since i only have 3GB of RAM, it would probably be advantageous to shut down programs when i am done with them, then use the speed of the SSD to start them back up when i need to. i know render times within the programs, and transfer times would be the same since the media would be on another system/drive. i’m just looking to make my laptop feel more like a desktop and i’m understanding is that an SSD could help. have you had any experience with one?

i guess i should ask around on the FCP and AE forums to see if anyone has tried. thanks

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

thanks for the suggestions Zane.

i’ve started looking at the MXO as an option for color correction work. but most facilities i’ve worked at over the last year wouldnt have enough space on the online desk for their system along with my laptop and its second monitor. but i’m starting to think this may be necessary. i’m not that impressed with the new laptops, well, the fact they can take 8GB of RAM is pretty cool. but i think i might take my MBP 2.33 with 3GB of RAM and add an SSD to make it quicker. have you had any experience with these? i’ve heard second hand accounts of the Intel x25 and OCZ Apex drives being able to boot a MBP in 8 seconds. damn. that could really make the MBP feel more like a Mac Pro.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

i assume that you’re using an Apple display.

it has different blinking patterns for different problems. but i’m guessing that its blinking the pattern for “video out of spec”. the Apple display cannot display video out from an HDMI connection because its a different format than a computer DVI output (its both a different resolution and a different refresh rate). one way to do this is with a HDLink converter box, which converts HD-SDI to DVI and is designed for the Apple 23″ DVI monitor specifically.

if you want to monitor with the HDMI output of the BMD card, you need to use a monitor with an HDMI in such as the Dell 2408

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

hey bob – its a Quad 2.5 G5, which is PCIe. i’m using a rev 1.0 card.

hey sean – i have not done either of these tests because for this particular server they are not really necessary. a few weeks ago i installed a Mac Pro version of this server setup and the speed tests from the client were between 80 and 102MB/s over Gigabit (this is also on my blog). i assume that the tests with this G5 would be similar since all the hardware is the same (well, minus the processor, but these transfers are not taking much processor). i have not tried capturing from a client machine to this server because for this particular server, it will not be used that way. it will do file transfers, but not live captures since none of the edit systems have capture cards. but using the Mac Pro server in the office, everything is awesome!

the next time i’m at the facility, i will run these tests and let you know. we tested a Dual 2.7 G5 initially and had no problems. we just went with a Quad instead to guarantee bandwidth while at a location. Small Tree says that you should have 1GHz of processor on the server for every 1Gb/s ethernet connection. its my experience that this is pretty conservative. for the Quad 2.5 G5, that would be 60% of processor with 6 connected computers. with a Mac Pro, its 27%. during use, the processors don’t seem to get anywhere near these numbers. but i should also note that its essential to use attached storage thats in a hardware RAID. using a RAID card that only supports software RAID will adversely impact your server because it will suck processor power. thats why i went with CalDigit RAID cards for these systems. if i was building something that needed more storage, i would probably go with a Maxx Digital Evo2.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

are you sure about component only being 29.97? i believe my current DVD player is outputting 23.98 (SD) as both it and the TV are set to progressive (i think the setting is called 24p, but i will have to double-check). but maybe only 29.97i for HD since 1080p24 technically isnt a standard?

i can’t believe the complications here. i’m a fairly experienced video guy and i couldnt imagine a guy at Circuit City trying to explain this to my mom. i guess their answer would be to get a new TV.

thanks

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

i agree with Sean, but want to expand on it. if you’re doing effects and color correction, or if you have a slower computer, you wont want to use HDV as your editing codec. by capturing directly through the card to the high res codec you want (such as ProRes or Uncompressed), you will save the step of transcoding after capture. but you lose one main benefit of HDV – start/stop detect. at my old facility, we would capture HDV via Firewire using start/stop detect. then those clips would be logged (and subclipped if needed). then we would recapture the clips at a higher res codec such as ProRes or Uncompressed. this footage was much easier for our After Effects guys to deal with. it also made the older G5 computers snappier because these codecs take less processor power to playback and edit than HDV. and no HDV Conform at the end!

but if you’ve been using HDV for editing just fine and without issue, then keep using the firewire method.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

the problem may be a bad network card on the server. i will let you know after i install the new card.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

i ended up upgrading all the client systems to Leopard. everything now is super stable. with Tiger and Flowcontrol off, i was getting drop frames, errors with Final Cut writing quicktime files, and random system crashes. with flowcontrol on, and the clients on Leopard – to the user, everything feels like Xsan. very responsive, stable and fast. when i left the facility last night, i had one system copying from its direct-attached Xserve RAID to the ethernet SAN, 2 systems capturing DVCPRO HD to the SAN, and the fourth system backing up via Time Machine to a Firewire drive attached to the SAN server. the server was seeing an average of 250MB/s over ethernet and everything was hunky dory.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com

[Eric Hansen]

it will be different because its a different source. i assume that you are talking about Datacolor’s device for calibrating video displays and not computer displays like BMD inferred in another post.

i tried to something similar using the old Spyder TV (i think they’ve been rebranded as Spyder 3’s which is confusing). i ripped the color test frames off the DVD and put them in a Final Cut timeline. then TRIED to use the Spyder TV software to set the calibration on the LCD monitor. after trying the Spyder TV in both home theater and editing environments, all i can tell you is its crap. it was never able to properly calibrate and the settings it would settle on were always worse than what i could do by naked eye. the software would chart these 2 line graphs where the ideal setting would be where the 2 lines intersect, yet i had many monitors that never came close to intersecting, thus negating the whole process. i read such glowing reviews of the product, but then realized that these reviews were probably written by average joes and not people who deal with color for a living. Datacolor also wont take returns on calibrators thinking that you will just calibrate and return.

for video and editing monitors (and video projectors), i’ve have the best luck using just regular video bars (either in Final Cut or a THX calibration DVD) and THX blue glasses, which is just like the blue only setting on a broadcast monitor. thats it. no fancy hardware or software. just your own eyes. i also have a Spyder 3 for computer monitor calibration, but for any video monitors i go the THX route. it takes a bit of practice to set the contrast and brightness this way, but using the glasses to set color and tint is dead simple.

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Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com