[John Davidson]

Sorry Julian, I thought in an earlier post you said it was a 2.26 quad core mac pro from 2009?

[John Davidson]

If you had watched my workflow videos this would not be news to you. The last plugins I bought were the Tiffen filters, which just operated slowly and we have never used them again since purchase. As we add systems life is just dramatically simpler if we don’t have to deal with any third party plugins. I want to be able to open up my project on an air if I want without some ridiculous license. This is how we work and it works well for us.

You’d be surprised at how much you can do in motion if you try. Obviously, if we had to do some elaborate 3D then Dashwood’s plugins would be crucial. We haven’t done any 3D so there’s that.

I have been saying for years I want a plugin store from Adobe and I think the Mac App store should be the place to get them for FCPX. I think Apple should encourage this. Software update should be the source for updates, not constantly checking 30 different websites or FX Factory.

[John Davidson]

Here’s how I’d respond to him if it were in my shop. This is the equivalent of complaining that your 64 Oldsmobile doesn’t get the same gas mileage as a brand new Prius.

1. Why the heck are you doing anything on a 5 yr old mac pro? Please use it as a server or sell it before my head explodes.
2. What drives are you using? Certainly not a thunderbolt RAID, and I can only imagine that if you’re working on a 5 yr old mac pro you’re NOT working on a super fast RAID.
3. mLooks? Easy Looks? Have I not told you about using 3rd party plugins on FCPX? Please learn how to color correct in X or with motion, or do it AT THE END OF YOUR PROJECT LIKE THE REST OF EARTH DOES.
4. STOP TURNING OFF BACKGROUND RENDER OR I’M FIRING YOU.
5. Are you working at a native codec? Are you working at Proxy? Prores? Optimized? Is your project or comp the same frame rate as everything else?

We don’t work with third party plugins that aren’t sold off the Mac App store, not even FX Factory ones. You can build so many of your own in motion without all the hassle of maintaining them, checking if they’re updated, reinstalling, etc.

[John Davidson]

We have two mini-monitors and like them.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

OK, one more. If I want to get rid of the optimized and just provide the source footage (H264), if I delete the high quality media will all comps revert to the original? We have proxy unchecked but I don’t see an option to use original, it’s just ‘use original or optimized’.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

We worked in proxy but I’m going to provide the ‘client’ (ok it was a friends wedding) the originals only inside an event. We optimized and created proxy which turned the original project into a gigantic monster.

Thanks guys!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

From the article:
“Avid provides digital media content-creation products and solutions for audio, film, video, broadcast professionals, artists and creative enthusiasts in the Americas, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”

Does this mean FCPX dominates in Antarctica? 1/7th of the way to the whole world!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Bob and David give quite a bit of their time helping people for free, including me. The resources are all here if you want to build your own NAS, but in a mixed pc/mac environment you’re going to encounter problems on top of the usual problems found in a pc only or mac only environment. That’s where their markup comes in. There has to be some profit over cost of materials if you expect people to happily answer all your questions (and there will be a lot of them), otherwise how will they pay their own bills?

There are a hundred different ways to do what you want to do. Inevitably if your business is growing you’ll need to bite the bullet on something. For two users an 8 drive enclosure (or 16 even) would be preferred – there are many vendors that sell those. The drives for this should be Hitachi ultrastars or other enterprise/server class drives. I used to get by with Deskstars, but now I realize that Ultrastars are worth the added expense. You want at minimum RAID5 for protection of your material. Shoving drives in a chassis will be catastrophic if one dies in RAID 0. You want the Small Tree PEG6 (that’s what I call it, it’s actually PE2G or something like that) so that ethernet is regulated accurately to all the receiving systems. You want a good computer to run the server, it cannot run off a computer you are editing with. The computer will need good RAM in it, at least 4 Gigs per user (although I’m starting to think 8 is even better). You will need a RAID card, either the Areca 1882x or the ATTO R680. Some of these solutions offered by the different vendors do not need a server computer, which is possibly why their prices are more expensive than you expect. Also personally, I use NAS instead of SAN.

Long story short, congratulations on your business growth. Enhancing your shared storage is an evolutionary process for a growing video business. As you needs grow though, the costs will grow as well. I will tell you this as the exact same thing happened to me 2 years ago. Get the bigger storage now and do it right the first time. I screwed around for 2 years before I learned this lesson. I don’t sell storage and am not recommending a specific company so perhaps my advice will be well taken.

Good luck!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I wasn’t disagreeing with you.

[John Davidson]

Why stop there? Google’s done a lot more than that.

Google’s gmail dropped exchange, essentially killing push email from Gmail on all new idevices.
Google Apps is now a paid service, no longer free for small business ($50/yr per user).
Google reader is now dead man walking.

I really wish Apple would allow some sort of custom email hosting like Google Apps did, but it’s looking more and more likely that we will probably be switching to our own mac mini server for email as push is kind of a big deal for us.

What’s next to kill? I’d expect google voice to get canned or turn into a paid option soon. I’m not saying that google is completely wrong, they are a for profit company that needs to generate revenue for services rendered. This is part of an overall trend of companies messing with success in order to turn an actual profit. Facebook is now putting up sponsored posts, twitter has annoying sponsored tweets, etc. Internet users are fickle and like free stuff. Take away the free – why stay?

Apple’s initial release of FCPX may have been somewhat upsetting, but it’s getting better. Google, Facebook, and Twitter however, are getting worse.