[John Rofrano]

[Bob Woodhead] “Flaws?”

Nope. That should work as well but the editors would need to manually coordinate who is updating the master library. if they do that your suggestion of a master would work. You would still need the discipline of only adding new media to new events so that it is easy for the other editors to just copy the events and get everything. if you added media to an existing event there would really be no way to tell what’s new and what’s not. So with discipline a master library would also work.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

Can we see a screen grab of your project settings?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Bob Woodhead] “Edit A wants to add some broll to Library-MASTER. Edit A announces “I want to use MASTER, please close it if you have it open.” Edit A proceeds to ingest & keyword new broll, then closes the library. Edit B now opens the library, wants to add the new broll to their local library ( Library-EDIT_B).”

It’s important that I clarify that I am NOT recommending a MASTER library. Tom, wanted a repository of projects only. No media, just project files. This is different that what you are asking about which is ingesting new footage and sharing it across editors.

So there is no MASTER library that someone has open. There are local libraries and shared libraries that just represent changes that you want to share. There doesn’t have to be only one shared library and they might not be around for long. Think of the shared libraries like thumb drives. You are just using them to exchange what you want to share and only long enough to for the other editors to copy locally.

[Bob Woodhead] “How do the editors quickly add new broll, that gets added frequently, to their local libraries? Does the ingesting editor use a whiteboard to list import times, so others can sort clips by “added to library” timestamp? Another method?”

The editor who is ingesting should create a new shared library and import into a new event in that library. They would do all of their keywording, tagging, etc. in that library/event. When they are finished, they should copy this event into their local library and then tell the other editors to do the same. Since the clips will be pointing to the same media on the shared storage, there should be no missing media after the copy locally. Once everyone has copied the event to their local library you can delete the shared library or move it to an archive folder for safe keeping. Every new ingestion would be a new library so the library itself does the bookkeeping for you because it only contains changes.

The important concept is: Share Library = Thumb Drive!

You create one to share a project or event with clips. Copy it to the shared storage. Other editors can copy the project or event locally. Then delete the shared library once everyone has a copy. Just like using a thumb drive for temporary transfers.

The original poster, Tom, was asking about a long lived repository of projects and you can use a shared library for that too. As long as all of the media is placed on the shared storage, these shared libraries will be very small. What you don’t want to do is to have someone doing work in the shared library; it is just for sharing.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

The big test is how do each of these edit and render in Vegas Pro? Xvid does not edit well in Vegas Pro. It look like H-264 might be a good candidate as long as it edits easily and renders in Vegas Pro without problems.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

A clean install is always best but, as you pointed out, it takes more work because you have to re-configure all of your preferences, email, etc. manually.

I’ve used the migration utility several times and I haven’t had any problems with it. It really saves days of tweaking to get your new system back to where your old system was but it does have the possibility of bringing over bad preferences, etc. It’s really up to you. If your systems is a bit quirky, a clean install is definitely recommended. If it’s solid, I don’t see any reason not to use migration and save yourself a lot of time.

I’m about to replace the HDD in my Mac Mini with a fusion drive and I plan to install El Capitan and do a migration because I have a lot of plug-ins that I don’t want to have to re-install and then re-license. It’s the re-licensing that’s the real nightmare for me so I prefer migrations. IMHO, the Apple Store is a stroke of genius. I hate buying any software that’s not offered in the Apple Store because it makes rebuilding a system so much harder.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Craig Alan] “I just got a new iMac but haven’t set it up yet. Can I clone my current system to the new computer?”

That depends on whether your new system has hardware that is compatible with the drivers on your old system. Since your old system uses Yosemite which is only one generation behind, I’m going to guess that it should work fin on a new iMac. If you had Snow Leopard it might be a different story.

[Craig Alan] “I’m using 10.10.5. Not really looking forward to a learning curve of slightly different interface and features I don’t need. “

I really don’t see any learning curve if that’s what you are worried about. This is why most people haven’t updated yet. El Capitan has nothing really new so why “rock the boat” if your system is working solid. By Apple’s own admission, El Capitan is more about refinements than whole new ways of working.

[Craig Alan] “Also usually Apple does not allow a computer to install an older OS. Though I have booted to one as an attached drive or even target disk mode as a drive. “

I keep a USB thumb drive with all the older installers and they work fine. The only limitation, as I said, is if you have a Mac with hardware that is not supported by a particular OS X version (usually graphics cards).

[Craig Alan] “Anyway what do you think?”

There are two options. (well… 3 since one is to accept a clean install and configure everything manually but that’s no fun):

First connect your old Mac in Target Disk mode or connect a copy of your Mac’s boot drive to a USB port. Then:

• You can decide to keep El Capitan on your new iMac and when prompted elect to restore from the connected Mac drive. This will ask you which account you want to restore and it will copy all of your data and applications. You will end up with El Captian and all of your previous applications, email, etc. It’s a great way to migrate to a new Mac.
• You can hold down the Option ⌥ key while booting and select your Target Mode drive from your old Mac and boot your old Mac drive on your new computer. if everything seems to work, use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy your old Mac drive to your new iMac’s boot drive. Then shutdown and detach the target mode drive and boot your new mac which will be an exact copy of your old Mac OS X and all.

I would use the first option unless you have a really good reason to choose the second. The advantage is that the newest version of OS X will always make better use of your new hardware and give you the best user experience.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

I would use a tool like MediaInfo to determine the bitrate of the original video and then use that as the average bitrate that you render to. This should make the render the same size as the original.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

Yea, you need to use the default templates that I recommended in the posts you referenced and don’t changed them. if you change them, chances are you will create non-compliant streams. The best settings are the ones Sony already provides with their Blu-ray and AC3 templates.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Scott Francis] “Why do I get better playback on all my video clips when it is disable verse enable, even when I am using an interlaced format?”

Does your project properties match your media properties? Because if they do, resample will not be used at all so it doesn’t mater what you set it to.

[Scott Francis] “I have also noticed that on some of my clips, Vegas incorrectly reads it as progressive when it is interlaced (mediainfo confirms that). I have to set it properly in the clip properties, any idea why?”

What format are the clips? It sounds like either a bug or maybe an unsupported format.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

In fareness to Tom, the original poster, he did say, “… I’m not a full time editor, I’m helping somebody out. ” so the company doesn’t even think enough of the video editing job to hire a full-time editor and you want them to hire a storage engineer? lol 😀

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com