[Marco Feil]

We started to copy all Sony footage (and anything else thats not ARRI or RED) via EditReady from the cards to the project’s footage folder and then import to FCPX with ‘leave files in place’. No Transcode, just rewrap to .mov and copy. All Metadata is kept/translated and you can add your own Metadata, apply LUTs and batch rename the clips.

I had various problems with every other import method, like lost timecode or glitches. Especially roundtrips between applications can be painful when each program interprets Metadata differently or not at all or has problems with relinking to folder structures like AVCHD.

Now all our files are MOVs with unique names in useful folder structures. So nice.

[Marco Feil]

I’d go for the Akitio, because cheaper. Keep in mind that you’d have to buy SoftRAID if you want anything other than RAID 0 or 1. If you buy a Pegasus I’d look for alternative configs. I think I’ve seen R4s with 4x 10TB for the same price or cheaper as an R6 with 6×3.

Regarding organisation and backup: Keep the media files external, do not copy everything into the library bundle – Use the option to leave files in place on import. That way the library files stay very small, a few MB, and are easy to back up.

I’d probably split the media into multiple folders which are filled up to 3-6TB (whatever size your backup HDDs are). Fill up media folder1 –> USB-Backup1, then media folder 2 to another backup drive and so on. Then a projects-folder which is backed up hourly or so.

This way you’d only have to backup the majority of the footage once after import and after that only the newest media folder and project folder.

I hope that makes sense.

[Marco Feil]

MotionVFX.com have many good customisable templates.

[Marco Feil]

Ok, it seems to work now.
Problem was: When mounting an NFS share with the QFinder application, it asks to tune nfs performance. If you let it, it edits the nfs.conf file in /etc. and adds
nfs.client.mount.options=nfssvers=3,tcp,async,locallocks,rw,rdirplus,rsize=65536,wsize=65536
nfs.client.allow_async=1
Which is exactly what this whitepaper suggests (found it via Alex4D):
Quote: There is one critical modification to the OS X NFS configuration that’s necessary in order for FCP X to recognise the share as a valid mount for a Library. The NFS mount has to be configured to only use local locks.

That isn’t needed anymore.
I changed locallocks to locks. Now file locking works and Final Cut doesn’t open a library that’s used by another Mac.
nfs.client.mount.options=nfssvers=3,tcp,async,locks,rw,rdirplus,rsize=65536,wsize=65536
nfs.client.allow_async=1
…. perhaps someone else finds this useful.

[Marco Feil]

That was indeed the best keynote in awhile.

Nice speed bump for MacBooks and iMacs.
iMac Pro looks good, I’m curious what the maxed out configs will look like and cost. For people who use 10G Ethernet it’ll save them 600$ for the thunderbolt adapter, so that’s great.

Best announcement for me was official support for external GPUs, I think that’ll be huge, but we’ll see. Hopefully available for Thunderbolt 2 devices, I couldn’t find any info on supported Macs.

The reasonable pricing of the HomePod kinda surprised me.

[Marco Feil]

Yep, already installed Avid codecs (and the avid trial). It’s some kind of fringe scenario between avid and fcpx and this codec (somehow it’s always some Sony codec that breaks thing for me) and it’s easy to work around. I’ve filed two FCPX bug reports regarding this issue, perhaps Apple fixes it on their end.

The EditReady support sent me a new build of the app to test and now timecode works with these files. Great app and great support.

Now I’ll just rewrap the files and relink to those.

[Marco Feil]

@Bob I’m in germany.

@Matt It wouldn’t be RAID as a replacement for backup, but a second RAID as storage for backups ????

The idea to partition the RAID is something I’ll think about, thanks. That would help managing and transferring backups between location A and B.

Something like:
– Ingest media to multiple 6- 8TB volumes and keep project libraries and things like fusion/AE comps and on a separate (SSD?) volume.
– While volume Media01 is filled with footage I do daily backups to an external 8TB disk Backup01 which will be copied weekly to the offsite NAS.
– Since the project files aren’t that big, they can easily be copied over the internet to location B or any kind of cloud backup in addition to a USB disk backup.
– Once Media01 is full, start with Media02 and Backup02. The disk Backup01 could be reused or goes to a third location.

I kinda like this idea, I’ll definitely consider this.

[Marco Feil]

Hi Bob,

yes, our current plan was actually to buy two NAS boxes, one main NAS and another 12-bay, most likely the same model, for backup and ideally offsite storage. The price difference between expansion unit and a full NAS is negligible considering the main cost is 24x 8TB or 10TB drives.
With two boxes we’d have nearly no downtime if the main NAS itself fails or any kind of disaster strikes at one location, just switch to backup NAS. That’d be neat.

Of course RAID 6, and I like the idea of using local snapshots and then RTRR to the backup NAS. Main problem is our slow Internet connection (30Mbit up/down), so RTRR over the net won’t really do. And driving a full 12bay NAS back and forth every week or so isn’t really feasible either.

Ideal would be a way to make a kind of diff backup via sneakernet and copy only the delta since the last backup to external usb disk and then to the offsite NAS.

Or a completely different backup strategy, I don’t know yet. Quite complex with so much data…

[Marco Feil]

We’re about to invest in the new QNAP 12+4 NAS TS-1685, finally moving away from this sneakernet chaos.

Still researching how to backup this monster.. Is there anything special to keep in mind regarding NFS, SMB and backups regarding FCPX using hard links when consolidating footage?

[Marco Feil]

Share as master file, then set “Roles as:” to “Multitrack QuickTime Movie”. Then you select what your outputs should be.