[Mark Raudonis]

Could it be that specific clip spans two memory cards?

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Renaming of XDCAM discs will happen via the Sony Log & Transfer tool, NOT FCP. Read up on the instructions that come with that piece of software.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Ilja,

If you want this to work, you need to use MULTICLIPS. That way you’ll alway have access to the original footage from all angles. There’s an interesting new plug in that was announced at last NAB from “Pluraleyes”. It takes multiple clips and creates a multiclip sequence based on AUDIO, not Timecode.

Very cool. Check it out.

https://www.singularsoftware.com/autosync/index.html

Good Luck.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Chris,

There’s some truth to this, but there’s always another side to the story.

Some clients DON’T want to be bothered. Or have confidentiality issues. Or have corporate policies preventing this kind of communication. There’s plenty of reasons why a vendor may not be able to
present an extensive list of clients.

I wouldn’t automatically write somebody off for this reason alone. For example, one vendor of Raid systems that I know did ALOT of work for the government… most of it top secret. They REALLY wanted to show me what they’d achieved… but couldn’t.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Another vote for Shane.

Two thumbs up from us. Nothin’ but GOOD things to say about him and the rest of his
team.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Per,

Hire a seasoned FCP assist to hold your hand for a few days. Even if you have to pay for it out of your own pocket, what ever it costs will come back tenfold.

It sounds like you’ve got a lot of “unlearning” to do from your Avid ways. You can’t possibly absorb all you need to know to make a successful AVID to FCP switch from this forum or other info. There’s no substitute for
having a live person there to immediately answer your questions.

Good luck.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

In reality TV, 3,000 hours is a small show!

We have several shows in the 5,000 hour + range in post simultaneously. We’ve transitioned to tapeless, so the
ingestion process is now much faster than real time (XDCAMHD. In the not too distant past, when we had to ingest “realtime”, the only solution was to throw resources at the problem. We would typically use 10-15 systems working at night simultaneously to pull in such a high quantity of media. Even with that number of systems, it was typically done over a few months.

Nobody’s even talked about how big of a SAN or RAID you’re going to need to handle all this media at full res. We’re well over 100 Terrabytes and we still can’t use Full rez. That’s why we use an “off-line to on-line workflow”.

To the OP, this isn’t a question of “Which codec”… it’s more a question of how can I design a workflow for handling this amount of media that makes sense, both economical and technical.

Good luck.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Dan,

Glad you enjoyed my Apple interview. That was a long time ago.

Apparently Spotlight “should” work on X-SAN 2, but we basically don’t use it.

We have a single copy of FS3 and SN in house for testing, but we’re not planning on wide
deployment until we can upgrade all of our “non intel” fleet. That may take awhile. Meanwhile,
I listen to everyone else’s experience with SN here on the cow.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Dan,

There is an X-SAN forum here on the cow, where you may get a better response to this question.

We have X-SAN, but have not upgraded yet. Not because we fear it, but because we have a “mixed fleet” of computers, that are not all intel machines. That’s the primary reason for us. I’ve heard that if you have a current fleet of “Intel” CPU machines, it works fine.

As for spotlight… that’s been an issue with X-SAN over the years. I think it really depends on the size of your volume. The larger the volume, the less practical it becomes. We don’t use it because our volumes are pretty big: 50+ TB.

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

The good news is that you scored a pile of free gear. The bad news is that your plan to put it to use is ill conceived and doomed to fail.

“Cobbling together” a video SAN is NOT just something that you can do with a pile of used parts. Perhaps someone like Mr. Z could do it, but it’s got to be the RIGHT parts. From your list, you’re attempting to create a cross platform SAN (PC and MAC) which is about the hardest thing you can ever attempt. You don’t mention whether you’re using Avid or FCP, but it does make a difference. AVID actually IS cross platform, and you may have a chance of making that work. FCP is MAC only, and just isn’t an option.

I’m not gonna waste the bandwidth to explain all the reasons why you’ll have a hard time. Suffice it to say, that IF you can get all the computers on your net talking to each other, that’s just the start of your problems.

I think your first instinct (sell all the gear) was the right one. Follow your gut… or spend the next few months rationalizing why you didn’t, as you troubleshoot yet another problem.

Mark