[Mark Raudonis]

[Russell Lasson] “For your deployment you would need the following:
– Fibre switch
– XSAN for each computer
– Computer to act as a metadata controller with a fibre connection to switch
“

Don’t forget an “uninterruptible power supply”, Ethernet switches, “back up” meta data controller, and boat loads of storage. 2 tb is hardly worth the effort of all the other equipment.

Finally, never underestimate the air conditioning required to cool all this stuff off. Many offices have “energy saver” policies that kill the AC at night when no one’s around. Great. Except the heat is gonna kill your equipment if it’s in a relatively small room.

A networked workflow is wonderful. I’d even go as far as saying if you’re collaborating with ANYONE else, a networked workflow is ESSENTIAL these days. I’m glad the days of “sneakernet” are over. Just don’t underestimate how difficult it can be to set up even a relatively small group. If you’re not an ubergeek, I’d recommend paying someone to do it for you, and hold your hand throughout the initial few months. After that, if you’re not a total potatoe head, you can maintain it yourself. But setting it up calls for arcane knowledge of IP protocols and DNS processes that unless you do it for a living, you’ll never get right.

Good luck. There’s plenty of info about X-SAN out there. Do a google search.

Mark

PS. NAB is two weeks away. I wouldn’t commit to anything until after that date.

[Mark Raudonis]

Kim,

Jordan (in the X-SAN forum) told you exactly what I would have told you.

I’ll just put it more bluntly. There is NO FREE LUNCH when setting up a networked workflow. This stuff is NOT easy, and it ain’t cheap. You get what you pay for. And when you cheap out, you’re just dooming yourself to continual frustration.

You’re working with uncompressed media, therefore you need the “fattest pipes” to push around all those pixels. Gigabit ethernet probably won’t be enough. Optical fibre is your friend here, and that’s gonna cost you.

Check out the suggestions that Jordan made. I agree with his recommendations.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Sean,

A work around for this (definitely a PITA) is to matchframe each clip back to it’s ORIGINAL source and overcut it back into the sequence. Then, both media manager and color will perform as expected. If you don’t do this, then MM may not “shed” the unused media, requiring you to digitize hours of extra media.

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Dennis,

It sounds like you’re missing a fundamental grasp of the way that FCP creates multiclips out of sequences.
This from the p 251 of the manual (You did read it, yes?)

The Make Multiclip Sequence command allows you to create multiple multiclips at the
same time. When you capture a lot of media files from a multicamera shoot, it can be
time-consuming to create multiclips one at a time using the Make Multiclip command.
When you need to make a lot of multiclips at the same time, you can use the Make
Multiclip Sequence command to create multiclips based on the starting timecode
numbers of your clips.
Consider the following example. Suppose you recorded a soccer game with four
camcorders (each starting with the same timecode), and you captured each reel as ten
individual media files (each representing a different phase of the event). The total
number of clips in your project is 40 (4 reels x 10 media files). Instead of creating each
of the ten multiclips individually, you can select all the clips at once and use the Make
Multiclip Sequence command. A sequence containing ten multiclips is created and the
multiclips are placed in chronological order.

This sounds like exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.

We just completed a 2 hour, 6 cam special for MTV using exactly this method of creating multiclips from “TOD” based cameras that started and stopped all the time. This shoot also included “dual system” audio from BWFs recorded separately.

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Trip,

What you really mean is two people working on the same SEQUENCE at the same time.

You can easily copy projects and have multiple people working on things simultaneously. But ultimately, you can only have ONE person on a sequence at the same time. (True with Avid as well). FCP approaches project/media/sequence management much differently than Avid. This difference will impact your choices for SAN, connectivity, and workflow. I’d suggest that you contact a VAR that’s done shared FCP installs and have them outline what you need. Once you start getting into a networked environment, it’s no longer just plug and play. It’s also no longer CHEAP!

Good luck.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Trevor,

You should be aware that media manager for multiclip sequences is currently BROKEN!
Meaning, when you go to media manage your offline resolution sequence, media manager is supposed to trim off any media not used. With regard to multiclips, it doesn’t. This means that when you go to redigitize material, you’ll be facing HOURS of digitizing, not seconds.

We’ve confirmed this on many sequences since multiclips and off-line to on-line is a big part of our workflow. The only workaround seems to be to match frame EVERY MULTICLIP SHOT back to it’s original “non multiclipped” media and over cut that into the sequence. As you can imagine, this is a huge time waster. Frankly, it’s caused us to abandon the “off-line to online” workflow. We bought more storage just to be able to NOT have to work in off-line resolution.

In conclusion, if you’re seriously thinking about going down this road, do some tests on your own. Confirm that what you’re imagining as benefit really works. It’s quite possible that Apple will have this fixed in a future release, but for now, it’s broken.

good luck.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

[Mark Suszko] “Walter Murch says that on a good day, they made one edit per day. “

That’s not exactly what he said. As I remember, he said that if you took the number of cuts in the movie, divided it by the number of days in post, it came out to around one cut a day in the FINAL film. The “cut a day” figure doesn’t account for are all of the “dead ends” that they went down, scenes that never made it to the final print. If you’ve ever seen “Redux” you know that there were plenty of scenes that were cut, but didn’t make it to the final movie.

The misnomer is that he sat around pondering just a single edit all day. That’s not how it works. It’s more like try this, try that, try this again. It’s all about changing your mind.

So, to answer the original question: I always say, I can cut as fast as you can change your mind. Also, keep in mind the approvals process. If YOU are the final say, then great, you’re done. If you need to submit to executives for approval… that can take days. Make sure that you’re on the clock while waiting for them to decide.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Michael,

Very “out of the box” way of approaching the work. Thanks for sharing.

We basically use “brute force” to accomplish the same thing. Compressor has the ability to create “clusters” of computer power, and for creating H.264’s, it’s perfect. By harnessing 30+ G5’s, we can do a one hour project in about 5-7 minutes.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

You want one of these: Panasonic AJ-SD-93

https://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=71646&catGroupId=14595&surfModel=AJ-SD93

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Whoever is complaining to you doesn’t know dick about transmission, compression, and LCD/Plasma panels. You can easily shut ’em up by showing them your pristine HD master on a well adjusted 50″ plasma screen. Tell them that after this gorgeous image leaves your hands, there’s nothing you can do about it. If they have an issue, they should bring it up with the network’s engineering department. Chances are, those engineers are NOT interested in your “home grown” down-convert. They have a workflow and they don’t like changes.

We deliver shows to 8 different networks. Almost all of them do their own SD downconverts, and they all look pretty bad. Watching SD on a plasma or LCD screen is an exercise in frustration. I don’t even bother to watch SD anymore. It’s too painful.

Good luck.

mark