Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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Out of memory usually means RAM, not hard disk space.
Do the usual troubleshooting. Repair permissions, trash preferences, copy the sequence to a new project, etc. Check the Activity Monitor and see if you actually are running out of memory when the render occurs.
Sean
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[Shane Ross] “I guess. This dog is working wonderfully for me and earning me a pretty penny. Heck, I still work on shows that use a 5 year old version of Avid running on OS9! Hey, it still works and works well. FCP 6 does all I need, and lots of stuff I don’t. Just because CS4 does more and the integration is superior doesn’t mean that it fits my workflow. I don’t need what it offers. I don’t need CS4 to accomplish what I need. If you do…then get it.”
I think you skipped over this part of my post:
[Sean ONeil] “I love it and have no plans to switch”I was just stating a fact – one that’s pertinent to this discussion. No reason to take it personally. It’s not like I threw a shoe at you.
Sean
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You’ll have to ask this guy:
https://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images/steve-jobs-3g-iphone.jpgSean
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Wasn’t trying to be harsh, just conveying the urgency of the situation. I wasn’t suggesting Anne should somehow magically know better herself. But whoever set this up or told her to set it up like that should.
[Chris Blair] “As for how you have your system setup….if you’re using a GigE switch, the setup as described could work, since the host machine could theoretically be looked at as the server, and the 2nd machine a client. We use an Apace vStor, and it’s basically a server (with an embedded Linux OS), with a SATA II, 8 disk raid. It’s connected to the switch, and our 4 workstations are cabled to the switch, then into the 4 GigE ports on the back of the vStor (which are teamed). We get nearly 100MB/sustained with this setup across all 4 client workstations…which is actually higher throughput than we got with direct attached, 15K four and six drive SCSI raids.”
That’s not what she described. With your system the back-end is SATA. With hers the back-end is AoE. Imagine taking your Vstor and connecting it to only one computer as a direct attached device. You then have all the other computers connect through that host computer rather than the Vstor itself. It would be a completely pointless extra layer in there. Your Vstor would be serving no purpose whatsoever – you could simply connect the SATA disk directly to the the host computer instead and it would achieve the same exact thing. But that’s not what you’re doing. Instead, all the editing machines speak directly to the vStor. Whether through a switch or not doesn’t matter, your vStor is a shared storage device that all machines access. Anne’s setup is totally different.
Her setup is what a non-video IT person might set up. It is the typical non-video way to set up AoE or iSCSI. Think of a server hosting a web-site or a database or something. The purpose of SAN storage in this case is so that different servers, maybe at different locations, can access it at different times using IP routing or switching. Imagine the server for creativecow.net is in one city and it goes down suddenly. But all the forum messages are stored on an AoE storage device, not the actual server. So when that server goes down, a backup server takes over and it can connect to that same AoE storage automatically and take over like nothing happened. The advantage in this situation is that the storage can be in a different location than the server and the backup server – and that each backup server doesn’t have to have duplicate copies of all the data (like our messages here).
Very complex stuff, and it is not how you use a SAN for video sharing. A SAN in a traditional IT environment is for one computer and one computer only to access the storage at a given time. For a video SAN you need all computers accessing the storage at the same time. Hence the entire purpose of it. And to do wthis with AoE storage you need MetaSAN. Otherwise using AoE is pointless. If all you want to do is share direct-attached storage over AFP file sharing, you could achieve the same thing with a LaCie disk.
Sean
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[Anne Leaf] “There are two computers networked – One is the host directly connected to the raid via ethernet, the other is connected to the host via ethernet.”
I have to ask, why on earth do you have it set up like that??? The purpose of a SAN is so all machines are connected directly to the AoE storage and you use MetaSAN or a similar app to allow sharing of block-level storage. With the setup you just described it is utterly pointless to use AoE storage since it’s not even a SAN. Your AoE storage is being used as a direct attached RAID and you’re sharing it over regular file sharing. If that’s all you need you could just connect an eSATA or SAS RAID to the host and it will be a lot faster and a lot cheaper. But if you want to keep the AoE storage you should Google MetaSAN and call those guys asap!
[Anne Leaf] “My question is where should the Final Cut project live? Does each editor have her own project file locally on their machine, or is there one master project file that they both work from that lives on the server? This later one doesn’t seem like it could possibly be right, but how do they share sequences if it’s the former.”
You can’t have multiple editors working in the same project at the same time. Avid Unity can, but Final Cut doesn’t work like that unfortunately. You can keep all your projects on shared storage for convenience purposes if you like and either editor can access it – they just can’t work with it together simultaneously and only one can save the project (the other can do a “Save As”).
Sean
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[Chris Baldwin] “My question is: Is this also in the works for the FCP world and encoding programs of Compressor and Episode?”
Nobody knows but Apple. Keep in mind Motion and Color already to this to a certain extent. And FCP can do it with fxplugs. But obviously that’s not enough (Premiere CS3 is blazing fast with everything compared to FCP). My theory is this. Snow Leopard is all about under-the-hood performance boosts. No Spotlight or Time Machine features to market. Instead it’s 64-bit, Intel only, multi-core for all apps (“Grand Central”) and GPU tasks. How are they going to show this stuff off and sell it if their own pro apps can’t take advantage of it? It’s not like anyone needs that stuff for iTunes. Are they going to show how fast Adobe products are and pretend like they don’t make Final Cut anymore? I doubt it. It’d be a safe bet that there’s something in the works. Final Cut is way past due for an overhaul. Code-wise and design wise it’s a total dog. It’s basically a really, really old DV editing app that has blown up into what it is now. I love it and have no plans to switch, but I gotta admit it’s a dog compared to what else is out there. I’m not worried though. They’ll do something with it.
Sean
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Use Cinema Tools and conform it.
Sean
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This is a common problem and there’s a way to fix it. You have to go to a certain system folder using the Mac Terminal and delete some cache files. I don’t know the exact steps but they’re here on the Cow somewhere (try the Compressor board).
Sean
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As Thomson says, the Anamorphic flag is for standard def only. If your footage is not coming in right, check is the pixel aspect in the FCP Browser.
Sean
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It is Apple specific but they’re just Intel PRO/1000 cards that will work on any operating system. Small Tree maintains their own Mac drivers for those cards. For Windows you can just buy Intel cards from anywhere. That said, while buying from Small Tree may cost more, you’ll get better support than somewhere like Newegg.com.
Sean