[Zak Mussig]

Gloria,

From my experience with high schoolers (my first job out of school was teaching FCP in a high school), I’ve found that, just like any other subject, you need to focus on the fundamentals. With media that can be hard because they see something on MTV and they want to do that, but if you can’t even get the video into the computer, you’re a few steps short. All of this to say that their minds and schedules may not tolerate a complicated workflow with different steps happening in different places.

Since you have G5s rather than iMacs, you have the option to put in firewire PCI cards to add a second bus. I haven’t had any trouble capturing with a drive and camera on the same bus, but the card would give you some peace of mind.

In terms of setting scratch disks, a student would only need to set the scratch disk when they sat down at a computer… not during a session. Once it’s set, they are capturing and rendering to their drive. Teach them how to quit FCP (as opposed to closing all of the windows) and unmount their drive when they’re done. This way they take their files with them. If they later sit down at that machine, or any other, they set their scratch disk and they’re working just like before.

I’m starting to think that Final Cut Server has a misleading name… it isn’t a server for sharing media so much as it’s an application for cataloging and searching assets which are already shared over a SAN. As such, you might consider deploying it if/when you get some other kind of shared solution in place, but it won’t really help you achieve your immediate goal.

Talk to you District-level people about what storage they use. The server you described is only for playback. You could probably FTP your finished programs to it if that’s what they want you to do, but there’s no real way to use that machine to share assets with them. Depending on your district’s IT infrastructure, it may be possible for them to tap into any shared storage you set up (which could help justify the cost).

The ultimate hurdle you’re going to run into will be budgetary. The entry-level ethernet shared storage supports around 20 streams of DV/HDV. If you have 40 machines and district has 5, then you’re 25 short of everyone being able to playback at the same time. So while the entry-level system is s stretch to pay for, it won’t even do what you need.

I have a soft spot for video at the high-school level since that’s when I started and hat was my first job. Feel free to e-mail me zakmussig [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any more questions. I’ve sorta become a specialist at workflow and curriculum for high school video.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I do a lot of work with EX1 footage, and unless you’re doing some long-form doc with tons of footage (in which case a tapeless system may not be your best choice n the first place), I don’t see much gain from trying an offline/online workflow. At 35 mbps, XDCAM EX isn’t that much more storage intensive than DV. It may cost you a little more on the front end if you need to expand your storage, but it would certainly be faster and cost less in the long run.

That’s just my opinion, so your milage may vary.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Gloria,

What you’re talking about is a SAN (storage area network), and unfortunately it’s a pay to play game which isn’t suited to intensely budget-conscious organizations like schools. Depending on what format you’re working with, you may be able to work with one of the newer solutions which work over gigabit ethernet, but at 15 clients you aren’t a good candidate for the entry-level systems (which run around 10k).

There’s no really cheap, efficient, and reliable way to make files available to multiple users right now. I would suggest assigning student’s firewire drives and really drilling into them that the first thing they do at a machine is set their scratch disk. This could also help teach some real-world skills which aren’t sexy, but editors need to know such as storage space management and archiving.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I feel like this is one of those instances where you should go back to the client and tell them how their delivered assets affect your process. There’s definitely going to be some more time involved on your end whether it be transcoding or rendering, and your system performance probably won’t be great if you try to edit the h.264 natively.

More time means more money, so maybe the original source will magically become available to you (assuming this wasn’t just shot on some consumer avchd camera), or at least extra charges won’t come as a surprise to them later.

I’ve had several instances in which a DV tape “turns up” after I explain to a client the extra time involved when they give me an avi, MPEG2, or some other non-FCP friendly file.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

The trick to exporting from FCP with alpha is to keep your keyed footage on track 2 or above and don’t render before exporting. Rendering makes the background black pixels as opposed to transparent pixels displayed as black. Also, export using the QuickTime conversion option as Animation w/ millions of colors+.

This works well for me since my good keyer is an FCP plugin, but I usually composite in Motion. I don’t have AE [:( ] or I would probably use that.

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Sam,

The FCP chroma key filter doesn’t return good results (to put it kindly). Shake is a great option if you’re familiar with it.

Just for another perspective… I’ve been using DVmattepro from dv garage to key and Motion to composite. The filter is great but is specifically geared toward 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 footage that gives other keyers trouble.

No matter what you use, just remember that you don’t have to try a get a perfect key with one instance of a filter. You can key different areas for best results and combine them. If the shot is supposed to look photo-realistic, try adding some monochromatic noise to the finished composite to tie the whole thing together.

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I’ll second that. I’ve been using Patrick’s blowout fixer and digital makeup artist plugins on my current project. Not enough consideration was given to the softness and ratio of the lighting for a host on green screen (which is a huge part of the program). Without these plugins I really don’t think I could get back to a “look” that’s appropriate to the content (instructional).

Thanks Patrick!

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Liam,

Sony’s transfer software will combine the two parts into one file. You need to mount both cards (or add both BPAV folders you’ve moved to hard drive as sources) and use the transfer app to export the complete clip.

From Sony’s XDCAM Transfer User Guide:
“When the selected clip is in XDCAM EX format, and has
been split within a single SxS memory card because of file
system limitations, or when it has been split and recorded
across multiple SxS memory cards, the smaller clips into
which the original clip is split are called “child clips” in
this help. In XDCAM Transfer, these child clips are
displayed as subclips and can be handled in the same way
as subclips (except that they cannot be deleted)”

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Think that would work with a mighty mouse?

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Whoa. You guys type faster than I do.

Zak