Edit Proxies

Hi,
I enabled edit proxies when I installed final cut server, and from what I was reading, These would be created when I upload files to FCS, I can't see them in client, Do I need to set up a scan to create these edit proxies?
Also, When I put the URI in the devices pane on the windows client computer it changes after I put it in, I put in: file:////192.168.8.127/Volumes/RAID0/primary representation/EditProxies.bundle
and it changed to file://localhost//192.168.8.127/Volumes/RAID0/primary representation/EditProxies.bundle
The Drive I am using for all FCS Devices is a 900GB RAID0 in the mac pro server computer.
Hope someone can help ?

Some points:
(a) in order to use edit-in-place the storage must be visible to the server and the clients. This implies Xsan or some other sharing mechanism
(b) the edit-in-place URI is always a local file URI. it is the path to the root of the "device"
(c) "file:///" is equivalent to "file://localhost/" - it's defined that way in the standards
(d) as people have stated elsewhere edit proxies are only created when FCP projects are uploaded
(e) at present you can not do edit-in-place with contentbase devices (see http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1432 )

Similar Messages

Best practices for Edit Proxies in Final Cut Server?

We just bought Final Cut Server, and for the most part are pretty happy with the product. We are a small production facility, and primarily work with DVCPro HD footage at 720P. One feature we'd like to use would be the edit proxies feature in FCS, but they don't seem to be working for us.
_Hosting Computer_
We're using a mac mini server with snow leopard server and final cut server 1.5.
Problem
Whenever we specify in the Administrator Pane of FCS, Under Preferences and Analyze, we'd like to use a custom transcode setting for the edit proxies, keeping Frame Size, TC, and Frame rate the same, but changing the codec to h264 least quality, the effects are a different compression than expected. We tested out the compression settings using Compressor on the server, and we get the desired results:
Input: DVCPro HD 720P Quicktime 960X720 (1248 x 702) 23.98 fps
Output: H264 Quicktime 960X720 (1248 x 702) 23.98 fps
Also did the same outputs using Apple Prorez, Photo Jpeg and got the following outputs:
Output: Apple Prorez Quicktime 960X720 (1248 x 702) 23.98 fps
Output: Photo Jpeg Quicktime 960X720 (1248 x 702) 23.98 fps
(We also made new transcode settings for these compressor settings and we not able to control the compressions through FCS with these settings as well. Our target codec is H264.)
After connecting the new compression settings on the Mac Mini Server to a new transcode setting in the FCS Admin Pane, we restarted the Java Client, logged in to FCS as an FCSadmin, opened the Admin Pane, and under preferences/analyze change the edit proxy setting to the New H264 setting that worked perfectly when using Compressor. After uploading a final cut project, with one associated media file (DVCPro HD 720P Quicktime 960X720 (1248 x 702) 23.98 fps), the resulting edit proxy did not match the specification: 384 x 216, 23.98fps, TC matches source.
Also did not dynamically connect when checking out the project from FCS and selecting edit proxies and keep media with project and saving to the desktop.
Question 1:
Does anyone have any best practice transcode setting(s) to create for DVCPro HD 720P using edit proxies that dynamically connect and are smaller size than the original? H264? Photo Jpeg?
Question 2:
Why is Final Cut Server's Compressor giving a different output, when the same settings work well with just Compressor?
Question 3:
Does H264 work in creating dynamically linking edit proxies (ie, no need to reconnect)?
I can imagine this information to be very useful to the community, so any input or solutions will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

H.264 is a puzzling choice of codec for edit proxies. H.264 is not an edit-friendly codec since it is a complex long-GOP structure and will require a ton of rendering just to play back the timeline. ProRES 422 Proxy would be a much better choice for editing. I'm afraid I can't account for the differences between Compressor and FCServer in this case, but my gut tells me the non-I-frame codec you are trying to use for edit proxies might have something to do with it. Maybe for an edit-proxy workflow to operate properly on the server-side the codec must be I-frame? Is there any reason you do not want to use ProRES 422 Proxy? They are about 1/3 the footprint of 720p24 DVCPRO-HD, which is already very efficient. For that frame rate and frame size they would be roughly half the heft of good ol' DV25.
So my answer to all three questions would be to try ProRES 422 Proxy for your edit proxies and see if everything lines up.

Final Cut Server (FCSvr) missing the Edit Proxies Device in the Advanced Administration Pane.

Final Cut Server (FCSvr) missing the Edit Proxies Device in the Advanced Administration Pane.
If for any reason an Admin has mistakenly or purposely deleted the Edit Proxies device
from the FCSvr Java Admin, and you'd like to restore connective to it following the instructions below.
Note verify these symptoms, open the FCSvr Java Admin, Go to Preferences and the Proxies Pane and inspect
If the field and drop down for Edit Proxies is missing please backup your FCSvr DB manually and following the steps below to restore connectivity.
1. From the Terminal from the following command
          cd /Library/Application\ Support/Final\ Cut\ Server/Final\ Cut\ Server.bundle/Contents/MacOS/
2. Next run the following command
           ./fcsvr_client getmd --xml /prefs/0 > ~/Desktop/prefs0.xml
This will output a XML file containing the Final Cut Server Global Preferences to the Desktop folder of the currently logged in user.
3. Using for favorite XML Text Editor (mine is TextMate) open the file that was output
4. Notice the XML element and attribute values between lines 29 and 31
<value id="PROXY_CLIP_EDIT_DEVICE">
   <address>/dev/3</address>
</value>
5. From the command line run the following command to determine the Device ID for you Edit Proxies device
./fcsvr_client search /dev
You should get an output similar to what's below.
Address        DEVICE_NAME                   DEVICE_TYPE
/dev/20        Edit Proxies                  contentbase
/dev/9         MEDIA                         filesystem
/dev/1         Proxies                       contentbase
/dev/2         Version                       contentbase
Record the new Device id for the Edit Proxies device.
6. Open up the file /Desktop/prefs0.xml and XML attribute in line 29
   <address>/dev/20</address>
to the value of the Edit Proxies from step 6.
7. Save the /Desktop/prefs0.xml
8. From the command line run the following command
sudo ./fcsvr_client setmd /prefs/0 --xml ~/Desktop/prefs0.xml
enter you admin password if prompted.
9. Close and reopen the FCSvr Java Admin, Go to Preferences and Proxies and inspect
The field and dropdown should reappear.
If for some reason this didn't work, feel free to contact me offline.
Nicholas Stokes
[email protected]

H.264 is a puzzling choice of codec for edit proxies. H.264 is not an edit-friendly codec since it is a complex long-GOP structure and will require a ton of rendering just to play back the timeline. ProRES 422 Proxy would be a much better choice for editing. I'm afraid I can't account for the differences between Compressor and FCServer in this case, but my gut tells me the non-I-frame codec you are trying to use for edit proxies might have something to do with it. Maybe for an edit-proxy workflow to operate properly on the server-side the codec must be I-frame? Is there any reason you do not want to use ProRES 422 Proxy? They are about 1/3 the footprint of 720p24 DVCPRO-HD, which is already very efficient. For that frame rate and frame size they would be roughly half the heft of good ol' DV25.
So my answer to all three questions would be to try ProRES 422 Proxy for your edit proxies and see if everything lines up.

Unlinked Assets when using Edit-In-Place and Edit Proxies

I create a new FCP project with full-quality footage. Check it in. Check it out with Edit Proxies. Drop a clip on the timeline. Save. Check it in. Now it has unlinked assets. Check it out again with Original Media. All media is still Edit Proxies. Am I missing something?
This does not occur when I "Keep Media with Project."
Please help.

After more experimenting, it seems that when EIP is on for either original media or Edit Proxies, any back-and-forth causes unlinked assets. The same process with EIP off causes none.
Can anyone verify this behavior?

How do I delete edit proxies?

Somehow edit proxies got turned on in FCSvr (not 1.5) and a whole bunch of edit proxies are now living in the edit proxies bundle.
We have no need for edit proxies, how do I delete them? They have filled one of our partitions to 94%.

Login to the Final Cut Server Java client with as an admin user.
From the Server Popup menu select Administration
From the Administration window's left pane select Preferences at the bottom
Select the Proxies tab
Deselect Enable Edit Proxies
Select Save Changes
From the Administration window's left pane select Devices
Select the device name Edit Proxies and record it's Local Directory path. This is where the EditProxies.bundle is stored
Navigate to this location using the Finder.
Once you locate it, control click the EditProxies.bundle file and select Show Package Contents
Then select all the folders enclosed and move them to the Trash and empty the trash.
You could also just delete the EditProxies.bundle folder if you truly know for sure that you're never going to use EditProxies again.
Hope this helps.
Nicholas Stokes
XPlatform Consulting

Edit In Place but use Edit Proxies possible?

Hi all,
Trying to figure out if the above is possible.
Reason being Orig media is either uncompressed or prores 444 or Red.
Over Gig-E the Prores edit proxies are fine to be edit in place so no need to cache every time.
Is this possible?
Cheers
Si
Message was edited by: simonblackledge

Yes. You'll want to reshare the edit proxy device read only, via AFP or NFS.
There are caveats - editing over ethernet cannot guarantee bandwidth and latency in the same way as fibre or direct of disk, so there might be occasional dropped frames. But for the purposes of editing with the proxies, this is not so much of a big deal - you'll be conforming with the hi-res media at a later point.
Depending on how many clients and streams per client would be using this, you'd need to have a think about the backend infrastructure. I've got a setup where I have the edit proxies device on an XSan and a dedicated XServe resharing the device as AFP (read only). That keeps the AFP I/O off the final cut server machine.
You can also do things like get a 4 port ethernet card and bond the network interfaces to give you more bandwidth from the xserve to the switch.

Archiving the Edit Proxies

Our media is all HDV.
If we upload HDV as the original media - and FCS creates an Edit Proxy in ProRes422 - is that "Edit Proxy" moved to our nearline storage along with the original HDV file when we select "archive"?
Or, is the Edit proxy deleted and only the original HDV media moved to the nearline archive?
Thanks!

Apple Responded to this question over the phone.
They told me that because I am using HDV - I wouldn't need edit proxies, because the PR422 would be a larger file than my original.
Not exactly a answer - but I don't think that tech support had an answer at the time.

Can't edit proxies

Hi folks,
I'm running iOS 10.6.8 on a MacBook Pro. For the past four years, I've been accessing Google Scholar, JSTOR, and other online academic resources through my university library's proxy server. Today I noticed that I wasn't able to access some of these resources anymore. Upon further investigation, it looks like the library has changed their proxy configuration file URL. I'm trying to change it in System Preferences > Network > Advanced > Proxies per the instructions provided by the university, but all of the fields are grayed out--when I click on Automatic Proxy Configuration, it shows the old Proxy Configuration file, but it won't let me enter the new one. In fact, all of the Advanced option pages are grayed out, and I can't alter anything in any of the tabs. Any idea how I can regain access to my settings here? Thanks.

You need to check Network's main panel to see if it's locked.

Storage issues for Proxies using Final Cut Server

Hi there,
we have a fairly high amount of material that is just being put into Final Cut Server to be archived again.
I dont mind the Xserve being busy to create these proxy files, but they tie up too much space!
(Maths: 500 GB / 40 h of DVCAM footage result in more than 100 GB proxy files).
We have those 40 h running though more than once a month plus a whole LOT of material from the last 2 years - and our Xsan is only 7 TB in size.
Although we could theoretically buy another fiber raid this solution is not really future proof - it just pushes the time when we have to buy the next one a couple of months forward.. on top of that I cannot afford to have expensive, fast fiber channel storage used for proxies of files that are long archived and have only very limited use (and IF we need them, stick in the archive device and done).
Any ideas how to get rid of proxy files from archived assets?
I dont really want to take pen and paper and delete the proxies of the files by hand from the bundle.. dont think FCSvr will like this either.
thanks for any advice
tobi

So I'm not sure how your math is adding 100GB of proxy files
Are you creating VersionS and/or Edit Proxies of everything?
I ask because using the default Clip Proxy setting gives you file sizes similar to the ones below. These numbers aren't accurate because the default Transcode setting uses Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding for both video and audio, but assuming you had a relative constant 800kbps stream here's how large your Proxies.bundle file should be
800kbps * 30secs = 2.4mb
800kbps * 60secs = 4.8mb
800kbps * 60secs * 60min = 280.8mb per hour
280.8mb per hours * 40= 11.2GB
Also note, that deleting an asset from FCSvr doesn't delete the proxy files so you could have a lot of proxies left over from a few historical scans.

FCSrvr not creating proxies

A bit confuesed about the Final Cut Server to Final Cut Pro workflow. I would like to set up for another edit via proxies, and not sure how to create the edit proxies.
My server is actually a 2.66ghz macbook pro with 4gb of ram. We are on the road, so need to be portable. All media is on Firewire 800 drives and the preview proxies have all been created and work great for the PA's to log, but getting a good workflow for editing in FCP has been a challenge. I do have to say, i went through a lot of mess trying to simply get this set for our PA's to Log, and was not concerned at the time for getting it set for editing at the time, so I believe I removed the device from system preferences called "Edit Proxies." I have since created a new "Edit Proxies" device and it connected through Admin Prefs in FCSrvr, but still does not show up in the system preferences devices for Final Cut Server.
I have "Edit Proxies" checked in admin prefs. I have a device set for Edit Proxies. And when I check out the FCP project and select "use proxies", it says none have been created and I need to link to the original media.
I am just trying to avoid having to cache the original 1080p XDcam footage over the network for my editor to work. The manual makes it sound like all you have to do upload a FCP project and it will create the proxies from the media already in the project. I have tried that, then go to check out the project and it still has not created proxies.
The manual also says that if you add the assets from server into FCP, it will create the proxies, but all I get is the dialogue box saying it needs to cache the file.
I am just trying to get a viable solution for our editor to work with on this. I tried going with the "edit-in-place" and would still need to cache the files over a Giga-bit ethernet. But it looks like going with edit proxies is a better way anyway.
Another thing that I am not sure is possible, is to edit using the existing preview proxies. That would double our processing efforts, and might help skipping a step of creating separate edit proxies.
Thanks guys. I really would love to see Final Cut Server being a viable option for this, and kind of had no idea it was so complex to get into, but I am learning a ton about databases and offline editing.

Joshia:
Hope this answer a few of your questions
Problem:
I have "Edit Proxies" checked in admin prefs. I have a device set for Edit Proxies. And when I check out the FCP project and select "use proxies", it says none have been created and I need to link to the original media.
Answer:
Edit Proxies will not show up in System Preferences
Problem:
I am just trying to avoid having to cache the original 1080p XDcam footage over the network for my editor to work. The manual makes it sound like all you have to do upload a FCP project and it will create the proxies from the media already in the project. I have tried that, then go to check out the project and it still has not created proxies.
Answer:
If you upload a FCP project with media Edit Proxies will be created
Problem:
The manual also says that if you add the assets from server into FCP, it will create the proxies, but all I get is the dialogue box saying it needs to cache the file
Answer:
You need to insure that your Proxies, Library, and Edit Proxies device are all setup as Edit-In-Place devices via the Advance Preferences Pane
Problem:
I am just trying to get a viable solution for our editor to work with on this. I tried going with the "edit-in-place" and would still need to cache the files over a Giga-bit ethernet. But it looks like going with edit proxies is a better way anyway.
Answer:
You can also setup you Edit Proxies device as Edit-In-Place, but you'll need to always have your laptop connected to the network and any and all media drives references connected to the network
Problem:
Another thing that I am not sure is possible, is to edit using the existing preview proxies. That would double our processing efforts, and might help skipping a step of creating separate edit proxies.
Answer:
You might want to look at the Final Cut Server Rough Cut Editor by ConSol software. This software (still currently in beta at time of writing) will allow you to edit with proxies and create a Final Cut Pro XML file. I works extremely great, but is about a $750 add-on.
Nicholas Stokes
XPlatform Consulting

Proxies not available...

Hello!
I'm pretty sure that I DIDN'T check "edit proxies" when installing FCServer. Any idea how to enable it after installation? I have tried a re-install and it won't prompt me.
What's happening is...when I click on the icon to view the video, it says that a proxy isn't available.
How can I change this?
ALSO - Will the FCServer client app let me open word docs through the client app? I'd like to index those as well for scripts.
Thanks!
- Ryan Salazar

Hi
You need to login from a client with admin rights, from the drop down menu top left select Administration. Once the Admin window is open select Preferences, then the Proxies tab and tick "Enable edit proxies"
New to FCServer myself, so I hope this helps
regards
Lee

Final Cut Server Edit Proxy

Hi,
I need to do remote editing (with FCP7) over small bandwith WAN (1Mbps) therefore I configure Final Cut Server (V1.5.1) Edit Proxy to use a Quicktime H.264 codec with the following parameters:
File Extension: mov
Estimated size: unknown
Audio Encoder
AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width: (100% of source)
Height: (100% of source)
Pixel aspect ratio: Default
Crop: None
Padding: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Frame Controls: Automatically selected: Off
Codec Type: H.264
Multi-pass: Off, frame reorder: On
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 0
Min. Spatial quality: 25
Temporal quality: 50
Min. temporal quality: 25
The workflow is:
The remote editor choose on Final Cut Server the FCP project he has to work on, do a Check Out of the project on his Final cut Pro 7 local station by selecting "use: edit proxy" and "keep media with project". Project and associated footage are then uploaded from the server to the remote FCP7 station with no problem.
When the upload is complete, the editor simply open the project file to start editing on his station. This workflow was working allright till january: when opening the project the FCP7 doesn't reconnect the media with an error message:
"one or more of the updates requested by Final Cut Server could not be applied. (one or more replacement (s) had unexpected track setting.)" and media files are Offline! When trying to reconnect manually by indicating the proper path for the missing files, I have to uncheck "Matched Name and reel only" to select the edit proxy files. It looks like it was still linked with the original media...
Looking at the project file, the paths for the proxy files are the proper ones...
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>fileSubs</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>newurl</key>
<string>file://localhost/Users/XXXXX/Desktop/testbdw10/media/_FCS__XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/dev/3/1670_179_004301.mov</string>
<key>originalurl</key>
<string>file://localhost/Macintosh%20HD/Users/XXXXX/Documents/Final%20Cut%20Pro%20Docume nts/Capture%20Scratch/Untitled%20Project%201/179004301.mov</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>newurl</key>
<string>file://localhost/Users/XXXXX/Desktop/testbdw10/media/_FCS__xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/dev/3/1674_179_003601.mov</string>
<key>originalurl</key>
<string>file://localhost/Macintosh%20HD/Users/XXXX/Documents/Final%20Cut%20Pro%20Documen ts/Capture%20Scratch/Untitled%20Project%201/179003601.mov</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>version</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>versionMin</key>
<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
If I change the Edit Proxy setting for ProRes 422 (Proxy) on Final Cut Server edit proxy setting then the reconnection is working OK. I cannot use this workaround as the files are then far too big to be tranferred over a 1Mbps WAN.
The setup with the Quicktime H.264 edit proxy was working fine after, it seems, the installation of Pro applications update 2009-01 issued end of october 2009, but since january 2010 it does not work anymore.
Final Cut Server is version 1.5.1 with Mac Os X server is 10.5.8
Editing station are running Final Cut Pro 7.0.1 and Mac Os X 10.5.8
What could be wrong ? Does anybody encountered this type of problem?
Any suggestions welcomed!
Thanks.

I'm dealing with this issue right now (FCSv 1.5.1 latest pro app updates, 10.6.2, FCP7). I was under the impression that you could make edit proxies that were 25% resolution (as opposed to just using an efficient codec), but Final Cut Pro is having a rough time getting it right. I too am only getting success with ProRes-Proxy, audio passthrough, and 100% res/everything else. I tried using Apple Intermediate Codec with default "100%" settings and audio passthrough but had no luck. It's way heavier than ProRes Proxy anyways.
The only suggestion I can make is try your h264 solution with audio passthrough (or Linear PCM) instead of AAC. If that makes a difference we're on to something. Some people started having this issue after an iTunes update, so maybe AAC is the source of the problem.
The edit proxy workflow really needs tweaking from Apple to cater to internet-based solutions rather than fiber/SAN environments where bandwidth is a non-issue.
I'll report back later after some more testing.

Local Edit Proxy VS Rendering on Server

My projects are shot on HDV, uploaded as productions to FCSvr with edit proxies set for ProRes 422 proxy. Many of these projects contain Photoshop graphics, usually "builds" of bullet points or logos. Will I see a difference in image quality, specifically the graphics, between rendering locally with checked out edit proxy files and outputting the project to compressor on the FCSvr, which is, as I understand it, working from the original HDV files and original Photoshop layered files? Does FCSvr modify Photoshop files that are downloaded for local editing in any way?

Sorry I haven't replied sooner. Holidays.
1) FCSvr doesn't process stills that are used in FCP projects, it only makes note of their link to the project so it can check them out if necessary. When FCP is addressing a still it will either be the original on shared storage or a copy of the original that was downloaded upon checkout of the FCP project from FCSvr.
2) I doubt there is much of a quality difference between HDV and ProRes Proxy. All ProRes codecs are 10 bit and are designed to not degrade across multiple transcode passes. If anything, ProRes Proxy is capable of higher image fidelity than the 25Mbps MPEG-2 used by HDV. However, since you are starting with HDV, you don't gain anything in the upsample to ProRes. But you certainly don't lose anything either. Maybe some quantitative image analysis would show slight differences, but I bet you can't see any with just your eye.
3) It should be a wash. I'm pretty sure FCP renders HDV as ProRes anyway (might be wrong, but there are definitely other long-GOP codecs FCP handles that way). Either way, the fact that ProRes won't degrade the image data of the HDV means that using either one as a source should yield functionally identical output quality. FCSvr doesn't do any rendering. All it does is catalog media and hand that media off to Compressor for any transcoding. Any rendering of a composite will take place via FCP based upon whatever media it is linking to.
Honestly, if you don't see a difference in image quality looking at your HDV and the ProRes Proxy derived from it side by side, I see no reason why you shouldn't just do all your work and outputs in ProRes. Save the HDV as a source and a backup, but I don't think you are missing anything keeping your workflow in ProRes after ingest and transcoding.

FCS Not Creating Proxies

Has anyone run into a situation where FCS no longer creates proxies? I have been running FCS for about a year and never run into this issue. About two weeks ago, the program simply stopped creating proxies of any kind. Telling the files to "analyze" or "regenerate all proxies" generally does not work...however, if I close the program, then restart it and tell it to analyze files, it will work one time and then not again in that session. Naturally, doing this one file at a time is self-defeating. At this point, I cannot add files to the program and cannot regenerate proxies for clips already in as assets.
I have checked through all my basic system settings and everything that needs to be enabled looks to be that way--edit proxies and proxies enabled, saving to proxy device. I have not made any major changes to the system (such as changing what type of proxy to create or where they are saved).
Suggestions anyone?

Nicholas,
Thank you for the quick response.
To the best of my knowledge, no major system change was made. I only cite two weeks ago because that is the last date I can see that a proxy was made.
The more frustrating part of this process is that I am not getting an error message, in fact, the asset proxy creation is not even technically failing. When I load a new file in, when looking at the jobs pane, the poster frame and thumbnails are transcoded immediately, but the proxy never shows any progress, just reads transcoding. When I select numerous files to run at once, the poster frame and thumbnail for each will be created, and the proxy for reach one will read transcoding, but will make no progress.

What edit proxy encoding setting for checking out project on laptops via et

I want the possibity for our users to download edit proxy's of assets so the files are downloaded quickly to the laptop via ehternet. Most of our assets are DV-PAL files. What kind of low res proxy could i use for quick downloading to laptops, and still being able to make a simple montage. Finishing will always be done on our Mac Pro's connected to an Xsan environment.

Keep in mind that you will only have access to using Edit Proxies when files are uploaded as part of a Final Cut Pro project. When you check out that project, you will have the choice of using the associated media's Edit Proxies instead of the original representations.
Also, Edit Proxies should be the same frame size, frame rate, and contain the same timecode as the original representation. Given this, a Photo JPEG setting would probably be the only way to achieve smaller files than DV.
~D

Edit Proxies

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