Final Cut Server release date?

Hey guys
Any ideas? The last press release in April 17 said Final Cut Server was going to be released in May... but there's been no press releases since?
Does anyone have any insider info?
We are being fed conflicting reports in Oz from the Resellers.
Cheers
Julie

If you sign up for apple's news and events, you'll be emailed when it's released.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutserver/signup/
Jerry

Similar Messages

Respect original media creation date in final cut server ?

my question is...
is there any way for final cut server to respect the original finder creation date of the media? I do understand that the file is being newly created in the database and thus will have a creation and modification date of when you put it in, but is there a way to tell the database to change the data.
Why am i trying to do this?
I have a bunch of old footage that has a creation date reflecting the actual date the footage was created off the camera. I use this date created to find footage in my database such as all footage from a shoot between 10/2/09 and 10/8/09.
What i have tried:
I have tried using the A Better Finder Attributes application to change the date created after i have imported the footage into final cut server. this caused issues with the proxy and thumbnail creation when i went to reanalyze the footage to see what it would do. I saw that final cut server does not look at the file itself to know when it was created and only logs this creation date in its own database without looking to the original file for this information.
I currently have a field in final cut server to manually enter the date but this is yet another step that someone needs to take when importing footage to server and the less steps the better.
do i have any options for final cut server 1.5 to respect the finder creation date of the original media? or change it after the import into fcserver?
What good is the creation date in fcserver if you have amassed years of old footage to be put into your database and find footage based on date it was originally created?
or what good is the creation date if you are on a shoot and do not get to ingest the footage until you get back, say maybe a few weeks later? how would you know when you shot which footage on what day?
Thanks for your help

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.

Integrating Final Cut Server 1.5 with Active Directory

Following the directions in the Final Cut Server Setup Guide and I am running into errors. Fun with Final Cut Server. Fun with Kerberos.
Final Cut Server v.1.5 is running on an Intel Xserve running 10.5.6 Server, joined to AD. Active Directory is running on a Windows Server 2008 setup.
I dropped the ini files on the domain controllers, as directed by Apple KB (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3688) and I ran the commands directed in the setup guide.
The adprincadd command should be run literally, of course, but there's a mistake straight-away when it should read "./adprincadd.pl", the ".pl" is missing. Also it says "fcsvr/fqdn of fcsvr", so naturally I replaced the fqdn, but the "fcsvr" prefixed threw me off. It gave me errors until I opened Kerberos.app and notcied that the kerb ticket was in ldap/, then the command worked for me. At least no errors, until I checked the ticket and it said I had no permissions and that the keytab entry was invalid. Wheeee.
1. First I tried:
(some info redacted)
node09:sbin root# ./adprincadd.pl -dc dc01.example.com. fcs.example.com.
Getting kerberos principal for computer account
Kerberos principal is ---
Getting computer id...---
Getting AD Domain...---
Base DN is dc=example,dc=com
getting kerb ticket using [email protected] got ticket
SASL-bind to dc01.example.com. successful
Computer record is at CN=---,CN=Computers,DC=example,DC=com
Checking to see if ---.--.---. exists...000020B5: AtrErr: DSID-031529F7, #1:
0: 000020B5: DSID-031529F7, problem 1005 (CONSTRAINTATTTYPE), data 0, Att 90303 (servicePrincipalName)
at ./adprincadd.pl line 165
2. Then I noticed the /ldap in Kerberos.app and changed the adprinadd command:
Everything ran well, with no errors...
Finding kvno...2
Reading /etc/krb5.keytab...done.
Creating new keytab file...done.
Writing out temporary keytab...done.
Making backup of old keytab and moving new keytab into place...done.
Operation Completed. You can verify with "kinit <ad user>; kvno -k /etc/krb5.keytab ldap/---.example.com"
3. Verifying with kinit gave me the keytab errors:
kinit matx; kvno -k /etc/krb5.keytab ldap/fcs.example.com
Please enter the password for [email protected]:
ldap/[email protected]: kvno = 2, keytab entry invalid
kvno: Permission denied while decrypting ticket for 'ldap/[email protected]'
Thoughts?

Hello, I'm having issues with the client login after AD integration. I followed the steps from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3818 and the Terminal output reported a success.
I'm able to add AD groups in Final Cut Server Group Permissions. However, when I try logging in on the FCServer client using credentials associated with AD group I've added, I'm getting an error message from the client stating:
"Please re-enter the username and password or contact the server administrator. Please note that the username and password are case-sensitive."
The FQDN is correct in the Server field of the client.
I'm able to log into the client using locally created user accounts that I've created on the server so I know the client is communicating correctly.
The only thing I can find in the Console for the client machine is this:
11/25/09 10:50:12 AM /Users/*/Desktop/Final Cut Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Final Cut Server[1773] Warning: accessing obsolete X509Anchors.
In the server Console, this is a suspect message: /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Server/Final Cut Server.bundle/Contents/MacOS/fcsvr_stored[77891] pps proxy error: dsDoDirNodeAuth = -14091
Not finding much info out there regarding this. Any guidance is appreciated.

Long HDV and XDCAM clips through Final Cut Server

Hi,
I know that I could post this in Compressor and/or Quicktime and/or Leopard/Tiger Forums, but as this problem it`s causing my Final Cut Server to not working well, I think it makes sense to post here.
To resume: HDV and XDCAM clips (all on original codec, only xdcam transferred to mov in xdcam transfer) with file size bigger than exactly 4GB always FAILS in "Final Cut Server"/"Compressor alone in ANY machine installed from scratch"/"Anything that uses Quicktime". Source and Destination being localy or networked. DV or DV50 can get bigger than that, I`ve never seen this error with DV`s codecs.
I had seen this problem before I bought final cut server. When I was transcoding our interviews for transcription. We always worked with BETA SP and captured in DV or DV50. We were starting to go to HDV and now to XDCAM and this error has started to appear.
I have a "proxy" made a year ago from a HDV and it`s original has 8GB. I tried this file again and as I expected didn`t work. In ANY computer with any installations with only the latest updates. I`ve remembered that I was using Tiger at this time, and Quicktime/Tiger/ProApps had a old version.
My two cents are that some update from Tiger/Leopard/QuickTime/ProApps made this happen.
So ANY HDV/XDCAM file bigger than 4GB it`s FAILING in ANY system. (Tiger or Leopard, With or without FCP and QT PRO, Installed from scratch and updated every thing).
Some tests I`ve made:
-Compressor works with this two codecs to lower res in TIGER and with QuickTime Version 7.4.0 and LOWER. (had to be tested, but I think that was my version of QT when I managed to make the proxy of this two codecs).
-Compressor doesn`t work on any system with QT above 7.4.0.
-CATDV (http://www.squarebox.co.uk/) version 6 can make proxy versions of this two codecs in TIGER ONLY! They already know of this problem and CATDV 7 works on both.
-Compressing in compressor with H.264 (same codec as the FCSvr proxy) BUT without changing the resolution, size and etc. Works OK in both Tiger and Leopard.
-Exporting through QT works in ANY system BUT I loose TC, so it`s not an option (and I can`t input this workflow in FCSvr without using compressor).
-Exporting from FCP as QuickTime Movie with H.264 doesn`t work on Both (Tiger and Leopard).
-Exporting fro FCP as QuickTime Conversion with H.264 works but as exporting from QT I loose TC and can`t input this into FCSvr workflow.
Error message are always: "QuickTime error = -50" or "QuickTime error: corrupted data" (and of course it`s not corrupted because it`s used - even in FCP to edit - and opened viewed, catdv can do proxy and everything).
I`m surprised not to see anyone freaking out about this issue... I don`t think that It`s only me.
This is some problems that I came across while trying to find a solution:
http://www.paulescandon.com/blog/?p=39
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4912265&#4912265
http://www.squarebox.co.uk/faq155.html
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5513003&#5513003
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1903644&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1780228
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1853507
As you can see this is not the first time I`ve posted about this issue.
I`m sending a bug report as well.
Thank You all in advance.
Regards

Hi Chará!
We should, but I think the others will be disappointed eheheheh.
It doesn`t matter what version of Leopard I`m using (right know I`m using Leopard Server 10.5.6, but this issue has happened even with 10.4 if QT is updated and all updates of 10.5 up, as I`
ve mentioned above).
What file size are those clips that are longer than 10min?
I really don`t get, how it`s possible that just the two of us has HDV and XDCAM files with file size longer than usual? Maybe people that do interviews don`t like to record the entire interview and when capturing those clips would be under this file size limit? Or maybe we are the only ones in the whole world that transcode longer HDV and XDCAM clips (it`s funny that it doesn`t even need to be FCSrv, with only ONE machine and compressor this issue happens all the time).
I`m convinced that I have to install a Tiger version in a virtual machine with compressor and doesn`t update anything to test this further on. But I`m certain that with TIGER and CATDV this works ok! And I think that CATDV uses QT engine to do this transcodes.
This is too much of a mystery to me. Maybe it`s time to spend 24+ hours with apple in a international call and probably not getting anywhere.
I`m only posting this here in FCSrv forum because this issue it`s must worse when you have hundreds of clips with this issue and if you bought the package it doen`t matter if it`s a problem with QT+OSX or whatever, apple has to solve it for FCSrv use.
Do you reckon?
Let`s get in touch through email: lucas at rwcine.com.br
(at = @ and delete spaces).
Regards

Red Footage and Final Cut Server

Aloha gang-
I am still testing FCS in our studio and enjoy many of the features in this product. I love being able to search for footage and pull it into my FCP project with no waiting (using edit-in-place). But I am looking for some advice and knowledge regarding Red Footage.
My scenerio is this:
We render all our red footage to offline files that we will use in the post production process. I want to tag all those files with appropriate metadata so our edit team can search and retrieve files as they need it. But with red there are 7 files (in our workflow) that correspond to the same thing. Basically there is the original R3D file which can not be used in FCP, there are the 4 quicktime proxies that the camera generates and live in the same folder as the R3D, and these are the files I want to get back to after the production is through and archived. There is the offline quicktime we generate to edit with which we need to tag. There is a log and transfer quicktime we can log and transfer all this data to FCS (but it doubles the data size so I am not looking to use this one and edit performance is okay at best), and finally there is the folder that the 4 proxies and original red file live in.
All of these files should be search able by the same metadata. Imagine the shot is of a blue bird. When I type blue bird I would want all of these files to show up (obviously I could limit my search so I only get the version I need for what I am doing i.e. offline, proxie, etc. I have made metadata lookups for this so this is not the challenge.)
The challenge is I only want to log 1 of these files and have the metadata applied to all of them. They all have almost identical names. The offline, R3D, and folder file have the exact same name. The proxies are identical but with _F, _H, _M, and _P behind them. For the catalog process I only want to transcode proxies for the _M (The _F, _H take way too long and the proxies look the same as _M and the _P is too small
I could make them a bundle but that does not help too much as the offline lives in a different place as the footage.
Any ideas would be greatful. My easiest solution is to tag the files twice, once for the production and once for the archive, but this seems like a waste of time that I could have a computer do instead
P.S. anyone successful in getting the metadata out of the red file, I see the red metadata set, and have it in place, but can not get it to show anything no matter which file I upload.
Any ideas, or help would be great
mahalo
scott

Thank you for your replies. I guess my question is not really answered because of the conundrum associated with red footage
But my workflow to get through this will be as follows: (In case anyone is interested)
Set a scan to bring in the offline quicktimes as they are rendered and have someone tag them with meaningful tags to help us search during the production. I will send those to archive when we are done.
After the project is completed and the files are removed from Final Cut Server I will set a scan to import all the _M files (they transcode faster and quality is not an issue since it is making proxies) and tag them as best I can for the long haul (archive) I can either leave the media on the drive or back it up, depending on the immediate use of the files. This works very well if the media is still there as I can just drag the _M into Clipfinder and render the shot I need as I need it.
I am storing these clips in folders labeled CC_LTOXXX (where XXX is the number for the LTO tape which increases by one for each tape I use. When I import them into Final Cut Server from the LTO folder I have a direct line to which LTO tape the file lives on. It's not easy to get the files back (so with files used frequently I will also keep a copy on an external drive I can just plug in) from an LTO, but it is doable.
If anyone has an easy way to pull a list of files from an LTO tape that would be great, and even better if it could be a list Final Cut Server made, or if Final Cut Server could just pull the files. My LTO is a network drive so I would have to access it through an IP address, but if I could do that I would be golden.
Anyway I know this will all evolve and this is just where I am right now, any ideas would be appreciated.
Mahalo
scott

Final Cut Server Info Window - Which Group Controls the information?

I have been searching the forums and have found similar postings but none that solve what i am seeing and wondering if it is my database (been configuring quite a bit and may have messed something up) or just an oversight of the wrong metadata group. I did notice that it happened when shortly after i needed to recover from a backed up version of the database.
Here is my issue. When you look at the main assets pane of final cut server you see all of the thumbnails which is great. Double clicking an asset bring up what i refer to as the info window for that asset. in configuration i have inadvertently removed the thumbnail representation of the asset and all of the data underneath from there, except for one custom metadata field. the productions still have the thumbnail, but have also lost a significant amount of data under the thumbnail.
I would like to put some of the info back but do not know which group to modify. I have looked inside the metadata groups from this post to see if it would help but no luck:
<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9136299&#9136299>
thought it was the AssetTilesView that affected that window's info on that pane. I looked inside that group but many fields in are listed in that configuration list when brought up. like i mentioned above, only one is listed when viewed outside the configuration window what the client app would see.
The only group that i have been modifying as per my knowledge was the asset_search group to add custom fields i made to the search criteria.
hope this is clear. i am tired and a little exhausted from racking my brain. thanks in advance.

i figured it out. it was an error between the chair and the keybord..
for those that stumble on this...
aside from the order the groups show up in the list Asset, P2.. ect.
the display priority affects the layout of the variables on the info page. so if the window layout looks odd (no thumbnail, or missing metadata) check the display priority.

Final Cut Server Petition

I have started the above pet it ion at: www.pet it ion online.com (no spaces)
Search for Final Cut Server or FCS. Please sign it, I would love to get this product back.

I'm finding the promotional material confusing. Apparently you do not have simultaneous read-write capabilities, you check out media dn then check it back in. But it can be located anywhere, on any machine, on any server.
Max, are you at NAB and seeing the demos?
This is from the marketing page:
Use Final Cut Server to automatically catalog your media in any format and in any location. Powerful layered search tools let you find any asset fast, whether you’re in the studio or on the road. Browse thumbnails, poster frames, and proxies generated by Final Cut Server in formats you specify.
Final Cut Server extracts and reports industry-standard metadata, including IPTC, XMP, and XML data types, so you won’t have to waste time reentering data. Final Cut Server is a seamless extension of the editing workflow in Final Cut Pro. Drag assets from Final Cut Server to any of the Final Cut Studio applications. Use Final Cut Server to organize Productions—including any combination of Final Cut Pro projects, rough cut sequences, media assets, and production documents. Or create a Final Cut Pro project in Final Cut Server and check it out to begin editing; when you check it back in, the catalog updates automatically.
It all sounds too good to be true.
We use Canto Cumulus to handle our digital still assets (and much more) but it is beyond "too good to be true." Cumulus is a chimera masquerading as a nightmare.
bogiesan

Optimal Block Size for Xserve's RAID hosting Final Cut Server

What would be the optimal block size for the software RAID on the machine that will be hosting Final Cut Server? The default is 36K. Since FCS is essentially a database, would be the optimal settings? Any glimpse what data size chunks FCS write to the disk?

Actually I meant the block size for the internal startup volume where FCS is installed, not Xsan volumes. As to optimal settings for Xsan volumes it really depends on the type of the data you store on Xsan, and if it is primarily video, what format: SD, HD.

How to change Final Cut Server's time zone?

Hello all:
Is there a way to change Final Cut Server's time zone? It seems the software uses the GMT time zone as its reference. Therefore, whenever it runs on a computer located in another time zone, it still uses the GMT based timestamp.
So, for example, as my time zone is GMT less 3 hours, my FCSvr is always stamping the time as 3 hours in advance. Sometimes, this is really annoying.
My best regards,
JP.

I tried resetting Mac OS X's time zone directly in the terminal. Didn't work. After trying several times to set up another time zone, FCSvr suddenly was able to work with the PST time zone.
I was able to have a workaround by setting GMT (or PST) as my time zone, turning off the automatic date&time setting and manually setting the time, all at the date&time System Preferences.
Anyway, I don't think this is a "best practices" procedure, as FCSvr should be able to work normally with the server machine's time.
Any insights on this will be highly appreciated.
JP.

Re-install of Final Cut Server

I need to setup Final Cut Server 1.5 on a different server. When using the installation media, I get the following screen:
I am running on a Dual 2.8 ghz Quad-Core Mac Pro. The graphics card is a nVidia GeForce 8800 GT. Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

Did you have it plugged in when the MacPro was started up or after?
Because I have tried with xServes and MacPros to attach monitor after it gives warning
with no luck.
In fact you CANNOT install with remote desktop in data center w/out KVM. Stupid.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1455

Starting final cut server

Hi I am completely new to Final Cut Server and was wondering if I could get some of my questions answered about it. First off some back ground, the company I work for just brought me in recently and at the same time they decided too switch over to using FCP. Well they gave me the job of setting it up on their system, organizing the projects they have been working on to be easier to find and work with on FCS. As well as this I need to find out how Final Cut Server can make their life easier and present this information to them and show how this program can make their life easier.
Know I started off by reading what I can on final cut server and installing it. Know I have it set up, running under default settings, messed around with adding files to it and such.
here comes the big question, how is the best way to organize within final cut server. I and my company are used to thinking of things in a file way where you have the project file and within you have all the smaller files with your media for the project and sound and documents. How is the best way to organize projects?
Their is another part to this answer. we are not starting from scratch and are moving over a huge quantity of projects into FCS. To get the files over I created the file that they had been using to organize before, into an edit in place device. How can i easily and efficiently organize all this data so that it is useable for every one to access and resize what goes with the project that they are currently working on.
Thanks for your time

Zann00000 wrote:
Here comes the big question, how is the best way to organize within final cut server. I and my company are used to thinking of things in a file way where you have the project file and within you have all the smaller files with your media for the project and sound and documents. How is the best way to organize projects?
Their is another part to this answer. we are not starting from scratch and are moving over a huge quantity of projects into FCS. To get the files over I created the file that they had been using to organize before, into an edit in place device. How can i easily and efficiently organize all this data so that it is useable for every one to access and resize what goes with the project that they are currently working on.
Thanks for your time
To answer your first question, there is no "right" way to work with FCSvr. It is highly customizable and you get to bend it to your will (within some boundaries, of course). You should also know, since it sounds like you are new to FCP, that the media is not held within the project. It is stored separately and the project links to it. Therefore, you can have one piece of media that is used by more than one project. How your company should organize projects is something only someone who has spent time with your company can recommend. I can tell you that I decided to organize my files at the filesystem level by file type (documents, captured media, graphics, audio, etc.) and then gathered all related files of all types into Productions within FCSvr. That works for us, but something totally different might work for you.
On your second question, how is your existing storage organized into folders? Does each project get its own column of directories? Some other way? FCSvr can scan your storage using Production Scans to automatically turn folders full of files into Productions full of Assets and assign the folder name to the Production. That is the most automatic way to absorb an existing setup into FCSvr, but it only makes sense under certain conditions.
Finally, the way FCSvr makes life easier is via its automation capabilities. Learn how responses, subscriptions, watchers, and schedules work together. Think about how they can trigger each other. You can, for instance, set up subscriptions that will automatically send an email to a producer when a Production is ready for review. You can set up watch folders that will automatically encode files for use in making DVDs. You can trigger scripts and issue certain Terminal commands. Experienced users are finding a lot of things to improve on (it is a version 1 product after all), but even at this early stage the product is very robust.
After you get the hang of responses, subscriptions, watchers, and schedules you'll have this "eureka!" moment when you suddenly realize the true potential of FCSvr.
Good luck!

Importing Metadata to Final Cut Server from Excel

I'm getting ready to implement Final Cut Sever on an extremely asset-heavy media project, and I'm in need of a way to batch-import custom metadata from an excel spreadsheet.
Does anyone know if Final Cut Server has way to do this out of the box?
Specifically, if I have a an excel doc where column A = file name (of all media files) and columns b-??? = custom metadata, how can bring that information into FCS so that I can search my assets by the custom metadata?
DL

Yes it can be done but with the help of scripts.
If I have to do it today I would try to save those excel into a comma separated plain text files. Then I would build an script to read those columns of data from the text file (easy with awk command) and then write those fields to the FCS metadata. The tricky part is to link the file to the right asset inside final (you need to get the asset ID from the asset to be able to "setmd") The best way for me to do this (without accesing the database itself) is to have the name of the file (the plain text file) to be the same as the filename of the asset. This way you can then perform a "Write XML" from Final and you get an filename.xml where the Asset ID is located. After this is easy to build a custom XML file to fill with the excel metadata and perform a "setmd" to write back to FCS.
Hope this help

Does a QMaster Cluster really make sense for Final Cut Server?

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I often am, but my understanding of the difference between setting up a "Cluster" and just using "This Machine" is the cluster allows multiple jobs to be processed simultaneously, while an unmanaged system will only do one job at a time. However, when it does that one job, it uses all the system's processors.
Yesterday I created a cluster consisting of two Quad Core Intel systems, and started Final Cut Server cataloging about a half a TB of data. I noticed that Server submits the Proxy render jobs one at a time, and that the jobs were being submitted to only one processor core, in a rotating fashion. Is there a way to make FCServer submit jobs in "parallel," or am I better off with using just the local system for transcoding?

The default proxy transcode setting seems to be specifically tuned to work at a small scale, which makes sense if you are asking a box to host the database, serve the app, and do all the proxy transcodes. I observed the same phenomenon, so I made my own transcode setting for proxies and I chose to lower the bitrate a bit to help with file size and transfer time. The upside is the floodgates are wide open when my 32 core Xeon cluster (four 8-cores) goes to town on a proxy encoding job.
Your other observation is also right, that only one item is encoded at a time across the cluster rather than working on all of them at once across the cluster. So what you get with a fast cluster is shorter encode time, not parallel encodings that all finish at the same time.
If you have the spare machines to dedicate to cluster work, I strongly endorse setting up that way. I would not recommend Quick Clusters for Final Cut Server encoding duty. Either set up a dedicated Managed Cluster that FCSvr can use or none at all.

Has anyone migrated existing file libraries into Final Cut Server?

My company currently uses Virage to archive thousands of video clips. Currently we only archive proxies and keep a corresponding tape on the shelf -- it's a big library. We want to move away from tape and keep all the clips on a centralized server but we need to be able to move all the existing files over to FCS via an automated process. The clips we keep in Virage has 5 or 6 fields that we would need to migrate over and the thumbnails are mpg2. Has anyone had any experience migrating huge chunks of data over to Final Cut Server? We ditched our Avids and Unity and purchased FCP. Final Cut Server makes sense. (By the way...for what we paid for Virage, I could have purchased Final Cut Server and a Porsche to drive it to the office.)

My company is implementing FCSrv as a video database. Moral of the story: I did everything from scratch. I took the time to log and digitize all the tapes, creating a file folder structure that corresponds to the tape label. I can say from my experience, you need to organize and have all of your original media ready on the drives that you want the files to live on and THEN upload to FCSrv. I left those drives as Edit In Place devices, created FCSrv assets, and then turned the drives off. The drives only come back on when I want to copy over any of the source files. Also, FCSrv wants to create everything from scratch - its own proxies, thumbnails, and poster frames. Currently I believe the only metadata you could map / migrate over would be fields associated with FCP Log and Transfer media. Another workflow hint I have is to find media that has the same (or most similar) metadata and upload those at the same time (choosing create individual assets). Also, there is a great workflow on the forum for bulk metadata changes that helped me out a lot : http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7522555
Every time I call Apple anymore they try to sell me on purchasing the custom workflow services from an engineer so you could look into that for specific help with your current metadata fields. Otherwise, I'd suggest hiring some interns
Good luck!

Final Cut Server on Apples Promise or Isilon

Two questions:
One: Where can I go to learn about these two types of drives and comparisons?
Two: Does anyone have any insight as to which system is better/more dependable?
I work with one arm of a very large organization that edits various material. We currently work in SD but are planning to be all HD by January. We have purchased the Final Cut Server to replace Artbox which we currently use. We are trying to decide between Apple's Promise Xsan drives and Isilon. I am hearing that Isilon might be a bit slower????
Any advise, thoughts would be much appreciated. Better yet, if you know a place where I can go and get some good unbiased information - so I can educate myself, that would be great!!
Thanks in advance,
Ken

It's true that both solutions are not very well documented online with respect to more than their basic specs. What you need is some contextual advice that will weigh the pros and cons of each solution against your business requirements. You need a good consultant that is not trying to sell you either solution. A tall order, I know.
Maybe if I share the considerations I used to chose between the two it will help:
I chose Xsan/StorNext because I knew I wanted to take advantage of its ability to span disk and tape. LTO is still unmatched for price and performance for nearline storage. Disk is catching up, but you can't take a disk out of an array and put it in a vault like you can with an LTO. The reason I was so focused on having tape as well as disk is because I knew that eventually we'd fill our disk and still want to keep mot or all of the data somehow. You can't just add disk forever, so having a tape tier to migrate data onto is key. Bandwidth is also very good for the disk side of Xsan, but you still need to make sure you have enough disk aggregated to support however many editors cutting however many streams of whatever format. An Apple sales engineer can help you figure that. Fibrechannel storage like Xsan is unmatched for video editing due to its extremely low latency and high bandwidth.
The downside of Xsan/StorNext when you start using Storage Manager for backup and tiered storage is the support requirements. You simply must have a good admin on staff. The system is like a racecar- it is very sophisticated and finely tuned so it needs constant attention from the mechanics. But look how fast it goes!
If you only want disk and don't need to keep your data forever, Isilon is a less-fussy solution. It is truly redundant disk (unlike Xsan) and it expands more easily than Xsan. You also don't need to buy client licenses to connect to it. Even laptop and iMac users could get at it (unlike Xsan). It can provide enough bandwidth for all but the most grueling applications, but it is a lot more expensive per TB than Xsan. Several major cable networks use Isilon for editing and play-to-air storage. It is no slouch. Just make sure your format fits though a 1 Gb pipe because that's the maximum bandwidth to each client (Xsan can do 4 Gb).
So the bottom line in comparing the two really depends on your workload, format, number of clients, budget, and data management priorities. Both will work just fine with Final Cut Server.

Final Cut Server release date?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for