Final Cut Server - Roundtripping to Motion Projects stopped working

I Checked Out a Final Cut Pro project from FC Server. Selected a clip on the Timeline and chose Send To Motion Project. I save that Motion Project in Device folder.
FC Server creates an Asset out of the Motion Project. I used to be able to Check Out that Motion Project from FCServer but now the Check Out Option is greyed out.
Any help?
Thank in advance!

Here is what worked for me:
I searched for anything Final Cut (including sys files). I then found an old file called:
Final Cut Express 3.5 Prefs.fcset
This is an old file from 3.5.0 and although I did try to start 3.5 under Leopard just to see what it did, I never actually opened it. But I guess it was enough to initiate the file being created.
Anyway, when I deleted this file, everything opened fine. I think that 3.5.1 was reading the old 3.5 pref file and since 3.5 won't work under Leopard it was preventing FCE from opening.
That is what I THINK. I can't prove it. But I can prove that once I deleted this file, FCE opened fine.
This is the only file I changed.
Hope this helps someone!

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I set up Final Cut Server on a Mac mini at work and uploaded some Final Cut Pro projects into it. Now I want to be able to log into the server from home "check out" the .fcp file, work on it and then check it back in again.
I really don't know how to go about doing that though. What address should I be using to do this? Do I need to install anything on my remote computer first before trying to connect.
Also, when I check out the .fcp file remotely will it also download all the proxy files, as well. This is my first time setting FCS up so I'm pretty clueless about this.
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We're doing the same thing at my company and it's working really well. We're a small post production house and our editors like the flexibility of logging on to the server from their homes and checking out the projects and the media, without needing to come into the office. Great for companies that want to engage in green practices, or cut down on commute times, if you need any good points to bring to your staff. Here's how we do it:
1.) Enable VPN access for our editors.
2.) Create compressor settings for our edit proxies that are h264 and small enough to travel over the web, or smaller internet connections.
3.) Editor logs in over VPN and downloads the FCS Java Client.
4.) Editor checks out project and allows the edit proxies to cache overnight.
5.) We use a lot of Apple's out the box Review and Approval options, and with a little configuration, they work great.
6.) When the editor is done with the project, they check in the lower rez versions and it "auto-magically" connects to the uprez media.
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Final cut server watcher never stop to transcode files

Hi, here my problem:
first of all this is my hardware:
1 xserve
1 xride (where are stored proxy files and thumbnails for final cut server) connected to xserve via fiberchannel
2 mac pro connected via 1Gb lan
2 macbook connected via 1Gb lan
1 macbook pro connected via 1Gb lan
1 nas connected via 1Gb lan
this is the software:
compressor installed on all the MACs
final cut server installed on the xserve
we need this system to encode mov files and create flv video for internet streaming content; the FCS watches a folder in the NAS (where we save the mov files) and then creates the video assets and the flv files. the flv file created will then be moved to another folder (still by automations)
the FCS watcher (the automation that creates flv) suddenly starts to transcode all the file already transcoded. to make the situation worse, the FCS job monitor allows to cancel just one job at time... we have thousands of movs in that folder so you can understand how big the problem is , but even if i stop all the transcoding one by one, it restarts to transcode from beginning.
well, thats all
hoping that it will not be more difficult to understand my english than to solve the above issue
thank you a lot

well... yes I want track the file but if in the flv copy response automation I set metadata to something like "Media" I will have two assets of the same file.
I will make an example:
I need to process the file myfile.mov (i remind you is a DV file); so I want to convert it in flv (i will upload it on my website afterwards, using as source the file copied by automation in NAS/FLV folder), successively I will put myfile.mov in my catalogue (with the Copy Response, No conversion, metadata set to "Media") cause what i want to catalogue is just the .mov file and not the .flv.
if I set the metadata in the flv copy response I will get an assets both the flv and mov file, but as told you _I just need the last one.
That's why i asked you if it is the right procedure or there is some other way less costly in terms of time and resources.
I hope you will see what i mean

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Hello!
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One or more of the updates requested by Final Cut Server could not be...

We are getting the warning " One or more of the updates requested by Final Cut Server could not be applied. (one or more replacement file(s) had unexpected track settings.)" when a FCPv6.06 (possibly also FCPv7.0) project file is checked-out of Final Cut Server v1.5.1. The assets linked to the project are cached down successfully (this in not an XSAN environment) but opening the project alerts to some offline media files (not all) and we need to manually relink them to the assets in the Final Cut Server cache. All is good again until the project file is checked-out of FCSvr to another workstation.
Having a look at the path of the offline files it is referencing the path of the assets as they were on the previous editor's (different) workstation. None of our workstations have the same path to the Final Cut Server cache.
My understanding and experience is that FCSvr manages the paths for FCP linked assets and modifies the checked-out file's path to point to the workstation's FCSvr cache?
Can you tell me how I can resolve this issue?

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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

Hardware Configurations for Final Cut Server

I am a small video production shop, currently running 2 standalone FCP stations; one Intel tower FCP7 with about 3T of firewire 800 Raid 1 storage, and one PPC G5 tower FCP6, on a gigibit ethernet network with a central NAS. I am adding a 3d station and a new employee. The problem we have run into is that many assets seem to always reside on the wrong system, and duplicate projects become impossible to resolve and archive effectively. We shoot exclusively on HDV.
This is the setup I am considering....
Convert the Intel Mac Pro tower to Final Cut Server
Buy 3 27"iMacs for edit stations
My plan would be to have all projects reside on the FCPServer and edit on 422 Proxy versions on the iMacs. I understand that each iMac would need a copy of FCP. Would they all need to be FCP7 to work on the same project at different times?
Other questions:
Would working on a gigabit ethernet network be a bottleneck?
Could I ingest video directly to the server? Is there a way to capture 422 video onto the server or would that require a separate copy of FCP on the server to capture from tape? If so could I use the older FCP6 copy withot upgrading just for capture? Alternately could I use a copy of FCExpress on the server just to create a project and capture on the server then open and convert to FCP7?
Any suggestions for what to do with the Dual 2.5G PowerPC Tower?

ProRes wil be much faster for rendering on the client and transcoding on any machine, and will also allow for more realtime effects vs native HDV in FCP. "Full-rez" is a misnomer here, since ProRes Proxy does not sacrifice any resolution and indeed has a higher bitrate than native HDV. You might find that your HDV source looks just as good in ProRes Proxy (it is very high quality, just not as pristine as the higher quality versions of ProRes).
Remember, ProRes 422 Proxy is still a 4:2:2 10-bit codec. I think you'd need to look awfully close to see a qualitative difference. You can choose to use ProRes Proxy at lower resolutions than your source media, but you don't need to. It is designed to work all the way up to 2K and maintain all the color fidelity of a 10-bit codec.
When you check in a project that you are cutting locally with Edit Proxies, FCSvr relinks the project to the original media, but it does not render anything. You would need to open the project on the FCSvr host with FCP to create an flattened QuickTime against the original media (in your case native HDV).
You can recapture, but when you have FCSvr cataloging your clips, you do not want to recapture the same media and duplicate the asset. If you are careful and recapture the clips that were disposed of to the exact same location with the exact same filename as before, FCSvr will re-link the media to the asset automatically. However, that workflow is very human-error-prone and I strongly recommend you not adopt it. Keep your source HDV tapes as a worst-case backup, but if you are going to use FCSvr, use its archive capability to RAID-1 external drives and only go back to the tapes if all else fails. And you'll need to be very careful to match you prior ingest if you do.
Of course, you can always delete an asset altogether when you're done with its media and later recapture the footage from tape and treat it as a new asset. It depends on how interested you are in keeping your asset records and their proxies intact for media you plan to remove from storage.
I'd take a good long look at ProRes Proxy vs HDV for quality. If you can't see a difference, capture to ProRes Proxy and make that your online format. Then you won't be eating up all your storage on the server keeping both the HDV original and a ProRes Proxy for edit proxies. If you don't enable edit proxies, FCSvr just hands out the original media.

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 1.x and Final Cut Pro 7

Are there any compatibility issues with Final Cut Pro 7 (Final Cut Studio (2009) and Final Cut Server 1.x?

FCSvr 1.5 has the ability to process FCP 7 project files and well as leverage ProRes Proxy Edit Proxy workflows.
FCSvr 1.5 is recommended for FCP 7.
I've heard about problem with FCSvr 1.1.1 and FCP 7.
Are you experiencing anything in particular?
Let me know
Nicholas Stokes
XPlatform Consulting

Final Cut Server

HI All, Hi..
Im just wondering how many sound designers looking forward to work with FC Pro Server
are there any here on list?
I work exclusively with Logic & Soundtrack Pro.. and I have several TB of audio..
Im just trying to find a way to gain quick search & access to my soundfiles, which are all named.
at the moment, I use iTunes to search, and then drag in the files into a project.
Which I hear FC Pro Server will manage Metadata quite well.
Im open to conversations and would like very much to find out who else is sound designing on-list.
Cheers - Ix

Well you might get more Sound Designers in the STP forum, but because you talking about Final Cut Server I just had to give this a bump.
TonyTony

Final Cut Server: Cannot connect to Java Web Start with a web browser

I get this exact error http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1610, but their steps do not fix it.
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites/0000any_80.conf.default /etc/apache2/sites/0000any_80.conf
has me validate and then goes back to the prompt the other:
Xserve:~ admin$ sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Final\ Cut\ Server/Final\ Cut\ Server.bundle/Contents/Resources/sbin/post-install.sh
Stopping Final Cut Server services ...
launchctl: Error unloading: com.apple.FinalCutServer.fcsvr_ldsd
launchctl: Error unloading: com.apple.FinalCutServer.fcsvr_stored
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Initializing database ...
could not connect to server: No such file or directory
Is the server running locally and accepting
connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.8820"?
connection failed, retrying (1) ...
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-- updating: pxperm
-- updating: pxgroup
-- updating: pxschema
-- updating: pxentitylinktype
-- updating: pxenum
-- updating: pxenumentry
-- updating: pxmdfield
-- updating: pxtrait
-- updating: pxmdgroup
-- updating: pxmdgrouphasfield
-- updating: pxeventstatus
-- initializing config package: base
-- updating: enum
-- updating: enumentry
-- updating: mdfield
-- updating: mdgroup
-- updating: mdgrouphasfield
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Settings plist already present, not overwriting.
Starting Final Cut Server services ...
Configuring webstart for OS X Server on default site ...
web:Modules:array_id:php5module:enabled = yes
web:Modules:array_id:userdirmodule:enabled = yes
web:Modules:array_id:apple_userdirmodule:enabled = yes
web:Sites:array_id:*:80_:IfModule:_array_id:mod_rewrite.c:RewriteCond:_arrayindex:0 = "%{REQUEST_METHOD} ^TRACE"
web:Sites:array_id:*:80_:IfModule:_array_id:modrewrite.c:RewriteEngine = yes
web:Sites:array_id:*:80_:IfModule:_array_id:mod_rewrite.c:RewriteRule:_arrayindex:0 = ".* - [F]"
web:Sites:array_id:*:80_:IfModule:_array_id:mod_rewrite.c:RewriteRule:_arrayindex:1 = "^/FinalCutServer$ /~fcsvr/Sites/webstart/index.php [NC,L]"
service: This command still works, but it is deprecated. Please use launchctl(8) instead.
service: This command still works, but it is deprecated. Please use launchctl(8) instead.
Xserve:~ admin$
Help? I should point out this is my first experience with OSXserver and I am not exactly an advanced user.
Message was edited by: otterholt

Hi, this dind't help.
I can resolve host name, so it looks like DNS works:
If I typed: <IP address> or localhost or localhostname.local or hostname I stiil get the default OS X web page with services, but no service is available not I can't connect to FCS web start page.
I didn't change DNS records - it is default as it was after installation of system and FCs.

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

Final Cut Server - Roundtripping to Motion Projects stopped working

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