Is Final Cut Server is the right software for our company?

I need a software that catalogs and keeps organize our media. Our company is using Final Cut Pro 2 and want to keep stock footage. Apparently, were not doing a good job of organizing our media and files. I'm researching a software that can organize and catalog media and files. Does Final Cut Server is software can do that?
Thank you
Luis

Yes and no.
I know that's not the best answer, but final cut server is a very powerful organizational tool, but you also need to very organized in what you put into it and especially during initial setup.
For example, you say your company is apparently not doing a very good job organizing right now, so lets say you had 300 quick times labeled documentary1.mov, then documentary2.mov and so on, having a piece of software catalogue footage in that manner will not do you any favours in the long run.
However, if you were to say establish a production, "PBS Documentary" and then ensure that all clips are labeled very specifically, then keeping them and being able to search them as a part of a stock footage library could be very useful, as you are not only able to locate clips based on key words, but also preview the footage to make sure it is something you would want to use, and determine the current location of that file.
I suggest you check out apple's videos on FCserver, they will give you a pretty good idea of what the software is designed to do.

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I have a number of quesitons to answer to figure out if Busienss Manager is the best tool for our company. The ONLY reason we are pursuing changing from individual accounts is that Share Screen has been removed from some of our accounts with the latest Skype update.
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Up until a few weeks ago I would certainly reccomend Skype, but my advice is for youy to look for another company.
Skype doesn't care about it's business customers, I and others have been trying to buy credits for week but the system is broken with no fix in sight, I was told it would be fixed by the end of the week, it hasn't been!!
Read for yourself then go look for another phone provider, Skype is not responsive to business customers!
http://community.skype.com/t5/Skype-for-business/As-a-manager-I-am-unable-to-purchase-skype-credit/t...

Do I have the right software for my needs?

I have an issue with just jumping on forums and asking for help with code and build assistance, how do i do this or that.
My point in this visit is because of some frustration with designing a simple flash vid. I have no idea what Adobe product I should be using because the site poorly defines the products they have. All I want is a video that fades through a few pictures on a loop. Something too heavy for a gif.
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Do I have the right software for this?

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Deciding whether TestStand is the right solution for my company

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Over the years we've made about 20 or so test stations as new versions of our product came out, each able to fit products of a different size and with different test requirements, but because our main products are all so similar to each other, there's only a pool of about 6 different types of tests we need to run, with some products needing only one of those tests and others needing all 6, and plenty in the 2-5 range. The size differences among different products also mean we have a large amount of different power supplies, and for various other reasons the measurement devices for the test stations aren't terribly standardized as well.
Step 1 was that we standardized the database we used to store all of the test data. We now have one database that can store data from all of our test stations in the same way. A few of the old stations had to have some creative workarounds done (i.e. instead of rewriting their current test program, write something that takes their old output format and converts it to the new database format, then upload it), but this step is 100% complete.
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Step 3 is where we're at now. As we standardized on hardware interfacing, we also figured it would be a good idea to attempt to effectively write each of the 6 or so tests one last time each with very flexible setup parameters as inputs, using the abstracted hardware classes so that it wouldn't matter which hardware we had, so that all the tests would run the same way. So we started looking at solutions to some form of sequence management, and we came up with a couple of possibilities for homegrown versions but after debating those for a while we started to ask ourselves, "Are we just re-inventing TestStand here?"
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There may be more that I'm not seeing yet, but if there isn't a way to handle these massively complex types in TestStand, all we'd be getting out of it is a slightly easier method of managing sequencing than we have now, which I don't see as being worth the investment in time and licenses it would take.
I'd be grateful for any feedback. Thanks!

Considering you already seem to be leveraging LabVIEW heavily and before jumping into TestStand I would look at the PTP Sequencer. This seems to be a cutdown version of TesStand but inside LabVIEW and is a simple install from the LabVIEW Tools network using VIPM.
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Is After Effects the right software for the task?

Hi there,
Excuse me if I have posted this in the wrong place but I am after a little help with some video graphics I would like to create. Its nothing staggering, but I am not quite sure how to achive.
What I want to create is text that appears on the screen like a telex message with a flashing cursor and a sound sample when its being displayed. I have seen it many times on films stating a time, location, and breif proceeding a film or portion of a film. I think this would be beneficial to the footage I am tring to create rather than just using the fade to black & a title in Premier.
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Hi guys,
Just want to say thanks guys for replying to this thread. Great to know there are people out there that can offer a hand .
I did consult a tutorial before I set to work which was really helpfull whick in essance is pretty much what this tutorial shows:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7c9f a.html
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I can't fix the issue on Final Cut Server,

I tried to fix this issue, I don't have this program anymore, but it is continued appearing the error on my laptop.
"Final Cut Server cannot start without a valid serial number. Please enter your serial number in the server's Final Cut Server System Preferences panel."
For your information, I deleted this program few years ago, It is really annoying me, "Popup" Check the picture ( Below)
I would appreciate, if you resolve my problem thanks!

Did you try using the tool from Digital Rebellion?
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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

SLS and Final Cut Server

Hi.
I'm running FCServer on an iMac, and I'm currently looking for the best solution for giving co-workers outside of our office network remote access to our FCS database. The main purpose for this is for remote users to screen and download episode segments and movies from our database.
I was initially thinking VPN would be the only solution, but then I saw Snow Leopard Server has 'Mobile Access Server' built right into the OS, which appears designed to help users avoid having to use a VPN.
Before I go out and buy SLS for the company, I want to be sure it will work. Am I correct that Snow Leopard Server, and the built-in Mobile Access Server, will allow users outside of our network remote access to our FCSrvr database?
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Thank you!

Thank you for your response.
I posted this in the Final Cut Server forum as well and got this response:
+"Mobile Access Server will give outside access as VPN would, which will be handy if you want to access Final Cut Server using the Java client app. It will also give you VPN access for non-FCSvr uses, like email and Web.+
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Optimal Block Size for Xserve's RAID hosting Final Cut Server

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Just thought I'd say so.

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Is Final Cut Server is the right software for our company?

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