Starting final cut server

Question

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

Answer 1

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!