Total assets in Final Cut Server

is there a way to display how many assets are in a FCSvr database? I'm in the process of uploading over 10,000 assets to my server and want to be sure the server database asset quantity matches my storage disk quantity of original clips.

Paste this into a terminal and run it:
/Library/Application\ Support/Final\ Cut\ Server/Final\ Cut\ Server.bundle/Contents/Resources/sbin/fcsvr_run psql px pxdb -c "select count(*) from pxentity where parententityid = (select entityid from pxentity where address = '/asset');"
It will give you a count, which is the number of assets.

Similar Messages

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 for audio assets?

Hi all,
Anyone have thoughts on using Final Cut Server for managing audio projects? I can see games programmers also needing it big time but can't see much info on how FC Studio handles audio assets. As for managing all material for an album...
If anyone has any info, I'd be pleased to hear it.
Thanks!

We are currently using it as a Photo/Video database.
I've only put about 3000 images/clips in there so far
but it seems to be working well.
We are running it on a old Quad G5 and have some
custom conversions set up for adding images and
videos.
Our Web team can take our videos and in two clicks
have a WMV and FLV video for their sites and then
select a few images and do a quick convert to web
sized imges..all within FCS
It would be nice to see a open architecture with plugin support
and more file compatibility, but for now it works great
as a database for images and video.

Backup Final Cut Server Asset Library

Hi,
I like to find out the correct procedure to backup and restore the Final Cut Server Asset Library, and able to link up the catalog correctly.
There are instructions to backup and restore the FC Server catalog, proxies, etc, but I'm unable to find instructions for the asset library.
It's possible that the FC Server hardware goes down or Mac OS X gets corrupted, with the instructions available, it's possible to get the FC Server back working.
It's also possible that the storage hardware of asset library will fail, so I like to find out the procedure so the FC Server catalog " does not" to see the restored asset as "new".
Cheers,
Ben

Ok, nothing until now, that`s probably a tough one.
More news:
1- Recover don`t do anything, any point in time doesn`t change this problem.
2- Installing FCSrv from DVD doesn`t do anything as well the 1.1.1 update.
3- installed fresh FCSrv on another machine for tests and of course those fields are there in this new install. Compared thoroughly each ASSET_SEARCH, PAGRPASSET, ASSETTILESVIEW, ASSETINFOVIEW, ASSETTHUMBNAILVIEW, Metadata Groups between two FCsrv (the good one -fresh - and the old one) with no difference.
4- Just to clarify: I had lots of .mov files WITH all ok (with this fields appearing) on the old FCSrv, suddenly it vanished and the only thing that appears is the title (just the title not the "title:"). It doesn`t matter if upload, scan or anything. It doesn`t matter if it`s a photo (.jpeg) or .mov or anything. It doesn`t matter if it`s inside a production.
5- Just to rule out the possibility of FCSrv ruining Mime Type from the original files, I`ve uploaded from OLD-FCSRV MEDIA device to the new one and all it`s ok like the second image (that I`ve found on the FCSrv online manual).
I`ll nonetheless install FCSrv fresh on this machine anyway, but I just want to know what triggered this strange, odd and bizarre behavior if it happens again in the future.
Thank you very much for any help or comments
Regards

Final Cut Server - XDCAM metadata not appaering in the asset

Hi Apple community,
I would like to seek some guidance and help from you guys.
For Final Cut Server, I wonder why the XDCAM files was unable to show it's metadata for Codec Information as shown below:
Unlike Prores422, It shows perfectlfy fine:
Please advice,
Thanks a lot.
More Power.
Monching16

Hi Apple community,
I would like to seek some guidance and help from you guys.
For Final Cut Server, I wonder why the XDCAM files was unable to show it's metadata for Codec Information as shown below:
Unlike Prores422, It shows perfectlfy fine:
Please advice,
Thanks a lot.
More Power.
Monching16

Open Source Final Cut Server

It would make sense to open source Final Cut Server instead of discontinuing it. Many depend on it and have massive asset libraries and workflows that will not be moving any time and need support. QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server is open source and thriving. Final Cut Server should be given that chance as it still has many uses and a lot of potential in areas that Apple hasn't explored.
Apple please give back to community of loyal users and pro's around the world by open sourcing Final Cut Server and not letting it sit on the shelf like Shake collecting dust when it could be so much more!

I agree with this. We have invested too much to simply abandon our infrastructure and explore other options. Open source would be in everyone's best interest. I encourage you to visit the FCSvr feedback page and recommend this. http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutserver.html. Please be constructive - there has been enough temper tantrums and gripes about FCSvr being killed and the new way the FCPX works. Please be detailed about how you use FCSvr, any customization you've done, especially if they involve using the command line tools and scripting in any form. I personally have invested countless hours pouring over bash scripts, scouring the 43 "px" tables in the postgres database looking for ways to improve our setup, and writing libraries of functions to make scripting easy. I figured out how to customize our distribution to make it do what we need it to do, to serve our business and our clients. If the road ends here, was that all for nothing? FCSvr is a great product. I know that it doesn't jive with FCPX new ways of thinking. I know FCPX has range keywording and metadata capabilities. But what of a notification system? What of a transcoding server? What of subscription/responses triggering actions like archiving to tape? What about support for changing metadata with third party solutions? What about publishing the catalog to online services like MediaSilo? There are countless functions that have become part of the workflow of professional production companies. FCSvr has totally changed the way we work and think about our assets. I was just beginning to get somewhere with our producers and editors, and I really don't want to stop now. Open sourcing FCSvr would give developers the opportunity to write their own modules for FCSvr, we could see support for all kinds of functionality. It's not going to happen though if you don't tell them you need it. Send your feedback using the feedback page. Talk to the vendor you bought FCSvr from or the person who installed it in your organization and encourage them to have this discussion with the people at Apple who can make a difference. Please take action, don't just gripe and make broad stroke suggestions here on the forum. Thanks for your time.

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!

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?

I may have resolved this issue today or I'm at a stage where I can't replicate it. The problem may have been propagating from a within a template FCP project file we use to start our productions. I assume it was a corruption of the FCP file that FCSvr didn't recognise?

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.

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.

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 is Dead

What a news!
I am wondering how many FCSvr deployments are out there and what would be our Plan B.
IMHO, Final Cut Server is still the best asset management system in production space, and it would be hard to replace it.

Yes, I too would like to start this discussion. We have a highly customized distribution, and have come to rely on FCSvr for our workflow. As people find other solutions, or stick with FCSvr, it would be great to know their thinking and how they'll implement the new or the old. If Apple open sources it, there are a number of people who would love to start developing it more I'm sure.

Final Cut Server as "regular" DAM

Hi people,
I've been thinking if Final Cut Server can be used as a "regular" DAM, just like Extensis Portfolio, cataloging mostly images and nothing related to video media.
If it can, that's a definitely good news, specially because Extensis solutions, and many other commercial DAM solutions costs up to $ 10.000,00 or even more...
What you think about this?
Cheers.

Hi Rodrigo,
I thought about that, too. FCS is a very cheep product to manage media assets, even if you use it only for yourself. I have some projects for customers who always come with new product shots (hundres), but they all look quite similar. Sometimes it is hard to browse through all this stuff, so FCS would be a perfect MAM, esp. because of the drag and drop possibilities between FCS and FCP. This just as an example, it would also make sense to use it only for images. But because FCS is mainly focussed on video, maybe you will miss some features (I don't know which, but I guess a dedicated image MAM would have more features to handle your pics than a MAM with compressor functions and all that).
But we'll see - can't wait to ge a version to test all these things.
Marc

Creating a Simple Excel Report from Final Cut Server

1. Modify the following Metadata Group (ASSETLISTVIEW) to contain the field you want to output in your report
2. Create Ruby file. In this example I named mine searchallassets.rb
Be sure to make the file executable, using the following command at the terminal sudo chmod 755 [file]
Copy and Paste this block of code into the searchallassets.rb
--Code Starts Here
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# Created by Nicholas Stokes
# Copyright (c) 2009 XPlatform Consulting LLC
# All rights reserved
time_file = Time.now.strftime "%Y%m%d%I:%M%P"
FCSVRCLIENTCMD = "/Library/Application\\ Support/Final\\ Cut\\ Server/Final\\ Cut\\ Server.bundle/Contents/MacOS/fcsvr_client"
# What this will do:
# This will create a .csv file that contains all asset records from Final Cut Server database
# If you wish to modify the report further below is the command line syntax for searching the Final Cut Server database
# fcsvr_client search [ --verbose --noheader --mdonly --tabdelim --xml --limit <n> --depth <n> --xmlcrit --crit <str> --ctxaddr <addr> --dirs --linkparentaddr <address> --linkparentrecursive ] <address>
# Note, I am using the --tabdelim option to output the file as a tab delimited file. This will allow for easy importing into Excel or another database management system.
searchfor_allassets = "#{FCSVRCLIENTCMD} search --tabdelim /asset >"
output_file = "/Users/nicholasstokes/Desktop/DickClarkFCSvr_AllAssetsReport_#{timefile}.csv"
runsearch_for_all_export_ascsv = `#{searchfor_allassets} #{output_file}`
--Code Ends Here
Finally. Edit the searchallassets.rb to include the path that you wish to save the output file.
In FCSvr, setup a Script Response to call this.
Then either trigger the Script Response via a Subscription or Schedule.
Hope this helps.
Nicholas Stokes
XPlatform Consulting

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/default.html?gclid=CIyG7Zqclp4CFdpb2godL HXnkw

Final Cut Server + Media Manager Best Practices

Is anyone using Final Cut Server to organize FCP Media Manager?
I don`t want MM and it`s individual contains cataloged by FCS, only a "bundle" from the directory of MM (that has the project and a sub-directory called Media with all medias from that project).
I`ve tried different solutions but always get stuck in some way.
1- Get the directory from MM and put on a Device being watched by a scan production. A production with the name from the directory is created and the project and medias are catalogued as well.
But I don`t want those medias and projects catalogued by FCS. I`ve tried to set the recursion limit to 0 or 1 but the production is not created, neither the bundle (from the directory) asset. Nevertheless you can`t archive productions (with MatrixStore you can), so a workaround would be to archive only the bundle inside the production (if you managed to get only the directory as a bundle inside the production). But to get worse, if you update the directory as a bundle (regardless if it`s inside a production or not) and your archive device is a FTP device it says "ERROR: E_NOTSUPP Sorry, copying a bundle to an ftp server is not supported".
2- Zip with "ditto" (because the 2GB problem with normal zip) the MM directory and put on a device being watched. This won`t be scanned by a scan production to create a production with the name of it contents because it`s not a directory it`s a zip file and even if I forget about productions and only uploads the zip files to get each MM directory created as a zip takes too long and much cpu power so it`s not possible with many MM directories (the case). And to get things worse (always murphy), before I`ve deleted those directories I checked the integrity of zip files and to my surprise some of them were ruined. So I don`t trust compressing anything for my backup. I`ve tried Tar, ditto, archive from finder (that`s the same as ditto) but it takes too long or break the file.
The bottom line: I just want a MM as directory bundle in FCS (preferentially inside a production automatically created) AND being able to archive it to a FTP device.
Thanks in advance

Well it sounds like you have two problems: getting a successful scan production to work and archiving. I think I can help with the first one.
When you set up your device make sure that it is one directory level up from each folder you want turned into a production. So for example - XSAN/Show1/MM/ - if you make XSAN the device and set the recursion limit to 0, Show1 will become a production and Show2, Show3, etc for example. Set the recursion limit to 1 and MM becomes a production - Show2/MM/ and Show3/MM, etc for example.
Here's what I would do. Device 1 = XSAN/Show1 with recursion = 0. In the production info section of the scan production response set the title = Show1_[0]. The [0] will automatically fill in the name of the directory, ie - MM. This way each folder within Show1 becomes a production and the name is preceded by Show1 for easy sorting. This way you can isolate your MM folder and treat it differently.
That should get your productions scanning correctly. I'm not sure about archiving to an FTP device, zipping bundles, or automatically adding bundled assets to productions with a scan. As far as I know, the only way to add a bundled asset is to manually upload a folder. I might be wrong about this though.
Hope this helps even a little.
Message was edited by: Franbot

Total assets in Final Cut Server

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