Using Qmaster with DVD Studio Pro OR Qmaster requires FCP on all machines?

Question

Greetings everyone,
After a few days of tinkering I've finally managed to set up a managed cluster. However, I have a problem (surprise, surprise). When I submit a job to the cluster, Final Cut Pro suddenly opens up on all of the computers being used. I have Final Cut Studio 2 under an academic license, and all copies report that there is another copy running with the same serial number and that they must shut down. They render a few frames before suddenly quitting the job, regardless of whether I leave the message up or OK it away. I've done some reading from this thread which makes it sound like all systems must have a copy of FCP installed, or to use a slightly different method:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=375923&tstart=195
It's a bit upsetting as I'd originally read that systems could aid in rendering with just QMaster installed, and that they didn't need FCP installed. Hence, having FCP open up was unexpected, and I get the feeling that uninstalling FCP from those systems wouldn't help me.
But let me explain what I do normally, and perhaps some of you can guide me.
My work has me converting hundreds of tapes to DVD. Without QMaster, I would import the videos in Final Cut Pro, set chapter markers and in and out points, and then export the video (with barely any processing - an export typically takes 4 minutes on a dual 800 Mhz G4). I'd then import it to DVD Studio Pro, handle the menus, and then do a build and format. That process would take ~2-3 hours per DVD, and that is the part that I'd like to optimize.
The setup is such that I have one dual G5 wired to our hard drives (all Firewire 800), and then four other systems that connect to the G5 to access the HDs through a gigabit network switch. This has worked quite nicely in that it allows systems that only have Firewire 400 to work at Firewire 800 speeds regardless.
I'd originally thought that DVD Studio Pro 4 would automatically be able to process jobs through Qmaster, but I couldn't find a setting for it and it didn't seem to do it on its own. Instead, I was planning to redo my work flow such that the encoding of the video (the most time-consuming part of DVD Studio Pro's build procedure) would be done in Final Cut Pro. Or more specifically, it would go through Compressor. However, as I mentioned above, attempting to work this way causes Final Cut Pro to open up on all nodes within the cluster. As they all have the same serial number, they become unhappy under such conditions. I can uninstall them from the systems as I only ever use one copy at a time anyway, but as I mentioned from the link above, it seems that rendering through FCP -> Compressor will require FCP to be installed on all participating systems.
Does anyone have any advice for what to do? Is there a way to get around having FCP activate on all participating systems, or is there a way to do it directly through DVD Studio Pro (ideally in a manner that wouldn't cause DVD Studio Pro to activate on all participating systems)?
Any advice is much appreciated. The distributed encoding is really the only reason why we upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2, so I'm going to feel rather foolish if this doesn't work out.

Answer 1

A QCluster network isn't designed to distribute Rendering from FCP, rather it's designed to distribute encoding tasks.
As mentioned in that thread you linked to, the best workflow I can think of in your situation is to export Quicktime reference movies from FCP, then bring those reference files into Compressor for distribution to the QCluster for the transcode to MPEG 2 for DVD. There is a wealth of good information in that thread.
In short, if you attempt to use a Cluster to export from FCP, then all of your nodes will need to have separate licenses of FCP. But if you use the reference movie method, FCP is not required for the encoding.
One question for clarification with your workflow, are you logging & capturing these clips then sending them directly to DVD? or are you editing them in a timeline prior to export to DVD?
If you're just using FCP as your Log & Capture tool, then you can skip the reference movie step and just grab the captured clips in your Capture Scratch folder and send those directly to Compressor.