FCP X is network blind?

[dillont]

Hi folks,

Work as technician and filmmaker in university setting. Apple finally got us our serial number / redemption codes for a volume installation.

Running a networked computer lab with network logins. Apparently FCP X cannot see network volumes, only local volumes?

Is there any way around this? If not, FCP X is completely unusable in a network environment situation.

What a mess.

Dillon N. Thomas

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Hi folks,

Work as technician and filmmaker in university setting. Apple finally got us our serial number / redemption codes for a volume installation.

Running a networked computer lab with network logins. Apparently FCP X cannot see network volumes, only local volumes?

Is there any way around this? If not, FCP X is completely unusable in a network environment situation.

What a mess.

Dillon N. Thomas

Quick question, are your networked file systems 'non-HFS+' volumes such as SMB/Samba managed file systems on a Windows or *BSD, or Linux system?

 

[dillont]

We're pure Mac OS (Xserve serving user accounts).

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

We're pure Mac OS (Xserve serving user accounts).

Well, that blows that idea... but one more question... even with Xserver... are you using AFP or SMB?

 

[dillont]

AFP all the way.

Well, that blows that idea... but one more question... even with Xserver... are you using AFP or SMB?

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

AFP all the way.

Well, that's unfortunate... I had thought perhaps if the remote volumes were on a non-HFS+, and the FCP X was checking for HFS-ness, that going the AFP route may work... but alas it seems to be deeper than that...

One would have thought that some mavin at Apple would have tried this and made mention of it 'early on' in some status meeting or memo... if so, no one got the memo...

 

[dillont]

Yeah, after all the hooplah behind the release and the debacle behind it ....

Now that I finally have my hands on it, I can see both sides of the argument (apple is planning for the future vs. apple abandoned the pro market).

All I can say is, it looks interesting. But its completely unusable in this environment.

It's kind of disgusting how Apple have rolled this out without properly communicating its roadmap.

What a giant step backwards FCP X is. Horrible.

Thanks for your input anyhow, j1clark

Dillon

 

[dchai]

The events are network blind, but you can still import files from network drives

The events are network blind, but you can still import files from network drives

The events are network blind and have to be on a local drive, but you can still import files from a network drive and edit with them while they are on a network drive. Just disable the copy to events folder option. A whole bunch of alias files will be created in the event, but it works. Yes there are a lot of rough edges, but the underlying architecture is awesome and will get there after a few updates.

 

[ustein]

>The events are network blind and have to be on a local drive

Having Events and Project may have issues because FCPX also uses the Events and Projects folders for render files and data caching.

I actually the old way to have a Scratch disk made more sense.

 

[tflak]

Here's an interesting approach to managing things using sparse disk images: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_managing_disk_image_martin.html

 

[TheReverend]

Here's an interesting approach to managing things using sparse disk images: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_managing_disk_image_martin.html

I get the local mounting and unmounting thing.

What I'm wondering is, can you mount/unmount a Disk Image that exists on the SAN? Or no?

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

The events are network blind and have to be on a local drive, but you can still import files from a network drive and edit with them while they are on a network drive. Just disable the copy to events folder option. A whole bunch of alias files will be created in the event, but it works. Yes there are a lot of rough edges, but the underlying architecture is awesome and will get there after a few updates.

If I interpreted the OP's setup, the user's /Users/<home_folder> is on a remotely mounted file system. In other words in this classroom/schoollab setup, the users do not their home folder on the local disk.

So, there is no 'local' disk storage that can be sort of 'used'...

Why this would be useful in such an environment, is, this allows the students (a large number of them), to log in to any machine, and have their home directory on a central server. In addition, it may allow the computer systems to be 'wiped clean' daily or weekly, and no regard for needing to 'back up' each individual machine, and any 'users' that may have used that machine.

This is very different from the way most individual and small business work groups operation. If there is a server involved, it is to allow for 'additional' file systems to be mounted and used in the communial effort, but usually each worker has their own 'full' system locally, which FCP X could use and then 'transfer' for backup/archiving projects, or 'importing/exporting' media.

I would imagine Apple has a similar setup for some set of their training facilities... a wonder no one ran FCP X on such...

 

[dillont]

Looking for answers, and learning

Looking for answers, and learning

I see exactly what the problem is now...

You still need to have a locally mounted hard drive to create an event/project. FCX can't do this on a server mount (remote user directories). It just doesn't see it. Using remote logins is impossible with FCX.

So I created a local user login. And quickly found this unworkable, too. Even if I made sure to turn off "copy media to events folder", turned off create optimized and proxy, as well as turned off all the auto functions for video/audio "fixing", the OS drive was quickly filling up with background rendered files.

The background render files has to use the movies folder in the user home directory. There's no way to change this (at least at the gui level).

So I turned off background render.

So I *think* at this point, as a local user, the only files that are being created are the project/event files (which are pretty small), on the local volume. And telling FCX to do absolutely no transcoding (or rendering) at all. Just editing the naked files as its imported (across network).

With no background rendering, and all the auto options turned off, it's BLAZING FAST! I'm surprised at how fast it is. Limited only by processor count/speed, your graphics card, and the speed of your media storage volume where the raw files are.

There's another drawback. Ingesting material directly off the camera copies the footage to the events folder, which is on the local hard drive. This doesn't work in a multi user environment as the hard drive would fill up quickly. User would have to copy the contents of the card to the network storage before importing it.

This is both frustrating and impressive. Creating multiple local users isn't an option. Nor is creating one generic user with a manual mount to server storage space feasible. There will always be the errant user who forgets to disable certain things, resulting in OS hard drives getting filled up. Impressive that, had Apple thought of all of this (networking issues, as well as professional I/O support), this would really be an amazing piece of software.

Dillon

 

[tflak]

I get the local mounting and unmounting thing.

What I'm wondering is, can you mount/unmount a Disk Image that exists on the SAN? Or no?

I don't use SANs myself so don't know much about them (XSAN vs. SAN or whatever) - just thought this article might shed some light on a possible workaround for some to allow mounting and access on a network.

From the article:

"Working on an XSan
In many production environments, an XSan is used for "pooling" data allowing multiple users to share the same media. XSans are ideal for video production because you can work with volumes up to 2 petabytes in size and deliver simultaneous streams of HD video at speeds up to 100 MB/sec. Final Cut Pro X however will not show XSan mounted volumes in either the Event or Project Libraries because they are not HFS + formatted. You can still import media from a mounted SAN volume, but you don't have direct access within FCP X. One way around this is to copy your Disk Image to one of the mounted volumes on a system connected to the XSan. (You'll need write privileges to do this). Anyone on the XSan network can then mount the Disk Image and the Projects and Event media will appear in Final Cut Pro X, exactly as if you were moving a Firewire drive from Mac to Mac (also called "sneaker-net). That said, I'm at a loss to explain why there is no direct XSan support in Final Cut Pro X, because the value of a shared storage network is that multiple users can read from the same media files. So the inherent benefits of using an XSan are, at the moment, completely lost on the current FCP X user. This is something I'm hoping Apple will address in the near future."

 

[dillont]

Back at work today. Apple tech also suggested I try to create a sparse disk image on the user desktop and use that to create a new event.

This doesn't work either!!

While I can create a new event and store it on the disk image, FCX still wants to create a local Projects folder (Its looking for the Movies folder). Network users don't have permission to write to the local drive, and thus its impossible to even use the software as a network login.

So - its confirmed - FCX doesn't play well with network logins. Unusable in a classroom/networked environment with server served logins. I'll continue to try to work with Apple techs to try and get this resolved but I don't have any hope.

Awful.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Back at work today. Apple tech also suggested I try to create a sparse disk image on the user desktop and use that to create a new event.

This doesn't work either!!

While I can create a new event and store it on the disk image, FCX still wants to create a local Projects folder (Its looking for the Movies folder). Network users don't have permission to write to the local drive, and thus its impossible to even use the software as a network login.

So - its confirmed - FCX doesn't play well with network logins. Unusable in a classroom/networked environment with server served logins. I'll continue to try to work with Apple techs to try and get this resolved but I don't have any hope.

Awful.

At the school where I take an occasional class, the iMacs are networked, have network login, but the 'desktop' is in fact local. But the machines are 'wiped' either nightly, or weekly (I don't know for sure), to remove any build up (or any 'unfortunate' item...), and students are told to archive their work on their own disks, on a 'permanent' server, or it will be wiped...

Don't know if that would work for your situation, or on the set of computers used for 'editing'... unless everything is potentially an editor machine...

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

What a cluster___.

 

[dillont]

Thanks for your response,

This is unworkable. We've got dozens of workstations, and not enough resources to manage wiping machines frequently. This is exactly why we went with a server to host user accounts and user data.

A point of clarification, at your facility, are users logging in each time to sit down at a workstation, and the server is serving the user login/credientials (providing access to the computer/software), but the desktop is created locally each time the user logs in? Or are users locally logging in and then accessing their network data by mounting their user space on the server manually?

At the school where I take an occasional class, the iMacs are networked, have network login, but the 'desktop' is in fact local. But the machines are 'wiped' either nightly, or weekly (I don't know for sure), to remove any build up (or any 'unfortunate' item...), and students are told to archive their work on their own disks, on a 'permanent' server, or it will be wiped...

Don't know if that would work for your situation, or on the set of computers used for 'editing'... unless everything is potentially an editor machine...

 

[dillont]

Indeed.

What a cluster___.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Thanks for your response,

This is unworkable. We've got dozens of workstations, and not enough resources to manage wiping machines frequently. This is exactly why we went with a server to host user accounts and user data.

A point of clarification, at your facility, are users logging in each time to sit down at a workstation, and the server is serving the user login/credientials (providing access to the computer/software), but the desktop is created locally each time the user logs in? Or are users locally logging in and then accessing their network data by mounting their user space on the server manually?

It's been about a year since I've attended... so, things are getting fuzzy, and since I was just a student I didn't pay too much attention to the particulars. But I do believe the user was using the local resources for their Desktop. Since I've tuned out of Apple Server things years ago, I don't know what is currently done. I was under the impression that it was sort of like old 'Yellowpages/NIS', were a central authority would authenticate, but local resources would be used. As opposed to a completely diskless works station, where everything came from the server, or a hybrid where some was local, some was remote.

In any case, this sounds like a total... how was that... cluster... for any environment like this... To me, it is somewhat absurd that in the modern age there would be such a visible distinction between 'local' and 'net' storage... at the application level.