Post Production Server

[sien]

Hi All,

Our school is thinking of purchasing a post production server.
Could I get a feel of what things to look out for and what works for you guys?

Here is the list of items we intend to use.
Panasonic P2 cameras for acquisition.
Final Cut Pro for Video Editing
Protools for Audio Post.

These are the things we hope to do.
We hope to be able to share video files across depts.
Transfer OMF files to audio post
And share sound effects/production music.

We would like to link everything into a seamless workflow.
We have not talked budgeting but for the server alone we might have $100K.
Not including the cost of cabling/infrastructure.
We have three floors of edit suites to connect.

Hsien
Singapore

[cmchamp]

If you're using FCP for editing, check out FCP-Server. A production company close by to me uses it and it allows for web based log-in and client viewing of projects in process.
I'd say FCP-Server software, a MacPro and lots of RAID storage.
C.

[jcalhoun777]

I've heard both good and bad about Final Cut server. Although lately, with the Xsan file system and with their newest release, I've heard only good things. Definitely looks like something to look into.

[Gracetech]

Just about anything will work for moving files around. Now if you want to edit the files in place you will need to setup a SAN. As you might know as fast as gigabit networks are you still can't edit uncompressed or even some of the compressed footage. I have been setting up SANs for years in edit houses and it's funny but the technology is pretty much the same as it's been for the past 10 years. For just file sharing you could do a Apple miniserver and hook as many firewire and usb drives to it as you could stomach.

How many users will their be max connecting to the server?

If you are using P2 then you will be pretty heavily compressed so as long as you don't have more than 10 editing machines you shouldn't run into a sluggish network.

Infrastructure is going to be key with this role out. You are going to want to make sure that you have minimum of gigabit switches that have stacking ports or 10gig uplink ports or better between other switches.

I can swamp a gigabit network by myself so don't think that gigabit alone is going to keep things moving.

crt

[zactommo]

By looking at your question, I'd say it two computers you after. A dedicated storage and asset management server, and another workstation.

The Capturing and audio/video post work sounds like workstation tasks. The acquisition could be either the server or a workstation task.

I think editing on your server is going to compromise it performance for the rest of its uses, so it best to keep the audio/video editing workload on your workstations, and leave the server to just do server tasks.