Workflow and collaboration using Dot Mac

I am managing several small but complex TV commercial editing projects.

I have been doing much of the editing myself, but now I am looking for convenient ways to collaborate with FCP freelancers.

For these projects, much of the material will be QT clips, Photoshop files, and the like. Reel numbers and handwritten EDLs will not be an issue.

In the past I have rolled all footage onto DV tape for the editors, but this was a lot of extra work on my part and ultimately not worthwhile.

I want to have each freelancer work solo on a project, and send the finished project file to me. I would load the project on my own machine and reconnect the media.

Has anyone here tried using Dot Mac as a means to send clips and stills to other FCP editors?

Does anyone here do projects of this type? (Stock clips, not rolled in footage)

Does anyone have good suggestions for workflow for working with other FCP editors on small projects?

I've used Dot-Mac for Review and Approval, uploading mp4 of sequences. Ten minutes runs about 50-60 megs. Sending full rez video over the web right now is cumbersome, and usually goes out as data files on DVD disc, or as raw DV footage.

On the other hand, spot work will likely be easier.

- Loren
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www.neotrondesign.com

The real pain is the upload speed on your end. You could post your clips to .Mac or wherever but the bottleneck will be your connection. Are you on a T1? Cable or DSL? Sometimes you can request a faster service for an extra charge. Short clips won't hurt too bad but larger ones over 200mb can be murder (at least on my Time Warner Cable connection).

Another alternative would be to buy a bunch of cheap Firewire drives (like from OWC), load your footage onto them and ship them out to your editors. They email you the Project files and you re-connect to the duplicate clips on your end. When the edit is done they get paid after they return the drives. Rinse and repeat!

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

I worked with a graphics artist from abroad and used his .mac account for some large file transfers (sometimes Uncompressed 10-bit SD clips, sometimes even HDCam). It was an interesting alternative, but I had a problem in that when uploading the file, the transfer took longer to go through than if I'd just uploaded the clips to my employer's FTP site using Fetch. Plus, the .mac copy processes gave the Spinning Beach Ball every time, on two entirely different computers. The transfers did go through, but there was no progress bar, so you never know whether it's frozen up or just still working.

Smaller files will probably fare better, but I'm still leaning towards FTP.

> In the past I have rolled all footage onto DV tape for the editors

You mean clips that are already captured? I'm wondering, why didn't you just copy the files to a portable drive?


www.derekmok.com

I have been using box.net for several years now. Works well for what you want to do.

--ken

Well, the way my producer and I do it is I capture all the footage on my drives. Then copy them to another set of drives for him...giving them the SAME NAME (means you don't need to reconnect) and then give him the project files. When I want to show him a cut, I e-mail him an archived project file, he opens the file and then renders...and watches the cut. Full screen.

When we have remote edit sessions, we use the iSight camera...but are looking into SyncVUE. Which allows us to watch the same QT file at the same time, and he can make locator notes than XML into my timeline.

But I do use my iDisk to upload any QT outputs I do.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

This is all good information. Ultimately, it sounds like we may go with the sneaker-ware solution of loading a cheap disk and mailing it, or possibly the Box.net solution if we can get a T1 line.

A few notes:

TV commercial projects are surprisingly large, hence the need to find a robust, simple solution for passing files. An average project for a 30-second commercial may contain about 6GB of data, including renders and source material.

I realize the idea of putting the source material on DV tape may sound like a clumsy solution. The original reason for it was that the editor was on a PC using Avid, while I was on a Mac using FCP. CDs and DVDs just weren't working out. Supplying a hard drive didn't work for the same reason the CDs and DVDs didn't work. Ultimately, though, it was the editor who didn't work... ;-)

Now I am planning to work only with FCP/Mac editors, so some compatibility issues are moot.

We use Comcast, and receiving is lightning fast, while sending upstream is a much slower 384KB/second (20MB minute max upload). For this reason, we may not be able to use an upload service.



Thanks, everyone. I think we have a solution at hand.

dotmac is fine but i think its WAY too convoluted and slow for streamlined collaborative workflow.

get yourself a proper web host, set up various directory browsable directories and give them all ftp info.

DONE.

FYI .Mac is really slow to upload and does have a "bug" of sorts. When you copy something to iDisk from the Finder it appears to copy quickly but then you get the beachball. It's not frozen, it's actually copying but you don't get the standard progress bar -- hence you have no idea when it will done. Plus it is slower than a regular FTP connection to a web server.

If you need to use .Mac then I suggest using a different program to access it. Goliath is a free app, and the new Transmit version can access your iDisk as well. Both apps offer you a progress bar and a real estimate of your upload time.

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

John K Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> If you need to use .Mac then I suggest using a
> different program to access it. Goliath is a free
> app, and the new Transmit version can access your
> iDisk as well. Both apps offer you a progress bar
> and a real estimate of your upload time.


You beat me to it! Using the Finder for uploads frustrates people in professional situations.

Interarchy also does iDisk (WebDAV.)

Just a follow up question regarding collaboration.

I have received a number of queries from editors answering one of our recruiting ads. One of the individuals says that her edit suite is FCP3 on a G4. I am using FCP5 on a G5. How can I send this person a FCP project to work on? Is there some way to "save as" FCP3-compatible?

I realize that opening an older FCP file in FCP5 will up-convert it, but it seems that going backward isn't an option.

Any views/experience with this?

Thanks again.

One of the individuals says that her edit suite is FCP3 on a G4. I am using FCP5 on a G5. How can I send this person a FCP project to work on? Is there some way to "save as" FCP3-compatible?

Nope...no Save As. And I don't think that FCP 3 even supports XML...need at least FCP 4 for that. That editor is gonna have to upgrade if you want to work on the same project.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Number one feature request for many FCP users. There should be a save as to older versions. Might be a few hiccups with that depending on what media you are using and plug-ins, but jeez, it would be nice.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Absolutely it would be nice.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

My guess is that if Apple is not offering backward compatibility, it would be due to their desire to encourage users to continuously upgrade. Sigh.

One more question - probably someone has answered this already.

Can a FCP timeline containing a segment with AfterEffects be loaded into a purely FCP suite and be viewed, or would it be necessary to render it to a Quicktime+Alpha? In other words, can FCP itself read AfterEffects stuff, or must it be converted?

You cannot use After Effects comps in FCP without rendering to Quicktime first.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]