Some advice please.

Hey guys.

Been asked to be the supervising editor on a new reality show here in Oz and I'm trying to convince them to shoot with 5Ds and C300s and edit with FCP X.

Of course I'm getting the usual drivel about FCP X not being ready, but on one point I'm not so sure.
This job will have a LOT of footage and it will need to be accessed by MULTIPLE stations.

Now I've shared projects and media before without an issue but I've never had to set up a muti-seat environment where there is the potential for two stations to be accessing the same footage simultaneously. (Most likely over an AVID ISIS Network) Anyone here with that kind of experience?

Ah, FCP X's weakest spot. As a side note I'd recommend filling out the feedback page, tell them you have this gig, and without proper networking or sharing, FCP X is dead on this job. Just to drive a point home for the dev team.

Wow, well, this is going to be an interesting thread.

Hmmmm yeah I was afraid you were going to say that. I have some good contacts with Apple here in Oz so I might start making some noise.

Yep, I have a long list of consulting clients who say they will use FCP 7 until it's physically dead, then move to PPro, because FCP X won't interface with their existing networks and/or media asset management systems (including a good number of Final Cut Server systems). A bunch of my income is about to go out the window, again.

The viability really depends on how you're editors collaborate.

My company works on episodic reality-based shows. That part of our company uses Avid on Edit Share.

Our editors constantly run into issues with permissions and not having access to clips or bins that others have worked on.

I think adding a SAN point inside FCPX would be just as useful- if not more than Edit Share is.
FCPX would do a far better job keeping track of assets in the job. You would just have to manually move event and project files from editor to editor. (We have to verbally communicate to each other which bin and what sequence in AVID is intended for the final show- moving a file is just a minor extra step beyond.)

The only problem would be if you need to have multiple editors working on the exact same segment at the same time. In our facility, anyway- That could never happen.

We divide the work up, and the lead editor for a particular episode is responsible for combining all the work of the other editors.

I don't know if this helps, but we're seriously thinking about doing an FCPX workflow for the next episodic that we land. (Hopefully soon.)

Cheers,
Scott M

Some resources:
www.xsanity.com/article.php/2012021022090515/print

CatDV is supporting FCP X for central storage more than anyone else. They even have a migration tool to bring your Final Cut Server db into CatDV, and they had the first workflow to go from 7 to X and back.
"Using CatDV and FCP X together lets you support the same sort of advanced multiuser workflows you were used to before, such as cross-platform logging and rough cut sequence editing, proxy editing, automated workflows, and more."
www.squarebox.co.uk

www.squarebox.co.uk/fcpxml.html

Well the gear house that is supplying the equipment for the show is keen to embrace new technology so I might go in there and see if we can't come up with some kind of solution.

Seanus, If you're in Sydney and need an Assistant, look my way. Ive worked lots of Reality TV. The Block 2012 being the latest.