Final Cut Server - $$$ ?
by Jessica Berryman
on
Oct 26, 2009 at 7:17:31 pm
I'm a part of a small company and we have been considering using Final Cut Server. However when we got a quote from apple the installation process was very pricey (upwards of 80k). We only have 7 editors now and we will probably add another 1 or 2 next year.
Has everyone been getting quotes like this one, or shouldn't we be able to purchase the software for $1000.00 and have our own IT department install it with our hardware? (We are already using a shared RAID.)
Re: Final Cut Server - $$$ ? by Matt Bodman on Oct 27, 2009 at 12:18:30 pm
Hi Jessica,
It is possible to DIY Final Cut Server but I can tell you first hand its a journey. Even if your IT guys are like super-uber-geek-heroes, they will struggle with FCS and its idiosyncrasies. If you can afford a little downtime here and there and your not already busting at the seams with deadlines and pressure, I'd say pay the $1000 and have a go.
The $80k you've been quoted must include some hardware, some of which you may need, and some you may not. Apple will take you down the fibre road for centralised editing, but that may not be necessary, depending on what you're editing etc and your workflow.
For example, we have about the same number of editors as you, but we work predominantly (but not exclusively) in SD formats (DV, ProRes normal etc). Our editors all work off central storage over ethernet, not fibre, and some of them are just on iMacs. It all works great, but it took some serious fiddling.
All that said, I DO NOT regret installing FCS ourselves. We are now extremely intimate with the product and can pretty much make it do whatever we want without being at the mercy of another company's time and knowledge. Worth the pain!
If you want to spend a bit of money on some help to get going, I can recommend a consultant that has helped us immensely by remote.
Feel free to contact me offline and I can tell you more about what we've done here.
Re: Final Cut Server - $$$ ? by John McVey on Oct 27, 2009 at 12:55:29 pm
Get yourself a copy of the software and an iMac with 4Gb of RAM. Run the installer, read the documentation and start getting your head wrapped around the concepts of Metadata and Workflows.
What have you got to lose? When you have a working model of what you want to do, you can transfer that up to a proper XServer with an XSan environment. Trust me, it can be done.
You will thank yourself in the long run, because at the end of the day, you have to understand some key concepts about Final Cut Server. This is not some turn key system.
