EMC ISILON AND FINAL CUT PRO X WORKFLOWS Collaborative editing with Apple FCP X on EMC

Isilon Scale-Out NAS

ABSTRACT An overview of Apple’s Final Cut Pro X collaboration features and ways to implement

workflows for collaborative editing on Scale Out NAS with Apple FCP X

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Part Number H13204

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4

AUDIENCE 4

PREMISE 4

Apple’s Final Cut Pro as a professional Post Production tool 4

ADVISORY 4

TECHNICAL FEATURES OF FINAL CUT PRO 4

HOW APPLE FCP X USES LIBRARIES TO MANAGE MEDIA 4

SHARING LIBRARIES IN APPLE FCP X 5

SETUP 5

NETWORKING 5

Mac OS Client configuration 5

Mac OS Client NFS configuration 6

REFERENCES: 6

Final Cut Pro X in a Shared Environment 6

FCP X 10.1 Media_Management 6

FCP X Manual 6

OS X Best Practices for Isilon: 6

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This document addresses the integration of Final Cut Pro X with Isilon Scale Out NAS and describes the workflow.

Note: This document is an overview of workflows and options for collaboration. It is intended as a guideline and an introduction to

the topic and won’t cover all possible scenarios.

AUDIENCE

This EMC perspective document is intended for technical audiences, specifically IT Admins and Consultants working in the creative

space.

PREMISE

APPLE’S FINAL CUT PRO AS A PROFESSIONAL POST PRODUCTION TOOL

Since the early 2000s, Final Cut Pro has developed a large and expanding user base. … It had made inroads with film and television

editors who have traditionally used Avid Technology's Media Composer. 1 According to a 2007 SCRI study, Final Cut Pro made up

49% of the United States professional editing market, with Avid at 22%. A published survey in 2008 by the American Cinema Editors

Guild placed their users at 21% Final Cut Pro (and growing from previous surveys of this group), while all others were still on an Avid

system of some kind.

With the advent of Final Cut Pro X in 2011, Apple changed the way that professional users interact with Final Cut for editorial. Where

previous versions were able to access any type of storage, local, DAS, SAN or NAS, the new version initially limited the locations

where project files and project elements could be stored and used in place to local, DAS and SAN locations. With Final Cut Pro 10.1

Apple introduced a new and more flexible project management model based on Libraries

This document outlines some of the options and steps involved in leveraging Final Cut Pro X for collaborative edit using Isilon Scale-

Out NAS as the shared storage.

ADVISORY In order for the FCP X functionality to be available via Scale-Out NAS, you have to set the correct mounting

parameters, these can be found in the configuration guide under: MAC OS CLIENT NFS CONFIGURATION

TECHNICAL FEATURES OF FINAL CUT PRO Final Cut Pro X is a hybrid of a new user interface for editorial and powerful technology that makes it a valid solution for M&E

workflows.

The feature that make this product important to Professional M&E customers include:

64-bit architecture

ProRes Edit full-frame, 10-bit, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4:4 HD, 2K, 4K, and 5K video sources — including ProRes Log C from ARRI ALEXA

cameras

Grand Central Dispatch faster processing through the use of all CPU cores.

Native format support, including REDCODE RAW, Sony XAVC, AVCHD, H.264, and AVC-Intra.

Resolution independence—support for image sizes to 4K and beyond.

Background processing, rendering, transcoding, and moving media.

HOW APPLE FCP X USES LIBRARIES TO MANAGE MEDIA FCP X 10.1 changes how users work with Events and Projects. Instead of accessing individual Events or Projects, these are contained

in .bundle files called Libraries.

Libraries can contain consolidated media, which Apple calls “Managed Library", but they can also reference external media. This is

where things have changed in a way that is beneficial for sharing.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_Pro

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A single library can now access media externally without copying data to the events. Libraries can also back up automatically which

was the other concern for customers that were working with FCP X.

In a shared environment, you have a personal library to work with projects and you can then a) backup and/or restore projects from

a shared location and b) copy and share projects from one user to another, either by copying from one library to another or by

leveraging a “transfer” library. 2

SHARING LIBRARIES IN APPLE FCP X Media that you import into a specific library is stored inside the library and is referred to as managed media. Media can also be

imported or copied to any location on a connected volume and linked to the library as external media. Multiple users can access this

external media instantly on Isilon Scale-Out NAS.

1. To hand off new events to a working library by copying

You can copy new events from your working library to another editor’s working library located on shared storage. For example, an

assistant editor can use this method to update the primary editor’s working library.

1. On the destination system, close the working library on shared storage or the storage area network.

2. Open this library (the destination library) in Final Cut Pro on the system you want to hand off from.

3. Drag the events you want to hand off from your library (the source library) to the destination library you opened.

o When you copy an event to the library, all of the clips in the event are copied, whether or not they’re used in a project.

o If you copy a project to the library, only the clips needed for that project are copied.

o If you’re working with external media on shared storage, no media files are copied.

4. When copying is complete, select the updated destination library in the Libraries list and choose File > Close Library.

o The second editor can then open the updated destination library on his or her system and continue working. 3

SETUP

NETWORKING

A VLAN or dedicated network infrastructure is highly recommended to ensure adequate performance for the intense workloads

creative workflows generate. When working with 2K, 4K resolutions or above, 10 Gigabite networking is mandated. For current

generation MacPro workstations, a Thunderbolt to 10 Gigabit adapter like the ATTO Thunderlink NS 2102 (SFP+) is needed. 4

MAC OS CLIENT CONFIGURATION

Note: Detailed instructions for OS X Specific optimization for OS X are contained in the Best Practices Guide:

https://support.emc.com/docu51273_Using-Mac-OS-X-Clients-with-Isilon-OneFS-7.x.pdf?language=en_US

The main prerequisite for the OS X client is that the mount that hosts the Library is mounted via NFS. The media share can be

mounted via NFS or SMB (Figure 1).

2 http://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf Managing Media with Final Cut Pro X Libraries 3 http://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf Managing Media with Final Cut Pro X Libraries 4 http://www.attotech.com/software/files/techpdfs/TechSheet_Desklink_TLNS2102.pdf

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Figure 1. Mounting the filesystem that hosts the FCP Library.

MAC OS CLIENT NFS CONFIGURATION

Alert!: FCP X won’t open libraries on shares that aren’t mounted using the parameters below!

There is one critical modification to the OS X NFS configuration that’s necessary in order for FCP X to recognize the share as a valid

mount for a Library. The NFS mount has to be configured to only use local locks. The Best Practices guide for OS X offers optimized

settings, which are modified below to include the correct locking option for FCP X.

By creating a nfs.conf file within the /etc directory of Mac OS X, the Finder’s mount parameters are tuned for performance for Final

Cut Pro Mac clients using Isilon via NFS.

To create nfs.conf settings that are applied via the Connect to Server mount method, the nfs.conf file should contain this line:

nfs.client.mount.options=nfssvers=3,tcp,async,locallocks,rw,rdirplus,rsize=65536,wsize=65536

For additional performance, latency in NFS write operations can be reduced further. This is accomplished by modifying the nfs.conf

file to include this additional line:

nfs.client.allow_async=1

REFERENCES: Final Cut Pro X in a Shared Environment http://www.10dot1.co.uk/content/FCPXInASharedEnvironment_FINAL.pdf

FCP X 10.1 Media_Management http://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf

FCP X Manual http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1604/en_US/final_cut_pro_x_user_guide.pdf

OS X Best Practices for Isilon: https://support.emc.com/docu51273_Using-Mac-OS-X-Clients-with-Isilon-OneFS-7.x.pdf?language=en_US

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APPENDIX

LOCAL LOCKS AND USAGE WITH NFS.

Final Cut Pro X requires NFS local locks to be enabled. What follows is a technical discussion on some of the implications and

conditions that apply to local locks. For most use cases this will not have any impact on the workflow or the usage, as the process for

Library sharing as described in “SHARING LIBRARIES IN APPLE FCP X” doesn’t involve more than one user accessing their personal

Library at any time. Concerns arise when the Library is being backed up using backup methods outside of Final Cut Pro X or

otherwise manipulated by an application or another user while it is being actively used by the Library owner as this may lead to data

inconsistencies or data loss.

Note: Perform all file locking operations locally on the NFS client (in the VFS layer) instead of on the NFS

server. This option can provide file locking support on an NFS file system for which the server does not support

file locking. However, because the file locking is only performed on the client, the NFS server and other NFS

clients will have no knowledge of the locks. Note: mounts which are both soft and read-only will also have the

locallocks mount option enabled by default - unless explicitly overridden with a lock option (for example,

nolocks or nolocallocks ). 5

locallock instructs NFS client to avoid NLM calls, so all locks happen on client side, and for LKF then all LK calls would be shared

(read "not exclusive"). This means, the applications can lock files, but such locks provide exclusion only against other applications

running on the same client. Remote applications are not affected by these locks.

With locallocks enabled it is theoretically possible for something on the local machine to contend with FCP, like a local backup

daemon or a search indexer. While this is not a behavior that has been seen in test environments it could occur in a deployment

scenario and the solution in that case is to include the FPC X Library from the particular service’s or application’s search path.

5 https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/mount_nfs.8.html