Any ideas on how to use macs for video editing?

[reggiep]

I don't mean what to use. Our kiddie winks will be using imovie as it is just basic editing they want. What I am trying to work out is how can a group of 20 go in and edit on a regular basis as imovie doesn't seem to store footage on a network drive but on the local drive.

What would be the best way to set this up?

Should I give the users access to the HD of the macs so they can save directly to them or do you do it a different way?

A bit stuck on how to do it!

 

Thanks

[CyberNerd]

We added an extra removable USB disk to store the movies, and allowed write access on the local drive. the network share didn't have the capacity.

[GrumbleDook]

I've done exactly the same (but with firewire drives). It ended up that students *always* used the same machine and kept forgetting to copy it back to the external drive. I always promised myself some time so I could investigate making use of something like Retrospect or RSYNC to back up the local volumes to a network volume ... used to do this in the days of OS 7.5.5 / OS 8 / OS 9 for a variety of staff who used to be the same (have local access and forget to copy things to the network).

 

Never did get the time.

 

Home ?(MacEnterprise)? has previously had discussions about similar ... worth having a look over there, or perhaps speak to Ross2k5 or any of the folks from Wildern.

[Ric_]

When our little darlings log onto a Mac they get as local home folder and access to their network share. The theory being that they use their local folder to do multimedia production and then copy up their stuff to the network when ready.

[reggiep]

@Ric.

Is this a default setup or did you need to tweak anything?

[reggiep]

 

Home ?(MacEnterprise)? has previously had discussions about similar ... worth having a look over there, or perhaps speak to Ross2k5 or any of the folks from Wildern.

 

Interesting site, thanks I'll take a look.

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

 

You could take another approach? Use BootCamp to create a small (10-20GB maximum should suffice) partition for scratch disk purposes only. Once created use Disk Utility to reformat the partition as OS Extended.

 

Now ehen students log in using their networked accounts (AD or OD - does not matter) they can still access their networked home folders rather than creating one locally - this can get messy. Now when launching iMovie and importing a new project they can save it directly to the newly created scratch disk. Once the initial save has been done they can then copy that Project directory to their own Home Folder's Movie directory. iMovie will work as normal thereafter without the need to access the Scratch partition again.

 

These set of instructions are something the teacher can easily get across as part of the curriculum anyway. The good thing about this method is there should be no need for the extra cost and effort involved in attaching multiple external USB or Firewire drives to each client mac.

 

A script could be written that will format the drive or delete the directory on logout. This can be applied using MCX from an appropriate server.

 

To delete the partition - if you decide to re-purpose the macs - use Disk Utility again to reformat as MS-DOS FAT 32. Use BootCamp thereafter to delete the Windows partition. Or use an appropriate NetInstall image. You could take this further and create a customised NetInstall image that prepares client macs with a partition for the OS and desired applications as well as a Scratch Disk Partition.

 

I have tested this briefly in a gigabit network environment (I would not entertain anything less for iMovie) and it works very well. Did not see one dropped frame. However this was for a small class of 6-10 macs. I think a larger classroom would struggle unless client hardware used had twin NICs and port trunking utilized. An appropriate switch capable of supporting Apple's implementation of LACP would be needed if this was something you'd be interested in?

 

Antonio Rocco (ACSA)