Exporting Assets from Final Cut Server
Last week, I wrote about leveraging Final Cut Server as the core of a platform for asset management, approvals, and delivery. I wanted to append that post with some recent thinking and findings.
First, a quick discussion of semantics:
When you ingest a media file into Final Cut Server, it creates an asset. This asset is actually a collection of files, including the original media file, or primary representation. If the file being uploaded is a graphics or video file, Final Cut Server creates additional representations: a poster frame and a thumbnail. These are used to represent the asset’s media within Final Cut Server. If the file being uploaded is a video asset, a clip proxy representation is also generated, used for viewing the file within Final Cut Server. This representation is created by transcoding the primary representation file to a lower-resolution codec.
Asset Representations in Final Cut Server
So a video asset is actually a container that’s made up of a bunch of files. This is pretty cool, and it’s mostly transparent to the end-user in Final Cut Server. However, while these representations are customizable (codecs, quality, etc), they all generated on ingest. Final Cut Server doesn’t currently support a way to create a new representation of an asset on-the-fly and have that representation become part of the asset container.
I’m struggling with this limitation as I explore Final Cut Server/Episode Engine integration. It would be ideal if I could setup Episode integration via a Final Cut Server copy response to an Episode watch folder, and have the resulting transcoded file copied back into Final Cut Server and made a representation of the original asset. Right now there’s no way to do this, so instead we are only able to re-ingest the new transcoded file as a new asset. And there is no relationship between this new asset and the original asset from which it was created.
Frustrating, but we’re thinking about ways around this. More to come as our tests and thinking solidifies. More info on Episode Engine/Final Cut Server integration in this pdf from Telestream’s website.
Charlie Miller
Jeff Winesett
David Rocamora
Colin O'Donnell
Michael West
Ivan Wright
Matteo Rinaudo
Max Oglesbee
Pat Rafferty
Bob Birga
Miles Green
Chris Ross
Interesting integration with episode engine. – With the ‘watch folder’ and reimporting, is there a software limitation with having it appear as a representation of the original asset, or could this be done with a custom script?
-LS
Last Slice
April 14, 2009 at 10:53 am
LS, right now there’s no way to get a reimported file to become a representation of an existing asset. It’s a software limitation. Could be possible by diving into the underlying PostgreSQL database, but this is not supported (and actively discouraged) by Apple. Hopefully will be possible in a future update!
Charlie Miller
April 14, 2009 at 11:23 am
what if you wanted to automatically apply metadata to an asset on ingest?
I use a website form where users can upload movies (user generated content). In the end, I get 2 files within the watchfolder (1x movie, 1x metadata as xml [user name, user email, ...]).
Do you know if there is a way to do this?
…I’m struggling with a .plist solution (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9236116�) but it seems to be not that easy.
Urs
June 3, 2009 at 8:49 am
Urs, we are working with similar limitations of FCSVR… right now, we are working on a project for which we’re building a lightweight sidecar application for asset ingest. It integrates with FCSVR via the Read/Write XML responses and the Run External Script Response. It uses its own external database to hold an asset so that metadata can be attached on ingest. Then the asset is ingested into FCSVR, and once the unique asset ID exists, it can be communicated back to the sidecar app, and the related metadata gets attached to the asset in FCSVR. It’s a lot of back and forth, but it works.
Have you tried Apple’s Rails web app integration example?
http://images.apple.com/finalcutserver/docs/FinalCutServerIntegrationSample.zip
Charlie Miller
June 3, 2009 at 10:24 am
Sounds good
do you develop the sidecar application with ruby on rails? Will your solution be available (open source) or is it something like a proprietary tool?
I’ve installed Apple’s Rails web app integration example and it’s pretty cool. But a detailed documentation from the side of apple how to modifiy and extend the app would have been nice. Anyway… it’s a good reason to start developing with RoR.
Urs
June 3, 2009 at 10:40 am