So what more romantic thing could my wife and I do on Valentine's Day than discuss and experiment on multiple platforms searching issues of BCC Pan and Zoom stills? Seems her remote system from work is experiencing some issues searching the stills drive. I think they have resolved their issue and it has something to do with too many files on the stills drive or some such thing. This lead to a discussion of locating missing stills for BCC Pan and Zoom. In my experience if BCC Pan and Zoom can not find the still it will display a screen with file path info like this:
But if the still is still linked to the effect and there hasn't been any slug media put under the effect the above listed File Path Data can't be found. An online sequence where they didn't slug in a reference still under the effect makes it very hard to find out what still was actually used. Clearly from the screen picture above the effect knows where the still was when it was originally imported but if the still is somehow still linked I know of no way to find that file information. For Example if I have a still in sequence with no reference slug still and I want to find the source still file so I can put a blur on in PhotoShop I have no means to do this. If I open the Effects editor for the BCC Pan and Zoom and click external still it will point to the last still that was linked by BCC Pan and Zoom which may not be the effect I'm on. I know of nowhere in the Effects Editor GUI that the file path of the "Current Effects Linked Still" is displayed. It is online and I can see it but unless I remove the volume that has the still I get no prompt telling which file it is. I always work with reference still slugs but when inheriting an online project that has not followed that convention what is the most efficient way to locate these kind of stills? There are similar if not worse issues with locating the stills in Avid's own Pan and Zoom still effect.
Another thing I've recently experienced is I'm seeing some very annoying behavior on my new mac studio dealing with DPX folders at the finder level. I've traditionally had slow performance on my old mac cheese grater when dealing with DPX folders on an external Graid Enclosure connected via USB 3 but it is nothing like what I'm getting on the new mac studio. On my old cheese grater with the aforementioned Graid when I click on the DPX folder it takes maybe a couple minutes to display the individual files. On my mac studio with the same folder on my Big QNAP 10 server or my new QNAP NASbook with NVMEs the same folder takes 45 to 50 minutes to display the individual DPX files in the folder. Clearly there is something about the QNAP architecture that doesn't like folders with a lot of small files. As a result of this behavior it takes 30 ish minutes to link to the DPX folder in Avid, about the same or a little quicker in Adobe Premier and only a few minutes in Resolve. I guess the different programs approach the "indexing" or whatever the proper term is differently. My gut thinks Avid and Adobe are being hindered by the same thing that is causing the really sluggish performance at the finder level while Resolve is not. I also noticed once Avid has linked to the DPX folder the next time I launch it the DPX file will pop up pretty quickly and play without a hitch whereas if I try the same relaunching Adobe Premiere it takes several minutes to reprocess or cache or whatever it's doing before it will display and play the DPX file. Another quirk with Premiere is once it's up and playing if I go to the finder or another app and come back to Premiere it takes it a minute and 10 seconds to churn before I can resume playing the DPX file. If I link to the DPX folder on the Graid external instead of any of the QNAPs Premiere and Avid are both a little snappier but given it's a 2 drive Graid enclosure I can't play the DPX in real time. Once linked to the QNAP Avid, Resolve and Premiere will play the 23.976 UHD DPX in real time with no stutter. From all this I'm wondering what is going on with finder level drive indexing and what is so drastically different about the QNAPs architecture that it responds so slowly with the DPX folders at the finder level and with Avid and Adobe. I'm thinking the newer Mac OS on the MacStudio plays a part too.
Anybody got any experiences/suggestions in these two areas. I'm thinking I should have just stuck with a box of chocolates for V-Day. ;-)
John Moore Barking Trout Productions Studio City, CA bigfish@pacbell.net
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