!UPDATED Jan 2011 FCP support Matrix, update October 2009

as of JANUARY 2011 here is the latest supported matrix for FCP and MAC OS support in our K2 SAN environment.

For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

K2 and Avid, XDCAM HD 422 Transfers

The FTP transfer mechanism with the Avid Interplay Engine has just been released around IBC, that more and more customer are using it to transfer content in XDCAMHD to and from our K2 Video Servers.

The configuration is extremely simple as it requires no additional software on the GrassValley side of the installation.
Avid is using our Open Architecture using MXF transfers over FTP to transfer XDCAM HD 422 to and from ISIS. in order to achieve that, you will need to purchase the Interplay Transfer Engine option from Avid and configure it to do FTP transfer with our servers and you will also require your editing stations (MediaComposer, NewsCutter, Symphony) to be connected to an ISIS or Unity MediaNetwork in order to have the XDCAM HD FTP option available in the Avid interplay transfer engine options.

Avid then provides a tool to list of clips in our server and you can drag and drop to your bin to trigger the transfer to the Avid editor shared storage and on the way back to the K2 use the "Send to playback" menu from within the editor.

If you are interested in transferring content between GrassValley K2s and Avid systems, make sure to check this blog often as GrassValley works continuously to make the story better.

For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

New K2 Production Storage offer and Customer Success Story with GV Connect.

Since the release of GV connect, GrassValley also released a new Shared Storage solution aligned more to the needs of Post-Production than massive news or ingest/playout centers.
This new K2 Production Storage Provides either a Fibre Channel or ISCSI (ethernet) architecture to connect Editing clients such as EDIUS or Final Cut Pro.
K2 Production storage can support ingest K2 MediaClient, but does not provide supports for direct attached Playback server. a transfer model is used to send to playback in that case.

K2 Production storage now complete our Shared Storage offering already proposing K2 SAN and our K2 Nearline:

• K2 SAN : Ingest, Editing and Playout supported on the SAN directly.
• K2 Production Storage: Ingest, Editing supported from the SAN directly, transfer to Playout
• K2 Nearline: NAS solution for Near-Online activities and low bandwidth editing in CIFS

K2 PS, has just been released and we are already pleased to announce our very first Installations at a major site in Texas.
the configuration provides 650 Hours of storage at 100Mb/s Media, transfer capability to our K2 ingest Server and a stand alone K2 playout Server, allowing content to be edited for 10 Final Cut Pro workstations.

GV Connect is used to browse the content of the servers and trigger the transfer to the K2 PS, where editors can start editing as soon as the transfer starts.

Once the editing is done, GV connect is then used to send the finish package back to another K2 MediaClient used for playout, while a Final Cut Server coupled with an encoding engine transcode the same material out of Shared storage to other destinations.


For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

HOW TO: Reconnect to growing file media in FCP

Thanks to Jim P. for this how to document.
Although our FCP GV Connect plug-in does a lot to streamline and simplify the process of finding content in our servers, if you are editing a greowing file and that FCP crashes or you quit FCP while you are linked to a growing file, there is no way for us to reconnect FCP to the growing files automatically. you will have to do it manually.
here is the procedure written by Jim.

Final Cut Pro behavior when closing project and application with a  growing file in the bin.

Launch FCP, add a growing file to the bin, use elements of the file in the timeline.
Close the project, then re-open the project – no issues with files.
Now close FCP and then reopen it and again open the project with the growing file inside the bin. The file shows up as Media Offline

So follow the instructions to Reconnect.

 Locate the clip as suggested
Here:

Then it will inform you that you are re-linking to a growing file...

So click on Continue and then you will see this

Finally the timeline redraws with all of your elements from the growing file(s).

Now you can finish the edit.

For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

Media transfers between K2 MediaClients and Avid Editors how to video:

hello, here is a video demonstrating Media transfers between a GrassValley K2 MediaClient and an Avid editor.
REMEMBER this is working only with Windows based Editors as Avid does not have transfer tools for MAC OS.


if the audio is not good enough for you, here is the transcript of the comments:

Welcome to this presentation
we will talk about transfer workflow between Grass Valley MediaServer Client from the K2 family to and from Avid editor either via a std alone Interplay transfer Engine or a Interplay Transfer Engine Server.

As you can see on this slide we do support transfer of different types of Codec,
I-Frames codec are transferred using the GV K2 DHM plug-in with the Interplay transfer Engine while long-GOP media are transferred using the FTP mode of the Interplay Transfer Engine.

AVC-I support will come early 2010 when Avid supports AVCI Exports.

Now to get this to work, you will need to install the Grass Valley K2 Avid DHM on the machine that host the Interplay Transfer Engine, in my example I run the Interplay transfer engine on the MediaComposer Machine itself.

Then you will need to install the Grass Valley K2 Avid Ingest Browser application on the Editing machine.
The K2 T Server goes on the K2 MediaClient (K2 Summit, k2 Solo, etc..)

The configuration is done mostly through Host file configuration as described in the installation and configuration guide and onto the Interplay Engine configuration utility.

In my example, I am running the Interplay Transfer Engine on the MediaComposer PC itself, it’s called a standalone transfer engine (vs Server) then I need to Check Stand alone setting “accept incoming transfer setting’ Dialog box, choose the type of transfer, AAF in our case.

Then enable playback transfer in the playback section, enter the name of the K2 Mediaclient you want to send to from this editing machine. The name of course has to eb same as the one in your host file.
Then you will need to enable ingest transfers and add the name of the K2 Mediaclient you want to transfer from.

Once this is done the configuration is finished, you need to start the interplay engine, launch MediaComposer and the Grass Valley K2 Avid Browser
Use the K2 browser to find content you want to transfer from the K2 to the editing machine, drag and drop the clips to a MediaComposer Bin, the transfer starts and once it is done you can edit it.

Once you are done editing you can then send the timeline back to the K2 Server by choosing the Send to Playback option, type a tape ID in the dialog box, that tape ID will translate to be the Clip name in the K2 word.
Hit OK, then the transfer starts.

After a while the clip will show up in the K2 default Bin, and you can start playing it out before the transfer ends.

the installation documentation can be found HERE
For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com