Beyond that, all edit stations have to run their own sql server and use their own data file, but this is a copy of the server's data file.

What this gets you is a common library, but no additions as you go. That's okay as long as you've defined MM's purpose this way.

The nice thing about MM is that Vegas seems to add entries to it when you add media to a project, so there's a certain amount of automation to the process.

To, me this sounds like the best you could do with MM as it is. It'd be GREAT if it ran as a server that you could log into, so that mutliple users could access the same live database, rather than copies.

Mickey, enhancements I can think of would be to automatically sync up the database from your server to the workstations.

We run a similar setup here. It's not Vegas specific but we have a SAN that serves three edit stations over fiber and provides file level locking. It can also provide access over gigabit ethernet for computers not on the fiber connection.

The one thing I've found about mapping network shares to drive letters is that Windows won't really make the share active until you browse it. So, for example, I may have a share from the server mapped to "G" but if I plug in a thumb drive before I've browsed that share, the thumb drive will be assign to "G" but not show up in my drives list.

The solution to that is to assign permanently mapped network shares to the upper letters of the alphabet, like Z. Then removable disks can automatically get a lower drive letter without screwing things up.

Rob Mack

Yes, I mapped z for our 2tb server that has finnished show for air. I mapped w,x,and y for the spaces on the 8tb server that has the media we use on Media Manager. We sometimes have interns using editing stations and with 5 workstations and everyone dumping things in and out of the servers it could be a nightmare to let anyone write files on our stock graphics 2tb space. This way we always have a clean easy to find and use media manager file. I have visited the Washington DC access station with a 3.2 million dollar budget. QACTV has more content at least double. And our budget is less than a 10th of DC.'s I believe it is because of the workflow with Vegas is why we can produce and air so much content with the limited staff we have. We are on Vegas 7 and it has been rock solid. I render meeting that are sometimes 6 hrs long. Capture with a Nnovia drive AVI and render to mpg-2 at constent 8bits. Sometimes using batch render I have done 3 meetings about 3 hr each, hit the render before I go home and look at the shows with my coffee in the morning. If I had rookie joe messing with my media manager files it would make life less productive. So we don't use all the features of Media Manager but our lifes can be full of joy finding that snake hiss sfx or that bomb sfx for the white flash transition. I learned as a cub scout leader KISMIF (Keep it simple make it fun)

Ah. Fun memories. I did a quasi-den chief thing for a year after leaving scouts. Technically you couldn't be an "adult leader" and a den chief but I was helping out a mom who really needed it and the kids were a lot of fun.

Sounds like you guys are using your brains and getting more done.

Rob Mack

Rob,

Instead of mapping network shares to a letter, I use NTFS mounted drives. It ALWAYS works (at least with XP, haven't tried with Vista). The steps:

1. Create an empty folder where you want the drive to be mounted whenever it is online. For example:

My Shares
My Share 01
My Share 02
.
My Share nn


2. Give your shared drive a volume name that associates it with the folder it will be mounted in. For the above example it would be Share01, Share02, etc. The only reason for this is to make it easier for you to remember what folder you mapped the drive to.

3. In the same Computer Management dialog where you assign a new drive letter to a physical drive, choose instead the option to "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder:" and assign the drive to the appropriate folder. Example: Drive Share01 -> Folder My Share 01.

I also use the same approach with my removable media. For example, when I plug my DSLR's compact flash card in it automatically mounts into the empty "My Pictures/Incoming" folder. I never have to go looking for whatever letter Windows decided to assign to the inserted card.

This has really simplified things for me. For example, this has enabled me to have TrueImage scripts that perform automated backups to removable drive enclosures that ALWAYS have the same address when brought online.

Jerry

BTW, MS has this for media management
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=media

Might make a good compliment to MM, plus they just issed a free reader that works on both Windows and MAC..

I understand what you're saying but I don't really see a way to mount a remote share onto a local NTFS folder.

My computer management console shows local drives only, not remote shares. Perhaps there's a snap-in to use?

Off to google now...

On a side note, I personally prefer not to mount shares a s drives at all. I work with other people and I find if I send then a network path in email then they can always get to the file I'm talking about. Otherwise there's no guarantee that they've mounted a share in the same way I have.

Rob

Rob

Rob, in the management console type in the UNC path for the remote share to mount it.

I agree about sending network paths via email.

Jerry