Last week I presented at the DC Final Cut Pro User Group meeting. I thought I did a horrible job, but Larry Jordan complimented the presentation. Anyways... I'm posting it here. Enjoy.- - - - - - -
The Truth In Upgrading
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Isaiah Headen and I'm an editor at Georgetown Post. My tools are mainly the Final Cut Studio and Photoshop.
I'm here to speak to you about the madness that is upgrading your computer system and how you can make it easier to do. A selection of my presentation is inspired by the article, "Don't Drive Angry" by editor Harry Miller III, from the the 4th quarter issue of CinemaEditor Magazine. If you are not subscribed to this magazine, I would urge you to do so. Google "CinemaEditor" and the first link will send you to their website.
Anyways... let us begin.
"When it comes to upgrading your system... what causes your biggest headaches?"
Is it the amount of time it takes? Is it tracking down old registration codes? Well for me, its the whole process. It seems like upgrading causes as many problems as it solves, but keeping up with the changing times is a key to survival in this business, so we upgrade.
Well the secret to eliminate problems and to make things easier is having a consistent process for upgrading your system. A set of steps to follow every time you upgrade, download or install anything. Now the process you create is going to be different for everyone and every system and a lot of these steps you're not going to find in a "How To Manual."
But I think there are three universal truths that we should ALWAYS stick too.
TRUTH 1.) DON'T UPGRADE an operating system unless your hardware is well above the minimum requirements. And expect upgrading the OS to be much harder, much more involved than you can imagine.
TRUTH 2.) DON'T UPGRADE your editing software in the middle of a project - unless the new version has an essential feature. But test it out on a non-critical system before upgrading all systems... Not everything will work as you expect.
TRUTH 3.) BACKUP EVERYTHING. Retain the ability to return to your previous working state if everything crashes and burns.
For example, this past year during a lull in business, we at Georgetown Post upgraded our systems from Leopard and Final Cut 6 to Snow Leopard and Final Cut 7.
We followed the directions and installed Snow Leopard. Then we went ahead and installed FCP 7. Immediately we noticed new issues with jittery effects and random system crashes, so what did we do wrong? What universal truth did we forget?
Our systems are well above the minimum requirements and we upgraded in between projects. Yet we forgot to backup everything and could no return to our previous working state.
So this led us to call support and browse the web for answers and as it turns out... we should have used the "Nuke n Pave" approach.
Nuke n Pave: to wipe out a computer system and reload from scratch. (Urban Dictionary)
Well we tried again, but this time we created simple steps to follow when we upgrade our systems.
STEP 1 - We cloned the hard drive to an external hard drive. We BACKED UP everything.
(You can find this in Disk Utilities in the Applications folder. Select the drive and pick the "Restore" option. It's a pretty straightforward process.)
STEP 2 - We did a clean install of Snow Leopard that erases the old operating system completely. We Nuked n Paved it. (This option will come up during the installation process.)
STEP 3 - We install FC7 following the regular set up.
STEP 4 - Last but not least we copy over plug ins, special fonts and etc... that were backed up on the external hard drive.
Now, I would also suggest that you keep on file or via personal email all registration codes and zip files. A great way to do this is to create a Gmail account for your business that you can email files too. Gmail works great as a free FTP service.
Well, this is the process we followed when we upgraded the rest of our systems and it works. We did loose a few plug-ins that are not compatible with FC7, but at least we can continue with our work.
The idea here is to create a consistent process for upgrading your system that holds true to the three truths.
1.) DON'T UPGRADE an operating system unless your hardware is well above the minimum requirements.
2.) DON'T UPGRADE your editing software in the middle of a project.
3.) And BACKUP EVERYTHING. Retaining the ability to return to your previous working state.
Well, that is all I have for tonight and I would like to thank everyone for coming out and the DCFCPUG for letting me present.
Happy upgrading.