How do you work between two flame system?

Working in a hybrid office and home scenario what would be the best way to save out flame projects from one system then open on another system in a different location?

So far for a single batch group, I’ve been saving out the batch, then loading on the other system and relinking media (I’m not caching on import). But as a project gets bigger with multiple timelines and batch groups is there a best practices to follow?

Coming from working mainly in the final cut, premiere, after effect world, having project files on dropbox and opening on various systems was easy. As I’m using Flame more and more I find I’d like to be able to move between systems with those projects too.

I do this with home/work systems:

  • make sure both have the same path to everything (media)
  • working uncached you can archive and the the archive should be MBs in size.
  • open this archive on the other system and it should be linked up.

This all depends on how your home machine has access to the media. I have a vpn connection that mounts all the media drives to the same paths as the office machine.

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Flame gets messy in this way. There’s a lotta ways to do it. Here are a few.

$$$ | PCoIP/Teragucci/Teradici/HP Anywhere

Pros: Best in class. Why move data when you can control your Flame from anywhere? Requires zero daily faffing around.
Cons: You’re gonna need to pay someone to set this up for you

$$ | Owncloud/Nextcloud/Synology Drive/Whatever You Want to Use to Create Local Copies of Project Files Remotely and Locally

Pros: Next best option. Sync data in the background so you’ve got data wherever you want.
Cons: You’re still syncing data. Requires some daily faffing around.

$ | What you are doing now

Pros: You’re already doing it.
Cons: Requires lots of daily faffing around.

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@randy @bryanb thanks for the replies!

sounds like for now archiving and syncing media is the best option for now. we’re already using dropbox as our cloud storage and keeping the server synced, I think the challenge on my end will be making sure the file paths look the same to flame.

Does flame have the ability to rename how it sees volume paths? It’s something I’m able to do with resolve. So my drive at home that is say /Volumes/home_media just looks like /Volumes/media and the office see the main server as /Volumes/server and the path is remapped to /Volumes/media as well.

Yes! You can set up path translations a couple different ways:

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I am of the philosophy that it is better to use a single system and control it remotely.

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Same here, if only because I don’t have an option to get good upload speed that doesn’t involve paying big bucks to get my street dug up.

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Controlling my machine remotely would be the best case and keep it to one place. Sometimes it’s just not as responsive as I’d like it to be so having an option to work on my local machine is nice to have (even if it’s a slower one).

Coupla extra thoughts.

Best interactivity is working on a machine under your desk
Good interactivity is working on a machine in your facility via extenders/pcoip
Decent interactivity is working on your machine remotely via pcoip*
Variable interactivity is working on cloud machines**

  • = provided your ping times are good. For example, in the Chicago suburbs via business-class fiber to downtown Chicago is sub 2ms latency. After a day or two I forget Im controlling stuff from across town. I’d start pinging your local ip from your remote ip and vice versa and see what the latency is. For me, sub 50ms is workable, sub 40 is good, sub 30ms is amazing, sub 20ms = happy dance.

** = Slow interactivity typically has zero to do with network latency and everything to do with machines and gpus and stuff like that.

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In addition, Teradici experience is sub-optimal with UHD and greater monitor resolutions, although dual 27" monitors are great.

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I’ve managed a Teradici setup for one of my remote team members for the last year. It’s still one of the best systems when you need audio sync (for editing). There are some quirks with their pricing (by default they have a minimum of 5 seats), but the biggest barrier is their setup is very complex and generally needs a full IT department. Not a DIY solution. Also works much better on PCs than Macs, which won’t help with Flame (we’re actually using a hardware card inside a Dell workstation, which has since discontinued). Great if you have a rack of headless workstations for a bigger team. In theory they support tunneling USB like Tangent panels, but we never got that to work. I had some hope that things would improve once HP acquired them, but the jury is still out.

One of the other solutions I had good results with and use semi regularly is Parsec. They have come a long way in the last year and their premium subscription offers multiple displays, 4:2:2 color, great performance, decent Wacom support, etc. easy to setup and affordable. My only downside is their security is probably ok, but not as airtight as I’s like it to be (i.e. works without VPN). If you have the password and MFA you can get into the system from anywhere.

In addition to the mentioned benefits of a single (remotely controlled system) is also licenses. Not just the Flame license, but also all the other tools we use. It’s not until you setup the second system until you find out how many there are.

However, all system do fail from time to time. If you drive a remote system, ideally it’s somewhere where there are people that can can reboot it or do other maintenance to it. If not, you might at least install a remote controlled power switch or something for a last resort.

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