Many of us would like to use Final Cut Server (FCSvr) as an archive solution to write high res media files to tape (or disks).
By default, FCSvr can write archives onto various file systems, but it can’t directly access tape drives.

Now download my little middleware tool fiprecon to connect Final Cut Server to Archiware PresSTORE in a way which can look like this:

Make sure to install fiprecon on your Final Cut Server system. The PresSTORE server can be a separate machine which fiprecon controls over the network, but fiprecon supports running FCSvr and PresSTORE on the same machine, too.

After the installation, run the config tool using

sudo /usr/local/fiprecon/bin/config.command

and enter the paths /usr/local/fiprecon/bin/postarchive.command and /usr/local/fiprecon/bin/prerestore.command as postarchive and prerestore script paths of your archive volume in FCSvr.

I recommend to set the retry count in FCSvr to 10 and the timeout setting to 300 seconds.

I wrote a detailed documentation about “Backup and Archive setups with Final Cut Server, Xsan, and PresSTORE”, which can be downloaded here and describes fiprecon in detail.

It also explains these topics:

• Archiving FCSvr assets on tape.
• Automatic archiving after x days
• Automatic archiving right after asset creation (great for moving video tape based archives into the digital world)

Please feel free to use both the tools and the documentation – they come for free.
If you need any customization, or any other kind of Final Cut Server consulting, please get in touch with me.

Looking forward for your feedback!