Hello Students,

I want to inform you that as of 5pm yesterday, Adobe CC 2014.1 has been installed in the Advanced Editing Lab on systems 89-017-01E and 89-017-02E. This is for the students who had updated software on their home system a few weeks into the term and are now having back compatibility issues. The rest of the lab machines will be updated over break as originally scheduled.

If you do not have Adobe CC at home to work on and have been using the lab machines to start and edit your projects, PLEASE DON’T USE THESE MACHINES until winter term begins. You may encounter back compatibility issues when you go to use any of the other 30 lab machines in the building.

Going forward, I will post the versions of the major software that can be found on the machines on the Production Hub at the beginning of each term. It is recommended that you don’t update your personal software past what versions are being used in the labs. If a company like Avid or Adobe updates software in the middle of the term, it is standard operating procedure to wait until the next break to roll out the newest update. This is not just SOP here, but any facility you will work in after you graduate. If you’re working on a feature film, you don’t upgrade your software in the middle of the show. You never know what new software components will break other aspects of integrated software, plugins, operating systems, etc., and you don’t want to find that out in the middle of a project.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

We’ve had a couple students who have had issues opening certain Adobe Premiere project files that they have been working on since the old PC systems before Adobe CC 2014. It is giving the following error:

It is unclear why this is happening to select sequences but one of the students found a work-around that I would like to share in case anyone else comes across this. If you open a new project or even a project that opens fine in Adobe CC 2014 you can IMPORT a sequence from the project that won’t work for you and bring it into the current open project to work on it. It’s a bit of a pain, but it is unclear if this issue is an Adobe licensing issue, a cross-platform project issue, or possibly some corrupt data in the project, so this should at least keep you working. Please ticket this issue if you come across it so we can track it to see how often it occurs and if there is a common thread to when it happens. Thank you and good luck!

You may not recognize the labs from last term as we have been very busy replacing the HP machines with all new iMac and Mac Pro workstations: What’s New:

• One very important change is that we now delete all user profiles upon logout. This means if you leave a document on your desktop and log out it will not be there the next time you log in. So make sure you have all of your data on an external drive. If you need to save something to your specific system, there is a 1TB “Student Work” drive that you can use, but this volume can be erased without notice if a problem should arise and will be reformatted at the end of each term, so please backup your work. One result of deleting profiles will be that it will take a little bit longer for the log in procedure to take place, so please be patient when logging in. This will help maintain the system drives throughout the term.
• Many of you will need to migrate your work from a PC formatted drive to one that can be read by a Mac. You can format a drive to be seen by both systems. The standard FAT(32) format can be used by both platforms but has limitations regarding file count and file size so exFAT is the best option to format a drive to if you need to use it across platforms. These new Macs have Thunderbolt connections so feel free to pick up a Thunderbolt drive to take advantage of the high speed throughput.
• All lab systems will soon have breakout cables on them so you can access USB, Thunderbolt, and headphone outputs without having to mess around with the back of the systems.
• To access AWExpress on the new Macs, make sure you are in finder and press cmd+K or from the menu, navigate to Go->Connect to server. A window will open where you type in “cifs://awexpress.westphal.drexel.edu” (there should also be a bookmark for it). After it connects, it will ask for you for your credentials. When your username and password has been successfully entered, you can access the cinetv_students volume.
• Another change this year will be that you must sign out one of the four iLoks to use Pro Tools in the intermediate or advanced editing labs (017, 032). Pro Tools is loaded on all machines now so you don’t have to wait for one of four systems that have the iLok strapped to it.

Some Reminders:

• Network storage (awexpress) is provided as a conveyance and although it is running on redundant hardware it is still susceptible to outages; so make sure to backup your data
• The network storage devices are available for your use but be warned that they can be cleaned up at the end of each quarter. Also they fill up often so if you can delete any of your old data during the term we would appreciate it.
• Remember that the Westphal Print Center is here to serve you, see http://printcenter.westphal.drexel.edu for more information; get stuff printed at a very, very lost cost
• This website is our primary mode of communication with students; i.e. please make sure to read it and check it often for updates.
• Finally, if you run into any problems, please make sure to let us know!