User Guide

8 Preface Welcome to Final Cut Server
The Final Cut Server client provides many features to help you manage your media.
These features all use Final Cut Server assets. When you upload a media or project file
to Final Cut Server, an asset is created for it. This asset contains metadata, the original
file (called the primary representation file), and proxy copies of the primary
representation file that are used within Final Cut Server.
Final Cut Server can help you do the following tasks:
 Find the assets you need. As the number of assets in your Final Cut Server catalog
increases, creating and managing searches becomes more important.
Final Cut Server provides multiple ways to search and organize the assets in your
organization’s Final Cut Server catalog.
 Have immediate access to media. Final Cut Server provides immediate access to media
from the Final Cut Server client software. You can easily get information and view a
media asset from the client software. If you want to edit the media asset, you can
check out a Final Cut Server–managed copy of the file to your local computer, edit it,
and then check it back in to Final Cut Server. Because Final Cut Server is managing
the checked out file, the new edits are tracked by Final Cut Server.
 Track the status of media. Final Cut Server provides metadata fields and saved
searches to help you track assets as they move through your organization’s workflow.
Your Final Cut Server administrator can further customize the metadata fields to
increase the effectiveness of asset tracking for your organization.
 Perform powerful media conversion. Final Cut Server uses Compressor, a powerful
transcoding application that is part of Final Cut Studio, to convert media from one
video format to another when uploading, exporting, and copying media files.
 Work while not connected to the Final Cut Server network. You can check out
Final Cut Server–managed project and media files and then edit them while not
connected to the Final Cut Server network. When you later connect to the
Final Cut Server network, you can check the edited files back in to Final Cut Server.
When you check in the files, the assets that track the files are updated with the new files.
This user manual covers what users can do with the Final Cut Server client. For
information about administering and customizing Final Cut Server, read the
Final Cut Server Setup and Administration Guide , a document written for Final Cut Server
system administrators.