Final Cut Server

Analyzing Assets with fcsvr_client in Final Cut Server

Sometimes Final Cut Server can’t create proxies as part of the analyze phase of ingesting an asset. Maybe it’s busy, maybe it’s doing too large a batch or maybe it’s just having a hard day. Either way, sometimes it just doesn’t analyze like it’s supposed to. Therefore, you can analyze an asset using the fcsvr_client command. This allows you to find assets that currently do not have a poster frame or a proxy and regenerate them.

Typically, you would right-click on the asset from the GUI and then click on the Analyze button to re-analyze, but what if there are a lot? Then you’d want to automate it. You can find whether a single item has a proxy using the fcsvr_client command along with the list_parent_links. For example, for asset 318 the following would show the other assets that you have:
fcsvr_client list_parent_links /asset/318

You can then re-analyze using the fcsvr_client analyze option (assuming a video file with the asset ID of 318):
fcsvr_client analyze –fcp /asset/318

Or, if you’re trying to work with all of the items within a given Final Cut Pro project instead of a video asset ID, use the -fcp flag along with the ID of the Final Cut Pro project (assuming a project with asset ID of 319):
fcsvr_client analyze –fcp /asset/319

You can count your assets using the fcsvr_client count option:
fcsvr_client count –recurse /asset

This allows you to loop through all the assets ($id is the increasing number in the loop) and set a proxy variable to:
fcsvr_client list_parent_links /asset/$id | grep Proxy(3) | awk ‘{print $2}’

Then you would simply do something like this:
if [ -d “$proxy” ] ; then
fcsvr_client analyze –fcp /asset/$id
else
/usr/bin/logger “Asset: $id already exists”
fi