I’ve recently had the cross-road of do I go with Mac Mini for a server or build/roll my own for my media ingesting, media encoding and rendering workflow.

Well since myself and my friend who’s assisting with motion graphics for my upcoming channel branding and a project I can’t talk about yet have both moved away from MOTION from Apple and started using After Effects for my motion graphics, I’ve found myself having to use Adobe Media Encoder so that means being forced to use Windows Server for my rendering.

Now Adobe Media Encoder isn’t the only Windows app I am using in my production pipline as I also use iRay Server for Character Animations along with DaVinci Resolve as my NLE [Non-linear editing] software.

Let’s talk about having to use Windows Server for a moment, shall we; so since the server is internal [not facing the internet] we decided to go with a slightly older but still supported version of Windows Server for this project.

First off, a positive for Windows Server…at the very least you can pick and choose what “features” for lack of a better term get installed during setup so that lower the risk of some random feature you don’t use being a security flaw.

Yet at the same time, sometimes the features/roles are not given the best naming conventions.

This came up to be an issue for example as I had to help set up the server via an audio call [Long Story] since I couldn’t be there physically, and sometimes we had communication breakdowns due to lag or audio issues with the software we were using for said call it was a nightmare

Why can’t Microsoft call “Remote Access” something different, as from what I’m able to tell, “Remote Access” is just for things such as a VPN to connect to an internal network.

Yet at the exact same time there is “Remote Desktop Services” which was the feature we required since the server was going to run headless dropping project files into a folder on the NAS. I was so glad we worked everything out but I would never and I mean never wish the hellscape of working with Windows Server on my worst enemy.