Drag and Drop off P2 ..BAD?

[Tim G]

So I just came across the thread of not drag and dropping P2 files. I'm on a PC and that is all I've ever done, without any corruption of files. Is this just a precaution?

[Barry_Green]

Drag and drop on Windows isn't "bad" as long as you're diligent. It works fine, there is no corruption. Drag and drop on MacOS is trickier, there's a tiny risk of potential corruption there, plus there's the potential that your copies will take much longer (because of the oddness of copying lastclip.txt separately being much faster than when copying it all together) and there's a bigger risk of confusion in that all the cards are named "no name", etc.

But drag and drop has issues (even on Windows) that can be avoided by using other methods, specifically using P2 Viewer or P2CMS. When you drag 'n' drop you expose yourself to user error (can't tell you the number of times I've heard of people going inside the video folder and copying only that, throwing away everything else!)

Mainly, if you drag and drop, you're going in "blind". You have no idea what you're dragging and dropping. Whereas if you use P2CMS or P2 Viewer, you'll see the thumbnails, you'll see the name of the card, you'll know what it is that you're working with. And when you use P2 Viewer/P2CMS, you're guaranteeing yourself that you'll be copying ALL the pieces of each clip, thus avoiding user error. And, you'll have the option of doing a bit-for-bit file comparison to ensure the copy happened properly. Finally, you can easily copy multiple cards into the same directory, and this is a very nice benefit that people miss out on. When you copy multiple cards into the same directory, it automatically fixes up spanned clips, and it would also fix up any potential duplicate file name issues. You don't get that if you just drag 'n' drop.

So there's nothing wrong with drag 'n' drop on Windows, as long as you don't introduce user error by going inside the directories and copying parts of the clips! It's just that there's a whole lot more "right" about doing it through a P2-aware tool instead.

[Tim G]

Thanks for clearing that up, Barry.

[Brandon Rice]

All I've ever done is D&D. I've done several projects, including a feature just recently, and it's been good to go... I create individual folders for each card, and copy the CONTENTS folder over. Then I import directly from that folder into my Avid.

[smelni]

I agree with Brandon - I have shot over 2000 cards with d and d in my workflow and never lost a clip. But you need a solid workflow - take a look at mine here.

http://www.slmproduction.com/mainsite/director_of_photography/resources/

[bikefilms]

Looks like THIS (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/whatisdnd) is the only BAD kind of D&D.

-andrew