Beginner Question

[hulk]

Hi there. I'm new to the panasonic workflow. Wanted to know if we are able to set the name of the files in camera so that they come out named in order. Currently, sony vegas is getting these files out of order so it lengthens our editing time to reorder the files. Basically I want the camera to name the files for example like "event001, event002, etc"

[Garion]

Hi and welcome to the forum, you are not alone in trying to decipher panasonic P2 naming. Here's a link that was posted here a while ago that explains it very well :)

http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/P2-Name-article/

[Jim Simon]

It would be nice if Panasonic used the MXF format as it was intended, though, storing everything - video, audio, timecode, metadata - in one single file that could easily be renamd later on the hard drive without breaking any functioanlity.

Solid state recording may well be a nice step forwards, but this whole folder business is a very unwelcome step backwards.

[Barry_Green]

Panasonic is using the MXF file structure exactly as it was originally intended.

MXF, as used by camcorders, comes in two flavors: op-atom and op-1a. Panasonic uses the Avid standard of op-Atom. Sony chose to do it differently (as always) and they did it with all files in one, called op-1a.

[Jim Simon]

The MXF container was designed to hold video, multichannel audio, timecode and metadata in one file. The choice to split those out is Panasonic's.

It would have been better if they chose not to.

[Barry_Green]

The MXF container was designed to hold video, multichannel audio, timecode and metadata in one file.
Says who? The original MXF file format as proposed by the Pro-MPEG Forum provides for at least 10 "operational patterns". I already named two different ones, Op-Atom and Op-1A.


The choice to split those out is Panasonic's.
100% wrong. The choice was the MXF coalition's to make, and Avid endorsed Op-Atom (the split-out files version). And since P2 was designed from the ground up to be an editable medium, and since Avid was far and away the leading professional editing system, Panasonic chose to support what the leading NLE manufacturer supported.

Here's a quote from Avid's MXF whitepaper: (http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/mxf.pdf?featureID=997&marketID=1)

For example, Op-1A files may include multiple tracks of audio and video essence that are interleaved into a single file. This approach makes the files nicely self-contained and can work well in applications where each file represents a complete program or take. But OP-1A may be less applicable to content authoring steps such as nonlinear editing, where programs are created by slicing and layering different sections of source material.

Not surprisingly, Avid products natively support OP-Atom (SMPTE 390M), the operational pattern that was designed to address the specific needs of nonlinear video and audio editing. Benefits of OP-Atom include the separation of essence into multiple files while retaining common "clip" metadata across related files.

Later in the document they further specify:

Avid has implemented direct integration with other OP-Atom native products like Panasonic P2. Avid editing solutions can directly edit files captured on these devices because they support OP-Atom natively and also support common essence codecs.
Panasonic chose OP-Atom on purpose, as the major professional NLE preferred that format.

Further, they mention their disdain for OP-1A because they had to provide a transfer utility to"translate OP-1A files from devices such as Sony XDCAM into OP-Atom files that can be edited in the Avid environment."



It would have been better if they chose not to.
Respectfully, you don't get to empirically determine what would have been "better" or not. You can say "I would prefer it if it was all in one file", sure... but you can't proclaim judgement for everyone else. Clearly Avid thinks that if you're going to be editing files, they should be recorded in OP-Atom. And after Avid endorsed OP-Atom, that's what Panasonic chose.