P2 backup & file redundancy

[Tony Torn]

My G-Raid is pretty full from a month of shooting :love4:

I would love to save the raw MXF files, but since I'm working in a final cut workflow, and have the footage double stored as FCP QT capture files, I'm thinking about erasing the original captures.

before y'all say STOP FOOL...

Most of the footage is test work, and the rest is material for a vlog which will be compressed to hell anyway. if i were working for a for hire project, or a project with film out potential, I wouldn't consider dumping the MXF's. But under the circumstances, this seems ok...unless there's something blindingly obvious that i'm not considering.

Also..

Since I'm shooting on 8G cards, my P2 content files don't easily fit on a regular DVD.
Double sided will work, but I can get 100 single sided DVDs for the same price as 15 double sided discs. It's easier to back up the FCP QT files piecemeal and fit them on a single sided DVD...I don't want to screw with the MXF content files by trying to split them in half myself through re-ordering the files.

So, in nutshell...I'm going to commit to the QT versions of my footage rather than saving the raw material, knowing that I'm letting go of metadata that my FCP won't read anyway. When the future comes with HD DVD's, I'll take on a more ambitious backup flow.

folks, let me know if you have any strenuous objections to this practice!

[presario20]

I think if you're on a FCP system, MXF is a means to an end. That being P2 to QT. Until FCP can natively cut MXF files, I don't think it's necessary to keep both files.

Like you said, if it's something super important like a for hire project or film out project, it might be worth it to save the MXF files just in case. But then again, why not just back up your QT files if you have to later, unless you're going to be recutting it on an AVID system? Also, to the best of my knowledge, converting MXF to QT doesn't degrade the quality of the video.

Just my 2 cents but I'm sure others will chime in.

[Drew599]

Doesn't sound like a bad idea. But if it was a feature or some big project then it might not be the best idea in the world.

When I start shooting a couple of projects coming up here soon I'm going to start backing up all the footage onto 500GB SATA drives. I'm going to leave them in the MXF format just incase FCP starts to let you look at meta-data or editing using MXF. But this is only the back ups. The editing drives will of course have the quicktime files on there only. I would only think this would work fine. Of course plenty of things seem like a good idea on paper but not in the real world. I guess I'll just have to see.

[The Sarlacc]

grab a dual layer burner...should work better then dual sided discs...no way to label the actual disc, and more surface area to possible damage.

But from what I can tell, specially with test footage...dump the MXF files or back them up and delete them from the main drives.

[kevinM]

grab a dual layer burner...should work better then dual sided discs...no way to label the actual disc, and more surface area to possible damage.

But from what I can tell, specially with test footage...dump the MXF files or back them up and delete them from the main drives.

I think you are mistaken about dual-layer DVDs. They look the same as standard DVDs with a surface to write on. All of the burning still happens on the underside of the disc so there is no more writable surface area than a standard one. The second layer is sandwiched in the disc.

My G5 Quad has a dual-layer burner which works great to back up two 4G P2 cards. I haven't been backing up the MXF files, just the Quicktime files from the Final Cut Capture Scratch folder. If you are using a G5 (not a G4 laptop) the image data is unchanged from the MXF file, it is just "wrapped up" in a Quicktime file.

[The Sarlacc]

I think you are mistaken about dual-layer DVDs. They look the same as standard DVDs with a surface to write on. All of the burning still happens on the underside of the disc so there is no more writable surface area than a standard one. The second layer is sandwiched in the disc.

My G5 Quad has a dual-layer burner which works great to back up two 4G P2 cards. I haven't been backing up the MXF files, just the Quicktime files from the Final Cut Capture Scratch folder. If you are using a G5 (not a G4 laptop) the image data is unchanged from the MXF file, it is just "wrapped up" in a Quicktime file.

I think you misread me here. I was saying go with dual layer INSTEAD of dual sided. because of the fact everything is on one side...so you CAN write on the disc and there is LESS surface are (only one side, not two) of information to get damamged in a n accident.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Speaking of dual layer DVDs... What better DVD+DL or DVD-DL? the minus-DL drives and discs kinda came into the picture pretty silently and unnanounced. I know DVD-R is more accepted than DVD+R...is the case the same with the Double/Dual layer DVDrs?

[jgrimson]

So are most of you saving original MXF files and QT FCP imports? I've been wondering about the pros and cons of this as well and wonder what everybody is doing regardless of burning to DVD's or storing to hard drive. Right now I've been saving both so I'm just doubling my data storage. P2 workflow and data management is something I really want to get a handle on ASAP. Thanks.

[jeffyjones]

I think that dual-layer DVD's are getting cheaper almost daily. They're still less expensive than tape.

I don't find archiving the QT files as particularly evil, especially since FCP strips out the extra frames in the case of the 24fps stuff. And QuickTime is QuickTime. If anything, it's a hell of a lot more standard and common than MXF. Granted, that's a sticky area I supposed since there's QT, but QT + codecOfTheDay is more complicated.

[Tony Torn]

Although I am currently going ahead and saving the QT's and dumping the MXF's, I am sure going to end up with important footage that needs original backups.

My biggest issue...my footage is from 8G cards. Even though double DVD's are getting cheaper, it still is so much more expensive than regular 4.7G DVD's. If I could take my 8G import and put it on two regular DVD, that would save much $.

How would I go about seperating out the clips from the content files into two smaller groups, "splitting" my 8G import into 2 4G sized content files? Would I create two content files with all the subcatagories,
and make sure the same file names for audio and video ended up in the same master content file? And there are of course 4 audio files per video file.

It sounds like a headache to me!

[jeffyjones]

I've bought these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817132394) a few times and they've performed without defect. Under $2 a piece. God only knows what the long-term viability of them is, but I can't imagine it's any worse than tape.

[Alvise Tedesco]

Sorry for asking this abc question (since NAB it's around the corner I preferred to wait before replacing my trusty dvx, so I'm learning just from you about the hvx), but where's the need for keeping the original mxf since fcp as to unwrap? Isn't the QT containing all you need with no degradation and capturing-logging P2 time-consuming enough?

Thanks

[Barry_Green]

Well, basically, yes that's true. If all you intend to do with your footage is edit in FCP, you don't really need to keep the MXFs. But if in the future you ever move to an MXF editor, you'll wish you had your footage in MXF format. There someday should be a way to convert losslessly between QT and MXF though.

[Mike@AF]

Why would you wish to keep the MXF files. If an editor supports MXF, I'm sure it would also support QT, so what is the difference?

[Dan K]

Tony,

I have some (many) files that were corrupted during import in FCP. Not having a clue that this could happen, I have dumped the MXF files and therefor have no choice but to live with the files and work around the issues. I backed up the QT files 3 times and thought I was good, but I actually backed up corrupted files.

If you can save the original files, you should. HD space is cheap. Lost footage isn't.

[ben7281]

OK, here is my workflow that i am doing. On the road we have two 4GB P2 cards, one P2 Store, two portible 60GB usb drives, and a 300 GB firewire drive. We shoot kids action sports so we have many clips. I am the person who imports all the footage onto our 1.8 TB SATA Raid. I have a G5 Quad and i use final cut 5.1. OK here are the steps i do starting from having all the MXF P2 cards that have been put on the 300 GB drive on the road, to having them all imported, sorted out, renamed, backed up, etc.

1. I first go through all the MXF P2 folders on the 300 GB drive and organize them in order of timecode.

2. I then import each P2 folder into final cut. Between each folder i import, i grab the clips i just imported and put them in a separate folder corresponding to whatever P2 card number that was.

3. After i have imported all the P2 folders into final cut, have them placed in different folders, (and made sure there were no errors importing), then i sieve through all the footage in final cut and delete all the clips i know im not going to use.

4. Then i reorganize all the footage in final cut by area we shot or day, and i separate each section by condensing all the p2 folders by specific categories of that day, example where we shot, who we shot, etc., and then I have to physically place the files by hand, outside of final cut, (in the finder) having it all placed within the corresponding P2 folder. (that's a bit confusing, i know). Im going to give some links to some screen grabs to show my project file and my folders on my desktop.

Timeout: let me explain that i don't like how the camera creates clips and calls them a random 6 digit name. It's really annoying and i want to rename the file (the physical file, not just in final cut) so i know where it came from. I like to rename clip files like this: 'P200001 b-roll 01.mov', or 'P200001 wakeboard 01.mov' This helps me know where it came from and what it is basically. In final cut i give a better discription in the log note area. We have a lot of footage all in one project file so we have to have it organized well, or when we go to start editing we'll never find what clips we want to use or where they are or who is in them etc. it will be a huge mess. Currently we already have about 750 GB of footage, and that is about 1100 clips of vari cam footage, and 1850 clips of hvx200 footage. So with that many clips in one project, we need organization. OK back to my process.

5. I rename all the clips by P2 card and number of clips. I then open all the clips that have audio in quicktime and delete the blank channels 3 & 4 so when i drag clips in the timeline i wont have to have 4 channels appear (2 of which are blank & pointless & taking up timeline space).

6. Then i put all the clips back into final cut into bins called P2 Card 001, P2 Card 002, P2 Card 003, etc. I then start the log note process & filling in scene, description, etc.

7. OK, now that i have all the clips i am going to use, i now can back up. We have decided to back up our QT clip footage on new 300GB SATA hd's that we will store in the static bags at another location. They will just sit there for backup reasons only. The hd's are cost effective and fast to reload back onto our main editing drives if we ever lost our footage. I do delete all the MXF P2 cards once i have all the quicktime files backed up. It would be ridiculous for us to back up the MXF folders because i go through all the clips and rename them all anyway, and i delete over one third of the clips that we wont even use.

I really haven't figured out a better and more organized way of handling this amount of footage. Shooting action sports definitely has a different workflow than if we were shooting a planned and scripted feature. I know some or a lot of you might think i am ridiculous, but i really can't think without have stuff organized. I know my writing skills aren't that great. OK, let's hear what you guys have to say or recommend.

here are the links to the screen grabs:
http://www.kidswhorip.com/workflow.png

Thanks,
Ben