Let's solve this glitch once and for all

[Barry_Green]

UPDATE: The Glitch may be related to putting P2 Cards in without using the write-protect tab. If you always always always always always write-protect your cards, and still get "the glitch", then please write in and let us know. If you get the glitch, and you don't write-protect your cards, let us know. If you use the P2 Store to import your cards and you never get the glitch, we don't need to hear from you -- the P2 Store acts as an automatic "write protect" device. If you use the P2 Store to import cards and you DO get the glitch, please let us know.


I'm asking for the community's help. If you use an HVX and you use a Mac, please read this thread and help us solve this problem once and for all.

I don't know about you, but I've had about enough of reading from people about "why is my footage trashed" or "why doesn't my P2 volume mount" or "why is my clip corrupted" or "why won't my clip import"... let's get some concrete solutions for these people.

And the first step is to identify the problem. Identify exactly what situation it is that causes these glitches, and then hold the responsible party's feet to the fire until they FIX IT.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about: there is an issues where occasionally when someone imports a clip on a Mac, they get a glitched frame or two. It looks like a DV tape dropout. This is an extreme example:
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i39/jerrold_nim/HVXDrops.jpg

Other examples show just one or two little blocks of corruption. But as far as I'm concerned, *any* corruption is completely unacceptable.

And this is not an isolated case. I took a quick scan through just the first part of our Technical forum and came up with several threads griping about the same issue:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=60516
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=73623
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=62737
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=69091
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=65405
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=61374

LET'S GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS.

I'd like to hear from those of you who've had this problem, as to what it was that you did when the problem occurred.

IF YOU'VE NEVER HAD THIS PROBLEM, PLEASE DON'T RESPOND HERE.

Posts that say "never happened to me" don't help us at all. We have thousands of HVX users here, and have the ability to test the system in far more ways than Apple could, so let's help them by figuring out the exact circumstances and then telling them. And then it'll get fixed.

From my research, we can rule out FCP entirely. I believe FCP is innocent. I believe instead that it's related to either the particular chain of hardware used, or perhaps conflicts from some terminate-and-stay-resident software.

So for those of you who've had it happen: what was your workflow? Specifically:
1) Did you try to import footage directly from the card slot of a Powerbook G4 straight into FCP?

2) Did you try to copy footage directly from the card slot of a Powerbook G4 onto a hard disk, and then import from there?

3) Did you try to copy footage (or import footage, either way) using the camera as a card reader, hooked up via 1394 Device mode?

4) Did you try to copy footage (or import footage, either way) using the camera as a card reader, hooked up via USB Device mode?

5) Did you try to copy footage (or import footage, either way) using the external five-slot card reader?

And, do you use any external firewire hubs to connect hard disks, or daisy-chain the camera through a hub (or through an external hard disk) or anything like that?

An interesting post from Kevin Railsback points me towards my conclusion that it is almost unquestionably a problem with the PCMCIA driver:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=653842&postcount=9

In this case there is no firewire involved, no firewire hub, no daisy-chaining, no FCP, no "disk image", no anything. Not even a transfer to disk! Just a card stuck in a Powerbook slot. And the glitched frames happened (and later corrected themselves). But I reserve indicting the driver until we find out whether Kevin was running some TSR programs or something that could have complicated the matter.

Let me take a moment to say that there are thousands of very happy, productive, satisfied HVX/Mac owners. The overwhelmingly vast majority of users do not appear to have this problem! We know that, and are happy for them. But some are being affected by this issue and I believe it's time that it gets fixed. Or, if it's user error in any way (such as connecting your drives through a hub) let's definitively find that out, so we can give them proper advice to eliminate the issue from ever affecting them again. Any valid scientific "debugging" advice that you, the masses, can provide will be forwarded to the appropriate people to assist them in finding and fixing any potential issues.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: if you've had the issue before, let's try to re-create it. If it happens when directly copying on your G4, then could you take an hour (maybe while watching "Deal or No Deal") ;) and just repetitively copy a card over to an external hard disk about 20 times or so. Then use a binary file compare utility to compare all the files against the files on the card, to check for any corruption whatsoever. Doing something like this would be very helpful for finding if any corruption has occurred, and would probably be far more reliable a way of testing than it would be to just look at footage for glitches.

Thanks all!

[n8ture]

Barry,
I still get those glitches. Just when I think my files have the glitches, I replay them and they are fine. It seems to happen if I try looking at the files as soon as the card mounts.

It seems if I let the card sit for a bit, then I don't see the glitches at all.

It's happened as recently as my Hawaii footage.
I normally just use the G4 Powerbook to backup so no external drives are attached.

I'll see if I can play around with it some more and get more info.

Then of course no matter what I do, I can only load about three P2 cards before it fails to mount and the only way to mount additional P2 cards is to reboot.

[Lenilenapi]

Barry Can i suggest also that whoever posts here and has had the problem tell us exactly what hardware and software they are using & might have running in the background.

There is a related problem with people having sync displaced about 8 frames when using "Capture Now" on their powerbooks, but lets stick with one at a time.

[jamesgleason]

This happened to me last weekend when I was trying to finish up a VERY important video. During the last interview (from a clean 8GB card) I get a drop out. I did not touch the camera at all during the interview, so I don't think it's the card.

I hooked my HVX to my MBP and transfered the contents to my HD. Then I opened FCP 5.1.2 and tried to "Import P2." All of my imports worked flawlessly but this last one.

I put the clip in the FCP timeline and when it got the the "drop out" gray boxes showed up and then the audio sped up! I went back and re-imported the clip and noticed it was doing this in the "import P2" view window. I recaptured before and after the glitch with the same results. Then, on the next capture, viola! it worked. I can't say why it worked the last time, as I did nothing different.

I'm glad this was clip was saved. I've gone back and imported the clip again and the glitch isn't there. Hum...

[Barry_Green]

Interesting. Kevin has it with using the card itself, and somewhat repeatable.

James got it using the camera as a card reader.

Kevin, how often do you get it to happen? Can you try terminating every additional program you have running (virus checkers or anything like that) and see if it quits happening? I think yours is the most promising test case because there's the least amount of hardware involved (no firewire cables, no external drives, etc).

[n8ture]

I'll shoot some stuff today and try duplicating it with nothing else running.
BTW, I'm on a 17" 1.67Ghz G4 Powerbook with OS 10.4.8.
I've had the problems with previous versions ie 10.4.7 etc.

[mico]

bump

[Whathafa]

Ok. I've had the same dropout problems, and I use the FS-100 drive, not the P2's. The problem has occurred in DVCPro HD 720p/24p, and DVCPro50 SD. I am using a dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac and a 3.5 TB RAID 5 XServe to digitize to.

Recently, the dropouts got worse for me. Two things have helped so far:

1) Using Import P2 to ingest the footage DIRECTLY to the computer's Internal HD (this means setting it as the primary Scratch, Render, Thumbnail, and Autosave disk in preferences).

2) Using a higher quality FireWire cable. Yes, it's true. The cables are different -- and I would never post that on here if I did not have first-hand experience. But using a standard consumer-grade Belkin FW cable (6ft)... not so good. Using their higher end, shielded, gold-contact, bla-bla-bla cable actually helped. I HIGHLY recommend a properly shielded FW cable.

All that said, the footage on the FS-100 itself was always fine. So it's somewhere in the ingestion phase. So far, I'm leaning toward believing that it is simply a VERY SENSITIVE process that can draw interference from any number of weak links along the chain... Mediocre cables and/or slower drive speeds and/or low RAM could all be potential culprits. I've seen how the Cables can do it, AND how a RAID or Internal HD without enough available capacity can also create dropouts....

Barry -- I would like to know what your confidence in FCP is based on, by the way. Because I'm not convinced that the P2 Import tool is not partially to blame...

And thanks for starting the thread, by the way...

Kyle

[Whathafa]

Barry,

Have you had the same dropouts using P2 LOG, by chance?

Kyle

[Barry_Green]

Barry -- I would like to know what your confidence in FCP is based on, by the way. Because I'm not convinced that the P2 Import tool is not partially to blame...

Two things. First, I've done hundreds of card offloads using a PC to offload the card to an external hard disk, and then plug that external hard disk into a Mac and import the cards. Never a glitch, never an issue. FCP works fine. And the cards are fine. It's the process of accessing the data on the cards on a Mac that appears to cause the glitch.

The second thing is the example Kevin listed above: he plugs the card in, looks at the contents with P2 Log, and it's already glitched. FCP isn't even involved in that process.

If I had to bet, I'd say FCP is innocent. It's an OS-level thing.

[Barry_Green]

Barry,

Have you had the same dropouts using P2 LOG, by chance?

Kyle
I haven't, but I've only used it a little. Look above, Kevin (n8ture) is having the same problem with P2 Log.

[x-dvuser]

Hey everybody,

A month or so ago I shot a concert using the FS-100 as it was the only long form way of recording 1080i without being tethered to a computer. Anyhow i thought everything looked great until I dumped the P2 footage off the FS-100 only to find that clips were skipping at odd intervals during key parts of the performance. At first I thought that I may have still had some time lapse settings going but I shot an interview with the band afterwards and the whole thing came out without a single glitch.

I had read of some other user having similar problems under these conditions where speakers were blaring sound waves into this device. I was about 30 to 20ft from a large tower of speakers and I had effectively dampened the vibrations that shot through the wooden riser I was on but it seems as if the FS-100 is very sensitive to soundwaves.

Barry? Anyone? Firestore?

Your thoughts!

[x-dvuser]

Barry please ask Jan or someone at Panasonic to take the loss and roll out the 72gig cards!

Panasonic's only mistake really. The firestore is great don't get me wrong but it's too delicate for most real world work.

These 8gig cards have already paid for themselves please roll out the ones we NEEEED!

[Barry_Green]

Once the 32gb or 64gb cards are out, it's going to signal a quantum shift in the way people work with and perceive the concept of a tapeless workflow! I'm working on an article to describe the system now.

[BenB]

http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html

I'm on the war path (literally, I'm Cherokee, and I'm pissed) with my beloved Apple now. The bugs in Macs trying to handle P2 data is just getting ridiculous.

PLEASE if you use FCP go to the above URL and let Apple know how bad it is and how very upset we are, ASAP! It is the most sure fire way to get Apple to move their ass!

IMHO, from trying to trouble shoot this with others, and now having the problem myself, I'm convinced it's the P2 Driver for the Mac.

Bear in mind a huge chunk of the HVX200 market are FCP users, and the overwhelming majority of FS-100 market are FCP users. Make a noise!!!!!!

Slightly OT-
Some of us are relying on these systems to make a living TODAY, not when future products may or may not come out. But for the sake of pondering future, as of yet don't exist products, will a pair of 64Gig P2 cards be the same or better price than the FS-100 (i.e. affordable/realistically priced)?

[pheboglobi]

Back in March, I noticed this type of artifacting while downloading on set. We were using FCP to import the footage (the guys doing the post didn't care about the MXF files) through the PCMIA slot of my Powerbook G4, and we were backing up to two drives. Importing to one and then copying over to another. I was watching the footage in FCP and there was a glitch in a single frame in one shot, so I opened its duplicate up from the other drive in the QT player and there's no glitch. I open the file in FCP and play it again, there's no glitch. So at this point, I'm feeling pretty good, and I play it again. The glitch appears again - the EXACT same glitch. Maybe I didn't notice it the first time, but I don't think so, I was watching pretty carefully. Anyway, I took it to the QT player, and the glitch appeared in there as well. Out of 4 hours we recorded that day, there was two other glitches and that was it. It didn't ruin the shoot, but it sure was annoying.

Since then, I've been making backups of the original P2 folders and MXF files. I have run into more glitches appearing in FCP, but when I re-imported the same footage from my MXF backups, I didn't have any glitches - most of the time. One time, it happened to the exact same frame twice (same glitch too) after a few run throughs in the timeline. When I re-imported a 3rd time for that clip, it never did it again. And this particular project I imported through the camera to a G5, rather than the powerbook g4 route. I didn't keep count on that project, but I'd say I had about 5-6 glitches for about 3 hrs of footage.

I haven't really investigated if it is a particular p2 card of mine or not that's causing the problems, but I don't think so. I shot about 40hrs of footage for a documentary over the summer using 4x 4gb cards and a p2 store for import about 99% of the time. Not a single glitch. Go figure.

Garrett

[Richard Sutcliffe]

I'll chime in also, I've shot 40-50 hours of DV50 footage, offloading the P2 cards to a powerbook via PCMCIA slot and using P2 log.

I have found one single frame of corruption. Im satisfied that I haven't missed any either.

[HVX2006]

i recorded 1080/25 with DV rack HD running under bootcamp and there where the same kind of glitches.

[Neurodancer]

Shortly after getting my first camera I offloaded camera through firewire to Macbook pro. At least half of everything I shot that day showed massive drop frames.

The other issue I have is that if I preview a time lapse sequence on the camera after shooting it, the next clip I take will be corrupted (unreadable) unless I reboot the camera before shooting again. No problem if I just shoot next clip without playing back.

I also hate the fact that Panasonic would not put at least a 100 GB drive in unit and if you dump a partially used cards in P2 Store you loose capacity. The whole disk file structure sucks. It does not even give sequential file numbering to help keep track of files.

[SomewhereinLA]

I have a macbook pro, the latest FCP and not a single problem with dropframes or artifacts on the clip. The only issue I have is when I plug in the camera to my mac, turn it on and switch to pc mode (firewire of course), only one card shows up. I then have to turn the camera off and on again and only then the 2 p2 cards will show up.

[BenB]

"Droped Frames" is not a known issue, so far. But having only one of the two P2 cards show up in the Finder is well known far and wide.

So, Apple, Panasonic, Jan, anyone? What's the deal?

[ltf3]

HI

I've had this issue once...

We shot 720p @ 24fps N onto 2 x 4 gig P2 cards. The clips were downloaded from the camera to an external Lacie d2 120 gig FW HD.

The clips were then imported into FCP V 5.02 with the FCP P2 utility using the external HD as the media drive. (running on a G5 1.8 gig single processor Power Mac)

The aberrations looked like analog dropouts though.... long horizontal lines of bad data always on non consecutive frames. However we found that if we imported the clips 2-3 at a time into FCP (instead of all at once) all was well.

Since upgrading to FCP 5.1.1 (OS 10.4.7) there have been no issues.

Today however the same set up suddenly produced an error -36 (can't read or write) and the OS refused to copy, P2 data directly from the camera, connected via FW directly. Usual trouble shooting didn't make a difference.

But I did have a newly upgraded Powerbook with OS 10.4.8 and FCP 5.1.2. I installed the PCMCIA card bus driver and copied the P2 data to the internal HD fine. Just to test I repeated the FW connection transfer and it was fine too.

All clips were perfect when imported into FCP.

Just muddies the water I'm afraid. My conclusion... the data on freshly formatted cards is usually OK. It's the transfer that can go pear shaped... check the good takes carefully!

Lee

[Camdude]

I had these kind of dropouts before when importing using my PC laptop.
This actually hapenned to me on my first ever P2 shoot/job and it scared the hell out of me!
On my Backup hard disk all the clips were fine, but on my Main hard disk the dropouts were there on the end of every single clip! Lucky I had backup:thumbup:. My laptop had 512mb of ram, which was the minimum requirements for importing P2 and my graphics card was 128mb "SHARED". (It only happened on full P2 cards). I eventually figured out that the problem might have been the "SHARED" graphics card pulling 128mb from my 512mb ram.
So I added 1 gig of ram to my laptop and walla! No problems anymore.

I havent had any issues like this working with my MAC (2gig ram).

Could it be a Mac RAM issue working with large files like my PC had??

[ksteiger]

I was recently shooting some nature shots (The ocean at Leo Carillo Beach in Malibu) and experienced my firts P2/FCP glitch. It appears as 1 frame of spurious "dots" evenly distributed through the frame. I have not tried re-importing yet, but I will try that this evening.
I am still on 5.0.4 (Haven't had the time to exchange the discs with Apple for the upgrade) The only thing I did differently this time was that I used a bus powered USB 2.0 Seagate 120 gig drive to copy the P2 footage onto in the field. (Through my 17" G4 powerbook) I then imported from the Seagate drive to my FW 800 external HD at home. Perhaps the laptop is having problems keeping up with all this bus activity, I dunno...Maybe I should create a folder on The FW 800 drive and copy over to it first before importing into the project???
This is the first P2 problem I have had with importing to QT with FCP.
I did have a another curious problem about three months ago. I was getting skipped frames right before a dissolve on the timeline. If I exported to QT and played THAT back the skipped frame was not present. When I went back to the original project file and played it out of FCP, it was there again. Rendering did nothing. I finished the project because all of my exports were fine!! Two weeks ago I went back and checked the original project again in FCP and it played fine...?!!@#!?

I am using a quad core G5 with 4 gigs of ram.

I am taking my HVX out to dinner and a show tonight...she DESERVES it!:Drogar-Smoke(DBG): :Drogar-Love(DBG):

[Jay Stebbins]

Where does this issue stand? How widespread is this. As I am about to purchace an HVX-200 and I am a Mac user.

If not solved... Has anyone checked the permissions through the osx disk utility? As anytime I have had unexplained behavior on any of my Macs that always seemed to fix the issue.

Thanks,
Jay

[BenB]

It seems to be a problem with Apple's P2 driver. Fixing permissions has no effect on this issue. Not all Mac users experience it, and those of us who do, do not experience it on any sort of consistant basis. It comes and goes. Hopefully, since Apple just bought out what's that company's name who does MXF development, we'll see native MXF support in version 6 of FCP. Looking forward to NAB!

[Whathafa]

I use the FS-100 with FCP and my HVX on a weekly basis (I have also already posted questions on this above.)

Most importantly, I have been dropout free for over a week. Here's what I've done to troubleshoot it:

1) Made sure I was running the latest FCP (5.1.2).
2) Made sure I was using a high quality FW cable, no longer than 6ft, to connect the FS-100 to my G5.
3) Made sure I had ample free HD space to copy the Footage to (i.e. 20% of the HD capacity at least.)
4) **** MADE SURE NO OTHER FIREWIRE DEVICES WERE ATTACHED TO THE G5 WHEN IMPORTING OR COPYING OVER THE FOOTAGE ****** This made a huge difference, I believe. And I do not recommend copying or importing P2 Drives (FS100 or P2 Cards) through your Mac into another Firewire device. Copy it (preferably using Disk Utility to create a .dmg) to your built-in HD, or to a RAID that is fiber-optic. I sincerely believe that the Firewire bus can't handle two connections fast enough for the HD footage to copy properly.
5) Given that the dropouts appear to be symptomatic of some sort of bus-speed slow-down, I recommend not doing anything on your Mac while the footage is copying or importing. SD DV footage is probably fine, but the HD footage is too sensitive.

As these bb's go, I'm sure someone will come along and correct me on something in here. But I'm telling you, I use this sh*t all the time, and this is what definitively worked for me. No more dropouts -- after having them occasionally if not frequently before.

Hope that helps. Good luck, Jay.

[BenB]

Firewire "speed" mechanically has no bearing on "how" data is copied. I copy to an external FW drive and an internal drive, no differeneces for me. Yes, all hard drives must have a minimum of 10-15% of it's capacity free for OS and app temp files, reguardless of OS.

But based on other's experiences, and my own, I don't see Firewire buss speed as having any bearing on this glitch. In gathering all the info I can, and I believe Barry is on the same page with me, we are pretty convinced it is the Apple P2 driver. The OS just glitches P2 data randomly, period.

Hopefully, Apple is aware of this and is working on it. I am encouraging everyone to fill out the FCP feedback page and let Apple know you have, or had, problems.

As for making a disk image with Disk Utility, there are known problems with that. The .dmg creation introduces more variables to become corrupted. I know at one time Apple claimed this was the best practice, but based on reports here at DVXuser.com, it's really a BAD idea and has no mechnisms to ensure proper data copy at all.

Yeah, I use this stuff every single day. I've been tracking all the complaints here an on other boards for a good while now. I'm in communication with Focus and a couple of other Apple trainers about it. It's Apple's OS, how it handles P2 data, I'm 99% sure of it.


Not every Mac users experiences this, and it's not on every import. Sometimes P2 Log or P2 Genie can import the problem clips, sometimes not, sometimes they have problems on different clips than FCP does.

Hopfully Apple is getting the message there's a major bug and will fix it very soon. Especially seeing as how the majority of HVX200 and FS100 users are Mac editors.

[Whathafa]

Thanks, Ben.

[SPZ]

I had my first P2 import problem (excluding the P2 store not mounting some partitions on a mac). I couldn't import a clip, that was spanned to two cards, where FCP said- "corrupt file". Anyone got a solution to this problem?

[BenB]

No fix yet, not until Apple releases the fix. Fill out the FCP feedback form. The more people who fill that out, the faster it gets fixed.

[berserkerfilms]

i've been experiencing some discouraging glitches lately with using the p2store and our brand new 2.33 ghz intelcore duo 2 macbook pro... first off, we are shooting on an hvx 200 and using p2 genie to copy HD footage into our firmtek harddrive...with the usb 2.0 cable connected to the p2store and running into the firmtek harddrive connected to the computer (via an expresscard slot), we load p2 genie and thats where the problems start happening...

for instance, we had 15 cards (4 gig p2 cards) maxed out on the p2store and decided to dump to the drive... so we load p2 genie and for some reason, 1 or 2 of the folders did not contain video...there was audio copied in but no video! the 6 typical folders that you see when "NO NAME" mounts on your desktop are: AUDIO, CLIP, ICON, PROXY, VIDEO and VOICE. yet, no folder for VIDEO was created for one of these NO NAME folders!

so after using p2 genie, we load the latest version of final cut pro and go to "import P2"...we drag some of the copied folders (from the p2 genie) into FCP and then get "-36 errors" saying the data was unreadable...and yet, some of the folders were just fine (containing video and audio and were playable in the preview window)...i even tried to manually drag the MXF video clips that we saw on the mounted folders on the desktop into the harddrive too...apparently, the video folder appears when it mounts on the desktop, but when we use p2 genie to transfer over to the harddrive, we lose the video.

furthermore, on 1 particular day of shooting last week, we didnt have time to verify/watch the footage that we dumped into a lacie harddrive (while we are in the field), so we went ahead and formatted the p2store without actually seeing what we got earlier that day..later that evening, we discovered that 2/3 of the stuff we copied to the lacie disk contained no video! it was hit and miss...some folders had video and some did not! we suspect it could have been the fact that the computer was running on very low battery and the display was going to sleep every few minutes (we barely got it dumped to the lacie in time before the computer went dead).

finally, we used the old backup computer (powerbook titanium g4) to try doing the same thing and again no video was copied..even more, when sticking a p2 card into that computer, it freezes it up entirely (forcing us to have to eject the card to un-freeze it).

so we suspect that its: 1) the usb 2.0 cables, 2) the p2 driver , 3) p2 genie software, 4) the mac os system or 5) the p2 cards themselves. i've read that its most likely the p2 driver for the mac that is causing these glitches but our situation is very discouraging. we are making a documentary in israel and have been here for a month now and finding decent video stores and assistance is not within immediate reach...if we dont find what the problem is soon, we will continue losing valuable video footage every day!

if anyone can please respond with any theories/ideas on whats happening here (on why some video doesn't transfer over) , we would be very grateful.

jonathan
berserker films llc.

[Barry_Green]

Just get a PC laptop to offload your footage and all (and I do mean *all*) your problems will go away. It is going to be the best $500 you ever spent.

[Segarza]

Do we have any idea if it's Panasonic or Apple's fault?

[nsoltz]

I am guessing the problem lies either with Apple's P2 driver or with FCP 5.1.2. As I indicated on one of the multiple threads going around here, files which would not import under 5.1.2 worked perfectly under 5.1.1.

Now, having said that, if I had a spare $1K sitting around, I would buy Edius 4 Broadcast for MacBook Pro and run it under Boot Camp until the Apple/FCP issues are resolved.

While another poster attributed problems to a hardware issue with his HVX, I doubt that at least my issues are that basic. If the files work in one version of the software and refuse to import in another, I am guessing the problem lies in the software.

Ned Soltz

[Segarza]

From what I've read the problem goes beyond FCP... simply trying to copy contents from a P2 Card or P2 Store may result disastrous. So we have Apple to blame for FCP's import problems, and Panasonic for the P2 drivers?

[Barry_Green]

I am certain that it's not FCP's fault. I am 100% certain that the bug exists outside of FCP, for two main reasons:
1) I've transferred hundreds of cards on a PC and imported into FCP and never had a glitch
2) We've seen evidence of the glitch in P2 Log, where the card has never even been transferred, and never been near FCP. Just the act of reading the footage from the card can introduce the glitch; therefore it's not FCP's fault.

I am certain that Apple has some buggy P2 import drivers. That's where the bug is. Panasonic doesn't write Mac software, as near as I can tell. I believe it is Apple who wrote the drivers, and therefore all fingers point to them. Which is good, actually, because the first step in fixing a bug is narrowing down a) where it happens, and then b) finding the responsible party.

I am now certain that the bug is contained in the drivers that get loaded from the CD. And that Apple wrote them. And that Apple is responsible for fixing them. So now let's ask Apple to fix 'em.

[Segarza]

Ok so it's definitely Apple.

When you've seen evidence of the glitch in P2 Log by reading directly from the P2 card, is it some kind of read error? or are the cards contents actually modified and the glitch is permanently introduced?

And does anyone know if Apple is actually working on the fix? Do we wait for it, or do we have to get them to acknowledge there actually is a bug?

[Barry_Green]

No, it's specifically and only a read error. The cards are bulletproof.

Kevin Railsback is my source for the P2 Log thing, look for his posts earlier in this thread.

The glitch seems to be a randomly-introduced read error, and if you get hit with it you can re-import your footage and it'll work properly the second time around.

As far as I know, Apple has never said word one about the bug, they haven't acknowledged it, they haven't taken responsibility for it, and they haven't announced any timetable for a fix or that they're even working on a fix. I believe they could use some "encouragement" to get working on it.

[Segarza]

If you get hit by it, you have to reimport it from the P2 card right? However by then you've probably formatted the card.

[BenB]

Once again, PLEASE everyone fill out the FCP Feedback Page! The more of you who fill it out about this speicfic problem, the faster it gets fixed!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html

[Barry_Green]

If you get hit by it, you have to reimport it from the P2 card right? However by then you've probably formatted the card.
Right. Which is why I strongly encourage everyone to scream and yell and fill out the feedback form, to get this stupid thing FIXED.

And until it is fixed, I think you're just much safer using a PC to offload the footage. The PC works. You can still edit in FCP to your heart's content, just offload using a PC to an external FAT32 drive. That will be completely reliable.

Short of that, if importing the footage on a Mac, you have to use the "disk image" process instead of just importing straight from the card. The "disk image" gives some manner of CRC protection against failed imports, and it does a sector-by-sector copy so it should be more reliable than a direct import is.

[Segarza]

How about a sticky post with the feedback link :)

[tak1108]

Apple's workflow tells you to make a DMG image from the P2 card. You then back that up to HD and DVD and then import. If you have a problem, reimport from the dmg.

That being said, I have had 2 DMG's get corrupted and lost 8 gigs of shots on my feature. Back up a copy before importing to FINAL cut if you can.

[HVX2006]

Once again, PLEASE everyone fill out the FCP Feedback Page! The more of you who fill it out about this speicfic problem, the faster it gets fixed!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html


How about putting the text we should send here, like this we can copy, paste and send them a unified clear message in stead of tens of random queries regarding some problem. Would make it easier toto us less tech oriented fellows and would be an extra incentive to fill out the form.

Just a suggestion of course.

[BenB]

Ok, one last time, the .DMG method never worked, period. Apple, I think, came up with that to buy time. I doesn't work. I find MORE problems using that method than a simple import. Extra bit parity protection? Yes. But that obviously does not translate into more reliable P2 import.

Case in point. Use the .DMG method, files won't import. Straight copy, files won't import. Use P2 Log, files won't import. Re-copy to my local hard drive (umteen times), everything works.

So no, IMHO, the .DMG method is a smoke screen...


How about putting the text we should send here, like this we can copy, paste and send them a unified clear message in stead of tens of random queries regarding some problem.

No, then they see it as a copy and paste campaign. It has to be in everyone's specific words. What you did, what didn't work, what happened to you specifically.

Copy and paste will not communicate all the details that are unique to each situation that may provide clues. I used to be an IT Engineer, worked for several software companies, and if we got the same verbatim complaint, we ignored it as a slander campaign.

Hope that makes sense. It's both political, and more importantly, practical. Everyone needs to send in their version of FCP, hardware set up, specifics about their experience, in order for the software engineers at Apple (who I'll now say are some of the best there are) to really understand and figure out a fix.

I'm solid in my belief that Apple knows and is working on it. In that same breath, they need to know each and ever one of your individual stories to get to the real meat and potatoes of this problem.

A standard "It doesn't work right" copy and paste submission won't give them the vital data needed to create a fix.

Think of it this way; we're not forcing Apple to do something, as I'm sure they already are. We're HELPING them to figure it out and fix it with our individual, unique, feed back submissions.

[nsoltz]

At the risk of constant repetition, files which refused to import in FCP 5.1.2 imported fine in 5.1.1.

Ned

[berserkerfilms]

thanks everyone for the board, post etc..and hopefully apple/panasonic will feel the sense of urgency that we do through feedback.

would we be able to avoid buying a pc if we have one of the intel core 2 duo macs that can reboot and run windows natively? if we run the cpu booted as a pc with windows os and then use the p2 viewer software are our problems solved or would that still not work? anyway since i have this new cpu and dropped 3 grand on it i want to explore all options..

[BenB]

At the risk of constant repetition, files which refused to import in FCP 5.1.2 imported fine in 5.1.1.

Not in my experience. I had the same problems in both.

[SPZ]

My problem was in Final Cut 5.04

EDIT- Sent my feedback. Hope it helps...(we did got 720p25 in FCP with our feedback, so its worth a try!)

[Barry_Green]

would we be able to avoid buying a pc if we have one of the intel core 2 duo macs that can reboot and run windows natively?
Maybe. It depends on how you plan to offload the card. If you want to use the camera as a card reader, I would trust a Bootcamp WinXP Mac attached to an HVX through USB a whole lot more than I would trust a G4 Powerbook reading the card right in the slot.

But that means tying up the camcorder as a card reader, which is usually not desirable.

If you're using the P2 Store, I'd also think you'd find it much more pleasant to use the WinXP BootCamp module of the Mac rather than OSX, as you'll get rock-solid transfers with no "disappearing volumes" and you won't see 15 "no name" volumes sprayed across your desktop.

But if you want to import the card directly, there's currently no way to do that on a Macbook Pro. Eventually there'll be an adapter for the expresscard slot. Right now the only way to import a card directly would be to use the P2 Store as a pass-thru slot, or get one of the $2,000 external 5-slot readers. Either way looks prohibitively expensive when contrasted against the $500 PC laptop.

[Segarza]

Regardless of Apple being the actual programmer for Panasonic's P2 drivers.. shouldn't we be sending feedback to Panasonic? Apparently it's not a FCP problem, but a driver problem... Panasonic is free to choose who codes the drivers, but eventually they're responsible for the drivers functioning properly.

[nsoltz]

Nope... it is an Apple problem. You might contend that if Panasonic hears from enough users they will goad Apple into responding, however, we still don't know for certain that Apple isn't responding. I know that Apple is aware and that means they are testing and troubleshooting. The only question is when and how they respond.

Ned Soltz

[Segarza]

Mmm still don't understand how it's an Apple problem. If we agree it's the drivers...it's a Panasonic problem. If it's both the drivers and fcp, it's both Panasonic and Apple's problem.

[BenB]

Apple wrote the drivers, not Panny.

[Segarza]

That's completely clear to me, but who delivers/offers the drivers? CCDs in the camera for example, are most probably not manufactured by Panasonic, however if there's aproblem with them, do you take it with the CCD manufacturer or Panasonic?

[Segarza]

If Panasonic offers P2 drivers for mac or integration of its P2 product line in a mac environment, the consumer could care less who coded the software/driver, from the consumer's standpoint it's Panasonic's responsibility to stand by their statements/offer.

[Barry_Green]

But you're missing the point. Panasonic cannot fix it. Apple wrote the code, Apple has to fix it. You can point the finger of blame at whoever you want, but that's just finger-pointing. If you want a problem fixed, you have to go to the person who can fix it.

Only Apple can fix it. They wrote the software, they need to correct the bugs. They are the only ones who can.

Let's put it a different way -- say Brother introduces a new printer. They need a driver. They hire some company to write a driver for them, for Windows. Let's say there's an incompatibility. Do we blame Windows? Of course not -- Brother screams at the company that wrote the driver, and that company has to fix it.

But now let's look at this circumstance -- Panasonic introduces this P2 product, and they hire Apple to write the driver. So who is responsible for fixing it? Apple wrote the operating system, and Apple wrote the driver. What can Panasonic do? They can scream at the company that wrote the driver (which is Apple, of course) but the ultimate responsibility to fix it is squarely, firmly, and solely on Apple's shoulders. Nobody else CAN fix it. There's nobody else in the loop. The circle of blame starts with, ends with, and consists entirely of, Apple's software department who wrote the driver.

[Segarza]

I completely agree with you Barry. Ultimately it will be Apple's programmers who'll solve the problem. No doubt about that. However we didn't hire Apple for the job. So we must recognize it's Panasonic's job to scream at Apple and ours to scream at Panasonic. We can hold Panasonic responsible, and Panasonic can hold Apple responsible. What I really don't get is that we're sending feedback to a FCP support page that has absolutely nothing to do with the driver. The way I see things is that we bought the cam from Panasonic not from Apple. And the cam's workflow is not performing like advertised. Don't get me wrong, I know the bugs are ultimately Apple's fault, but don't you think Panasonic can do a better job of putting pressure on them? Are they? I don't know, all I know is that we should be putting pressure on Panasonic.

[Segarza]

We should ask ourselves this, where are we going to see the new driver/solution posted? Apple's Downloads? or Panasonic support site? My bets are on the latter.

[dusterdoo]

Do we know this is only a Mac problem - didnt I see someone else with a PC with this issue in this thread ?

[Brian Broz]

Ok I admit I haven't read the 5 pages of posts...but I can tell you what the problem is FOR SURE. I have experienced this issue with too many Powerbooks!
The problem is related to playing footage from either an internal drive, but usually do to connecting external devices to the Powerbook's FW400 port.
100% of the time, getting a PCMCIA to Firewire card solved the problem (in my experience) as apparently the built-in fiirewire shares the bus on the motherboard with several other connections (the PCMCIA does not).
Barry I'm not sure if you've solved this issue...but it's usually a $50.00 fix (PCMCIA to FW400 adapter card). In my experience the footage is not damaged.
I have also witnessed this issue on 2 acer Ferrari laptops (tacky as heck) which was also resolved by a PCMCIA to FW400 adapter.
Try that and let us know. Perhaps someone has already answered this...sorry but I don't have time tonight to read the whole thread.
Cheers and hope this helps!
Regards,

Brian Broz
www.higherdefinition.com

[ozduc]

Brian your solution is flawed. If you put a PCMCIA to FW adapter card in the slot, how are you supposed to load a P2 card in there?

[ozduc]

This thread will be long but it does narrow a few things down.
For about 4 months I have been using the HVX and P2 with my G4 PowerBook, first with OS 10.3.9 and FCP 5.0.4 and in the last month with OS 10.4.8 and FCP 5.1.2. My ususal work flow has been to insert the P2 cards into the G4 PCMCIA slot and copy the contents and last clip.txt to a bus powered acomdata 5400rpm ondago drive (while in the field) or directly to a hitachi 7200 rpm drive hooked up via FW800. (if power was available). So far I have not had an issue with any corrupt pixilated footage.
On the weekend myself and a collegue shot a bunch of footage (about 7 x 8gb cards) and used my G4 PB to load them to the acomdata drive. I always check the footage in the import P2 window of FCP to make sure it is OK before I format the card. All the cards copied OK.
After returning home on monday I copied the footage to one of my hitachi drives and once again checked in the import P2 window of FCP and everything was OK.

Here's where things get interesting.
Yesterday I go to my collegues house with my portable bus powered drive and hook it up to his Mac Pro desktop. He has a brand new G-Drive (that has just had a 0 level format done on it) hooked up via FW800, so I plug the acomdata drive into the FW400 port on the back of that and copy over the 7 cards worth of material.
Upon completion, I go to the import P2 window of FCP to check the footage and all the footage, I mean every clip, is totally and completely corrupt and pixilated, way worse than Barry's pic at the beginning of this thread.
So I check the footage from the acomdata drive on his macpro and it looks fine.
Then I disconnect his G-drive from the desktop and hook it up to my laptop and check the footage and it is still corrupt.
So I erase all the footage from the G-drive and start again but this time I connect the acomdata and G-drive to my laptop to do the copying.
Upon completion I check the footage on the G-drive in the import P2 window in FCP on my laptop and everything is OK. So I then connect the G-drive up to his Mac Pro desktop and open the P2 import window in FCP and ALL the footage plays fine, no corruption at all.
Being that we are both running the same OS and same version of FCP, I thought it must be something to do with the Mac OS on the intel machine. However after reading some of the other posts in this thread it appears to have happened to people with Power Macs as well.
I could be totally off base here, but this would indicate to me that the problem is at the finder level of the OS as it happened at the copying stage of the files from one drive to another. By this time there weren't even any P2 cards in site.

Hopefully this will narrow things down a bit for the fine folks at apple to address this major problem.

[TimurCivan]

Barry is Video Columbo..... solving mysteries.... Good work man. I commend you. I am not a Mac user, but i am learning this anyhow so that if i ever have to use one i know what to look out for.

I thank all of you gentlemen.

[robroysyd]

I'm not a MAc user however I wonder if you guys shouldn't be casting a wider net.
I recently got a tape from a FCP user that had similar problems, nothing to do with the HVX200 even remotely and the problem occured during PTT. Footage looked fine on the FCP T/L and a repeated PTT of the same section was perfect.
The problem tape had around 30 seconds where first the image went like it had massive tape dropouts and then what looked for all the world like a head clog on one head except it wasn't quite the same, one head band had a static frozen image from the start of the problem area and the other was being updated correctly. During all this the audio was totally gone.

It looks like a generic firewire driver issue is what's at the root of the problem but then again reading a P2 directly from a PCMCIA slot shouldn't involve the same driver however the same part of the kernal could be in use and that might be where the bug lies. That it seems to span various OSs is no surprise either, oftenly the same chunks of code survive even complete OS revisions.

Maybe I'm right off track here but I think widening the survey group beyond just HVX 200 users might be more revealing and fairer to the HVX200.

[David Saraceno]

I have a MacPro. I mount the cam with a card in it and copy to the desktop.

Then I copy that to an SATA drive in one of the bays.

Never had a problem. I just don't use firewire hard drives.

Fingers crossed.

[adam powell]

Hi Gents,

Just recently got hold of a 17" macbook pro, 2gig of ram. Running FCP 5.1.2
I've been running some tests to see if I want to edit my next project on a mac (been using Aspect HD on the PC but the Banding scares me)

Anyway, things aren't going well I've done tests using 2 methods....

ONE/ camera plugged into firewire port, copy the p2 folders (contents & Lastclip.txt) to the systems HD (no external drive as yet..waiting to see if this works before I go out and get a g-sata) then import.

one clip, straight from P2 in camera to MacHD then imports fine.

HOWEVER..

test TWO/ Plugged in a Lacie big disk via usb, dragged folders to the systems HD and tried to import. No dice.

I go into the folders...check permissions, and they are set to read only.. SO I change everything to Read & Write.

Go into FCP....click import and it works....fantastic...problem solved???

NO, I try again a few moments later and none of the clips from the lacieHD work...the one taken directly from the camera is fine, works every time.

now all im left with is a memory of that fleeting moment when all my clips would import.

(I've checked and double checked the files are still set to Read & Write, I could be missing something but in all honesty Im totally baffled.)

[adam powell]

sorry to be a pain, I know this isn't the point of the thread but if anyone has any suggestions on this I'd like to hear (via this page or PM?)...is it simply a bug with 5.1.2 ?

[n8ture]

No. I've had these problems before upgrading to 5.1.2

[adam powell]

ok so hopefully its not user error...

anyone got a work around? (Pm pm)

[Rygh]

I have had major drop outs lately on my cards. I have been paying a little more attention to see if I indeed captured sucessfully all the clips. My problems have nothing to do with FCP, or even the transfer. Just straight from the card itself. Here is how some problems happened to me.

This last shoot I had one clip on my 8gig P2 that did not record correctly. It would not show up on the camera (the clip before it in the viewer showed an exclamation mark on the upper right thumbnail), the clip also did not show on the P2 Viewer (just blank, where there should be a thumbnail), but P2 Genie brought up the clip, which I watched, it ran for 40 seconds fine, then it just took a dump to snow. The clip before it which I thought was fine, played through, but throughout the clip audio would take a dump and come back up for a couple of times.

I put this 8gig card to the side and marked it suspect to being a bad card. Went on another shoot without that card and put my P2 card in my Powerbook G4 to monitor the footage on P2 Log. All the clips were blank. After regaining my composure, I put the card back in the camera and viewed the clips in the camera, all were there. I remembered this happened before, and it was as simple as re-inserting the card back into the computer, and it worked fine.

However this problem did not resolve my issue with the suspected damaged 8gig P2 card. The camera could not repair the card, and I am still unable to save it.

I have narrowed it down to the camera, P2 card, and the powerbook. Why the camera? I have had difficulty with timelapse where I was unable to shut it off. So after trying anything I could think of I had to physically shut the camera off, and of coarse that clip is ruined. So I don't know if it hurt the P2 card so that it will cause all these problems for me. This timelapse was done on the same suspected card (although it has been reformated a few times over before having the next problem.)

They are spuratic, and that is what is frustrating.

[Rygh]

Oh and another thing...

The reason why I suspect even to the card, is that there have been times when transfering the footage onto P2 Store and I would get error cannot download the footage. So it didn't even make it to the PowerBook.

[telebay]

I've had it happen on a couple occassions. Nothing horrible, I just took out the frame and replaced it... but it was there. My thought, and I could be wrong, was that upon first viewing that scene (the first few times, actually) it wasn't there -- when editing in FCP. Then a few days later I was editing (again in FCP) and I saw it. It seemed so blatant that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it sooner. Made me wonder if it was an external hard-drive glitch (which is where it is stored and where I am editing the footage from).

Here is my process:
1) I dump P2 into my PC laptop's portable external drive (2.5 Hitachi) using the Panasonic P2 software -- or more recently P2 Genie.
2) Then, I attach the portable external drive to my Mac Desktop and drag the contents onto my Mac's harddrive.
3) Then, I import into FCP and start editing.

Pretty basic routine, I'd think.

[berserkerfilms]

more updates on the glitch, has been reported to apple already. everytime i import this p2 card into fcp it causes it to crash on me, it is the 5th one out of 15 from this particular import. the others work fine. what i have noticed is that there is a mission file from the icon folder. this is on top of the fact that disk repair says that:

Verifying volume “NO NAME”
** /dev/disk4s10
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
FAT starts with odd byte sequence (f8fffffff8ffff0f)
Correct? no
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
/CONTENTS/VIDEO/0002Z9.MXF has too many clusters allocated
Drop superfluous clusters? no
/CONTENTS/AUDIO/0002Z900.MXF has too many clusters allocated
Drop superfluous clusters? no
/CONTENTS/AUDIO/0002Z901.MXF has too many clusters allocated
Drop superfluous clusters? no
/CONTENTS/AUDIO/0002Z902.MXF has too many clusters allocated
/CONTENTS/AUDIO/0002Z902.MXF has too many clusters allocated
uperfluous clusters? no
/CONTENTS/AUDIO/0002Z903.MXF has too many clusters allocated
Drop superfluous clusters? no
** Phase 4 - Checking for Lost Files
Free space in FSInfo block (3515) not correct (731)
fix? no
Next free cluster in FSInfo block (3) not free
fix? no
49 files, 23392 free (731 clusters)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

we are really busy on a documentary and every day counts so until i can figure this out Im really stuck because there is valuable footage on there. I can see all the other files, the audio, video proxy, clip and voice it is just the one file missing from the icon folder. i have tried to hard import it without using any software and then lauch from fcp, to import directly from fcp and to use p2 genie for the import. im running an intel mac, the latest one, and i can't figure out a way around this. Please help. I have also tried to restart, reimport multiple times, often on 12 mount instead of the full 15 on the remounts unless i fully restart. so i need to fix the disk image/drive whatever you call it so that i can get the p2 store reformatted and keep on rolling.
peace out

[n8ture]

You're lucky. I get about three cards imported then I have to do a restart.
I've gotten so used to it that after the third card I just restart the laptop and don't even bother to try for a fourth card.

[BenB]

Oooooo, I don't think running Disk Repair on a P2 card was the smartest thing to do. Nope, I'd never do that. I'd run the repair utility in the HVX itself, but I'd never trust Apple's Disk Repair on a P2 card. For a whole variety of reasons I don't think it's a good idea. And running Disk Verify, I would think, based on my previous professional career, that anything it said about the state of a P2 card would be valid.

Now, all these "drop outs" on P2 cards, are we certain this is a Mac only thing? I'm just starting to suspect...

[Kenneth]

Just get a PC laptop to offload your footage and all (and I do mean *all*) your problems will go away. It is going to be the best $500 you ever spent.

I use a PC laptop and still get the glitch.

My workflow:

I use two 4gb P2 cards cycled through a feature film shoot.

As one fills, offload it via P2 Genie into an HP Windows XP laptop's PCI slot.

Back at the editing station, I transfer all the MXF files from the laptop to an external hd via USB.

I connect the USB to the Mac, import into FCP 5.1.1 using Import>P2.

Occasionally, I'll see the glitch. I can sometimes reimport the file and the new QT file will be clean. But not always.

Ken

[Barry_Green]

It's still due to the Mac. The very fact that you can re-import and it doesn't glitch that time shows you that the cards that were copied by the PC are solid and reliable.

I hate to say it, because I know that something like 80% of HVX users are on the Mac, but dang it, something's broken in there and needs to be fixed. The PC side is flawless, the Mac side needs to be and it currently isn't.

[adam powell]

I formatted my lacie to apple (hfs+)

last test i did I copied files to my lacie via a PC laptop then plugged the lacie directly into the mac and imported from there..worked fine. :) gonna run a couple more tests...also some people have been telling me lacies are rubbish. and im gonna lose all my data.
and the world's gonna end. so I guess i need to find some money for a new external drive, did someone say this workflow was easy?

[toddeastman]

Ok I admit I haven't read the 5 pages of posts...but I can tell you
The problem is related to playing footage from either an internal drive, but usually do to connecting external devices to the Powerbook's FW400 port.
100% of the time, getting a PCMCIA to Firewire card solved the problem (in my experience) as apparently the built-in fiirewire shares the bus on the motherboard with several other connections (the PCMCIA does not).
Barry I'm not sure if you've solved this issue...but it's usually a $50.00 fix (PCMCIA to FW400 adapter card). In my experience the footage is not damaged.
I have also witnessed this issue on 2 acer Ferrari laptops (tacky as heck) which was also resolved by a PCMCIA to FW400 adapter.

I have to agree. I edit/shoot with two Macs. One is an upgraded old Dual 800Mhz G4 desktop (now a dual 1.3Ghz G4) and a 15" 1.67Ghz Powerbook. I have not seen this issue on my Powerbook, but initally I saw it on my desktop frequently and it looked like a situation i ran into before. Back years ago I used to edit DV footage on an upgraded PowerMac 7600 with a PCI Firewire card. The bus speed on this old machine was 33Mhz and I used to get these blocks in my footage all the time. Eventually, I figured out that if the camera was alone on the bus and the winds blew from the ENE the capture was fine.
Back to my G4 desktop. My imported QT would have the block glitch. Clips played back from the camera did not. I immediatly bought a PCI Firewire card to put the camera and external capture hard drive on seperate buses and the problem disappeared. This system has so far worked like a charm.

I believe the dropouts(blocks) are due to the inability of the computer to transfer all the data b/c of high traffic on the bus. Also a Powerbook is not a Powerbook is not a Powerbook. There are differences in the components inside "identical" revs. My machine could have a different brand controller than one made 3 months later.

Hope this helps someone.
Todd

[Barry_Green]

Well, that all seems logical, but... it happens on n8ture's G4 when scrubbing a clip straight from the slot. No firewire anything involved anywhere in the process. No internal or external firewire bus or anything. No additional traffic on the bus.

I would also question TSR programs -- those of you having issues, do you have a lot of other stuff running like virus checkers, spyware checkers, wireless internet connections, things like that?

[David Saraceno]

Firewire Frustrations:

http://www.adamwilt.com/Tidbits.html#FireWireFrustrations

A good read

[Barry_Green]

THE LATEST ON "THE GLITCH":

Had the opportunity to work with a major FCP/P2/Mac expert this last week, and he got his first-ever instance of "the glitch." Never saw it before, but he got it, and the difference was that someone put a card in a Mac that wasn't write-protected. Importing footage off that card caused "the glitch."

How did this guy normally import footage? Off a P2 Store, using the pass-thru slot. And he'd never, in the last year, seen the glitch.

What difference does the P2 Store make? Well, the P2 Store is incapable of writing to the card -- it treats every card as if it's write-protected. And the Mac insists on writing files to unprotected cards. It writes a "trashes" folder, and who knows what else. PCs don't do that, and PCs don't get "the glitch."

So here's the new working theory: if you put a card in your Mac without the write-protect tab, you're exposing yourself to "the glitch." If you always write-protect your cards, you should be preventing "the glitch." If you always use a P2 Store to import your cards, you should be preventing "the glitch."

So now we need to hear from users:
If you're getting the glitch, are you always always always always write-protecting your cards before reading them on a Mac (either in a G4 Powerbook slot, or via using the camera or PCD10 or PCD20 card reader)? If you don't religiously write-protect your cards, try it and see if the glitch goes away.

If you use a P2 Store as a pass-thru slot, have you ever gotten "the glitch" that way? If this theory is correct, you should never have seen it.

Bottom line: if you're affected by "the glitch", try write-protecting your cards before putting them in the Mac or reading them by a Mac. Try that and see if the problem goes away!

[THoff]

A P2 Store still mounts as logical disk volumes, and those are write-enabled. So wouldn't the Mac still create a Trash folder on the volumes when the P2 Store volumes mount? Shouldn't you still get The Glitch(tm) even if you don't mount a P2 card directly?

[Barry_Green]

Maybe; that's for Mac users to verify. I was told by a Mac user that it didn't write to the slot. Maybe it writes to the drive volumes but not to the slot?

[Jim Anderson]

Barry, don't hate me but I recently replied to an anamorphic thread you were responding to and I stated I needed to salvage a backup dv recording out of my HVX's a/v outputs in case there was a p2 import problem. I was importing from the P2 Store into my new HP laptop (Win Professional) then out to a 500gb Lacie HDD. Now that it is being edited on the newest Avid, there is one key scene with no audio only video and another lost contents folder altogether. I didn't have time to use the verify function but figured I could check the contents properties to be certain all the files transferred in terms of file size. I did not have the p2 viewer installed at the time. I read your previous post regarding mounting the files to recover lost p2 files but I thought it was a mac/fcp issue.
I think I should devote more time to confirm complete file transfer regardless of the added time it takes to save nightmares in the edit room. My only choice for the lost files is to attempt to up-rez the backup dv footage that squeezed the 16 x 9 480i output from the HVX to 4 x 3 DV interlaced.

[David Saraceno]

Barry:

Are you indicating that this glitch occurs when a Mac user tries to import off the card?

Or does the glitch ALSO appear when you simply copy the card to the desktop, and then try to import files off the copied contents?

The reason I ask is that in a year, I've never write protected a p2 card, but I've also always copied the card to the desktop and then imported

Never a glitch.

[Cynic821]

Never a glitch here either, whether from Write Protected USB 2.0 from HVX, non write protect firewire or non write protect duel adapter

[Barry_Green]

Barry:

Are you indicating that this glitch occurs when a Mac user tries to import off the card?
Yep.


Or does the glitch ALSO appear when you simply copy the card to the desktop, and then try to import files off the copied contents?
Yep.


The reason I ask is that in a year, I've never write protected a p2 card, but I've also always copied the card to the desktop and then imported

Never a glitch.
Then it may or may not be related to write-protecting. But I'm taking this from a master FCP user/trainer who also, in 15 months, had "never" had a glitch, and told me there was no such thing as the glitch, and someone previewed some footage on his mac by plugging the card in unprotected (which nearly gave this guy a heart attack, as he NEVER does that) and viewed. Then this guy imported footage off the card and -- voila, glitch. The only thing we could think of was that it was the un-write-protected state, and the fact that Macs write files onto unprotected volumes when you first insert them.

[esperman]

I've never had a glitch either, but you can be sure I'm write-protecting now before inserting into my powerbook - after all it doesnt take any extra effort to safeguard the footage.

[n8ture]

I'd love to write-protect my P2 cards but since I can only mount 4 P2 cards before my Powerbook either just flat out does not mount the 5th card or locks the computer up.

Since I have to restart the computer every 4th time I insert a card I leave the card unprotected since I have P2 Genie erase the card upon ejecting.

On Barry's suggestion, I did try write-protecting th cards and that did not solve that problem.
Also tried Powering Down the card before ejecting as well.

When Leopard comes out, I'll wipe my hard drive, do a clean install and see if anything changes. But for now, no write protecting for me. :)

[Digihead]

I don't have an HVX (hope to soon), and have been reading about this problem.
Has anyone with the glitch problem tried disabling indexing of the P2 cards by opening spotlight and dragging the P2 icon into the 'Privacy' pane before transfering data? The same should be done with the media drive you are loading the P2 footage to. I wonder if the OS could be trying to index as the transfer is occuring, and sometimes this creates a glitch? Just a thought.

[David Saraceno]

Good thought.

Of course the better solution is just to turn Spotlight indexing off.

[Craig Hoffmann]

okay... this just started today. glitches. not the colored pixel ones, these are parallel lines that started at the bottom third of the screen but are now sometimes at the top.

the crazy thing is- it seems that even clips that i have imported months ago and had in a project timeline are getting them too.

i use the p2 store and have never had problems before.

i sense that my mac g5 quad has some kind of virus or something. i don't know what is going on.

any ideas?

[Barry_Green]

If it's on footage that you've already converted, which was previously "known good", then I'd ask what changed -- specifically, did anything change in the way you connected the drives to your computer? Are they now going through a firewire hub or anything like that?

[Craig Hoffmann]

nothing has changed. fcp with an external g-raid 500gb- firewire800.

only about 70gb left on the drive though. i read in this thread that the drive needs 15-20% of space to run properly.

here's something new. it seems that when i play the "old clips" some of them will on first play have the glitches and then when i replay them they are okay. its just a few from from this weekend that are flawed. the footage looks fine in my camera ( i luckily haven't formatted the card), but i have tried many times to get it in the computer without the glitches (using p2 store and p2 genie).

one of the cards in the p2 store was tab protected orange- and i never do that. does that somehow affect the p2 store?

[arrestthisman]

Anything new here in the last two weeks?

I'm getting ready for another project in May. I'm making the switch from Avid to FCP.

In the field I need a comp to copy MXF from p2 cards, and a computer that can act as a monitor for focus. I don't know the story with onlocation, but I love scopebox.

Ideally I could use a macbook pro with a duel adapter, and ingest p2 footage, and also use a tether from the HVX to scopebox. But I don't want to set myself up for failure by using an error prone workflow.

Would it behove me to use a PC laptop in the field with XP pro, ingest directly off the cardbus and use onlocation or DVrack for focus, instead of the macbook pro?

So far I've used a usb OTG drive off the camera, and imported into FCP off that drive. Or import footage on a PC, copy to an external FAT32 drive and import into FCP.

It sounds like the glitch is inherent to the FCP/MAC platform, so would the PC as an intermediate not really be worth the extra steps?

[Richard Sutcliffe]

Best advice is to test the workflow.

I've used it for the last 12months and have seen only 1 single frame with the glitch. And i didn't protect my cards either (I do now).

If you can't test the workflow and you don't want to take the risk, go with a PC, its theonly way to be sure.

It'd be interesting to take a poll and see how widespread this is amongst apple laptop owners, my suspicion is that it is relatively isolated.

[arrestthisman]

interesting.

Well. I've had so many problems with AVID, there's no question I'm switching to FCP, but I just need to find out if the PC is going to temper my risk.

I haven't had any problems in any scenario as of yet, but as I understand the nature of the problem can appear out of nowhere... not something I relish the thought of.

[DCSensui]

I just came back from a vacation in Japan and shot the vacation footage with the HVX at 1080p30. I transferred the P2 cards to a P2 Store slung over my shoulder as we were walking around.

At the end of the day, the footage was copied onto a mirrored RAID with a MacBook Pro from the P2 Store.

No glitches. No lost footage. And the P2 Store worked flawlessly despite doing the transfer while moving around like a bunch of tourists... well, we WERE a bunch of tourists!

[esperman]

Hey Dean,
Post some shots, I'd like to see what ya been up to.

For my film we've shot over 500 gigs so far of 720 24pn. No problems tranferring any footage through my G4 laptop. Still going & going....

[psts]

Dean,
Doesn't the P2 store automatically stop if there is any movement?

[DCSensui]

Hey Dean,
Post some shots, I'd like to see what ya been up to.

Can do. I gotta get through a few other things first.

This is the first time I've seen cherry blossoms (sakura). No wonder they go nuts over this stuff.

Psts... yes, the P2 Store does pause when it gets jostled, especially in the vertical axis. I was half expecting glitches and other difficulties but it all ended up quite clean.

[cre8tive]

Barry...Guys,

I'm doing a shoot in Australia for the next couple of weeks. I'm editing on Avid Xpress Pro 5.7 , on a PC laptop, from SD footage shot on the HVX 200. Another editor is cutting on FCP 5 from another HVX 200. So two different setups, two different cameras.

We BOTH are getting the glitch. I have a few HD shots I have noticed it on, none of the SD footage. The FCP editor has noticed it on SD footage only.

This suggests that it is not only an Apple phenomenon.

Is there a workaround or a fix yet?

Regards,

Cre8tive

[dusterdoo]

Barry...Guys,

I'm doing a shoot in Australia for the next couple of weeks. I'm editing on Avid Xpress Pro 5.7 , on a PC laptop, from SD footage shot on the HVX 200. Another editor is cutting on FCP 5 from another HVX 200. So two different setups, two different cameras.

We BOTH are getting the glitch. I have a few HD shots I have noticed it on, none of the SD footage. The FCP editor has noticed it on SD footage only.

This suggests that it is not only an Apple phenomenon.

Is there a workaround or a fix yet?

Regards,

Cre8tive


What was your workflow on the PC platform ? How much does it GLITCH ?

[Richard Sutcliffe]

Can you post a frame grab of the glitch from both platforms to compare the issue?

[Barry_Green]

The workaround is to always, religiously, zealously, always always always write-protect your cards before they ever get seen by a Mac.

There is some indication, as yet untested, that once the Mac writes its invisible files to the card then it may actually glitch on both platforms. If your cards never see a Mac, you'll never have the problem. If your cards are always write-protected, you may never have the problem. If you put your cards in a Mac without write-protecting them, you're opening yourself up to causing the problem.

At least, that's the working theory.

[cre8tive]

My cards, my camera and my edit system have never even seen a Mac. All PC all the time. Avid Xpress Pro 5.7

Please tell me how to post an attachment and I will uplooad an image of the glitch I get.

**Note: This has happened on a shot or two over the course of hundreds of card recordings. Not an everyday occurence. It IS worrisome, however, since we are not E/E where you see what has been recorded. So you think you've got it only to find that you have an unusable shot!**

[THoff]

cre8tive, are both FCP and Avid exhibiting the exact same symptoms at the exact same time with the same material?

[cre8tive]

Wouldn't know. I've always been PC only. Tell me how to post an attachment and I'll show you what my glitch looks like. (The posting rules at the bottom of my page says "You may not post attachments."

[psts]

I'm wondering if this also might be related. On one mac I running 10.4.8 and one 10.4.9
On the 10.4.9 when i try to copy the P2 card (straight from the HVX mounted thru firewire to a hard drive by drag and drop I get the following error window.

"The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in 00010M00.MXF could not be read or written (Error code -36)"

When I try to burn the mounted P2 (from the HVX as above) to a DVD with toast I get the following two messages:

"The file 00010M000.MXF could not be accessed. (Data fork. -36)"
and
"Couldn't complete the last command because there was an i/o error (your disc may be copy protected) Result code= -36"

The funny thing is, on 10.4.8 there is none of these issues whatsoever (with the same camera and P2 card

[David Saraceno]

Might be something else happening.

I mount in 10.4.9 since it was released.

[THoff]

The drive you are writing to may have some bad sectors. You might want to scan the drive and also make a backup of it if you haven't already done so.

[Drew599]

The dropouts that I had on my P2 cards ended up being the card its self. The dropouts would happen a quater of the way through the card. The Panasonic service center that I took both the cards and the camera to gave everything a clean bill of health the first and the second time I got the cards and camera back.

I've never had any problems importing files from my HVX or my P2 store into FCP. All the problems I've had took place inside the camera before it had come in contact with any computer.

[THoff]

If you have a PC, Panasonic has a P2 card diagnostic program that tests the cards.

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/cs/csregistp2m/ep2main/p2c_li_e.htm

I don't know if that would have found the problem, but it is worth knowing about in case you suspect a card isn't working correctly.

[mark.burton]

I wonder if this new Mac P2 card driver (kext) will have any fixes for these issues:
New P2 Mac Drivers (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=94830)
This is version 1.3, the old one was v1.0.1.

edit: actually 1.0.1 was a very old (2005) PowerPC only driver, what was the latest Universal kext before that?

[cre8tive]

Wouldn't know. I've always been PC only. Tell me how to post an attachment and I'll show you what my glitch looks like. (The posting rules at the bottom of my page says "You may not post attachments."
Bump. I'd like to know how to post a still of my "glitch" on PC to get feedback from you guys to see if this is like your glitch.

Regards,
Cre8tive

[mark.burton]

Click 'Go Advanced' at the bottom of the page and use the 'Member Upload Centre' button (red eject type button) to upload your picture and copy the link into your post.

[cre8tive]

Thanks, Mark.

For those interested, here is the "glitch" I got on a recording to my P2 card at 1080/60 and edited on Avid Xpress Pro 5.7 on an HP xw8000 workstation. Card, camera and project never touched a Mac.

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/4727/1177360080.jpg

Is this the same "glitch" you guys are seeing? I experienced it throughout the take, and never again on this project. It has popped up a couple more times, however. Don't know if it was the same card or not (I have one 4GB and one 8GB).

Regards,

Cre8tive

[dusterdoo]

Thats worse than the very first pix posted ! And on a PC!

cre8rive - did you use a Firestore? If not, how did you get the p2 card data from camera to computer? DId you write-protect the p2 cards at any time ? Had those p2 cards EVER touch a mac before hand ?

.

[cre8tive]

Thats worse than the very first pix posted ! And on a PC!

cre8rive - did you use a Firestore? If not, how did you get the p2 card data from camera to computer? DId you write-protect the p2 cards at any time ? Had those p2 cards EVER touch a mac before hand ?

.

Oh, great. :(

No Firestore for this shoot. I have one, but this shoot was P2 all the way.

I've never write-protected the cards, and the cards have necer touched a Mac. My camera has used cards that have been on Macs, and these cards have been in a camera that belongs to an FCP editor, but the cards were formatted by my camera before and during the shoot.

What does the collective thinking out there think this means??

Cre8tive

[dusterdoo]

..but did you go Camera->PC workstation via cable ? Firewire ? USB? or PCMCIA card slot ? MWave ? One scene only via transfer ? try to narrow it down to this clip and the transfer process...Can you reproduce it ? Do you still have the bad scene ? It certainly isnt the software..

Sounds like we must ask the gods !

http://www.true-west.com/ouija01.jpg

[cre8tive]

It was P2 into an HP laptop via PCMCIA and directly to external FW hardrive. Transferred the entire card, only one scene showed up this way. I still have the bad scene (on hard drive only) and the entire take has hits like this.

[dusterdoo]

Did you use P2Genie by chance ?

In reviewing all of these posts it does seem the PCMCIA slot is a common denominator ...

HHmmm.....I think we need Doctor Green for this mystery...

[cre8tive]

No, just P2 to Avid.

[bosindy]

I was wondering if anyone has ever had the glitch when they use a PC PCMCIA to download onto an external drive. Then hooked that external drive to a mac and imported the footage into FCP?

[Barry_Green]

I haven't, and I've done hundreds and hundreds of cards that way.

[shorelinedigital]

The only glitches I've ever seen have been render and digitize issues related to what we thought was SATA Raid issues and the G5.

I'm running a MacPro with Kona LHe and a Caldigit raid. Usually digitize to a powerbook through to an external bus powered drive using p2Genie and have never had an issue/glitch/problem.

Tom

[Mike Savino]

I just got back from an big budget studio shoot. The second set-up of 6-7 takes of a dolly shot has glitches in them. I made sure to check most of the takes after seeing when played back from the camera. I transfer to a P2 store and then to a Mac. This is a camera problem not a mac problem. I'm losing my confidence in the P2 system that I love so much.

[David Saraceno]

I transfer to a P2 store and then to a Mac. This is a camera problem not a mac problem. I'm losing my confidence in the P2 system that I love so much.

How do you reach the conclusion that the issue is a "camera problem?"

The reason I ask is because it seems to be directly experienced only in Mac OS, not on Windows machines.

[Barry_Green]

It's only a camera problem if you see the glitch in the footage in-camera. And if that's what you're experiencing, then that means you've got some bad hardware somewhere in the chain -- either a bad card, or a bad HVX.

Or, maybe instead of the "glitch" we're talking about, you're talking about the OIS-jumping issue? In which case you should have the OIS off when you're using a dolly, and that should make the problem go away.

[Mike Savino]

I never use OIS and quit frankly I don't think that it does a heck of a lot.

While in the studio I reviewed the clips in-camera and on studio monitors and the glitch appeared. It only happens on a bunch of clips within the card and not the whole card. I don't recall this happening before. I had situations with small hits or weird audio spikes on channel 3 audio but the glitches I experienced are the serious ones as posted by other users here where the glitch goes across the screen and is in multiple locations that flash for 1 or 2 frames. I originally thought that it was a codec decompression problem that was random but it is not. While masking and roto may fix the problem, I will now feel that I have to check every take . Especially when you're in a location that costs big bucks and goes away after the shoot. I do hope that there is a fix in the future for this problem. Tape hits are much easier to fix.

I don't think that this is related but my headphone jack is suddenly intermitten and the switch for audio 1 needs to be in just the right place to use audio input 1 and forget the component jack... The worst design ever.

I wonder if all this is related?

My camera was purchased in December 2006. I 've done 30 or so shoots with it and this is really the first hardward problem I have experience. But I don't want to experience any errors that I didn't cause. Especially when ten of thousands of doolars are on the line. I should probably get some "negative" P2 insurance for all my shoots. Off to the repair center.

[Lenilenapi]

First question I would ask is did the problem only occur after the footage had been transferred (I think you said into a P2 store right?), and did you have the write-protection tab in place before transferring information?

The entire process in detail is the only way to try to track this down. Perhaps it is the camera, but only meticulously checking peoples work flow will tell us anything.

[Mike Savino]

The glitch happened during playback in the camera on the set and then after P2 store transfer on the mac.

I never use the write protection as everything goes to the P2 store.

My workflow:

Shoot
Transfer to P2 store via 8 gig cards
Import to the Mac

This is the first time this has happened. As I stated before I've had audio hits on ch. 3/4 and the occasional audio hit at the beginning of the shot.

I have a compositor who uses a PC download the footage to his PC laptop from the P2 card after I imported to the P2 store and he has the same bad clips.

I have about 7 clips that have the problem. The rest of the footage looks fine.

It makes you crazy because I can't reproduce the glitch. I'll be checking the clips more often now.

[dusterdoo]

So are you saying you still have it on a p2 card ?

[cre8tive]

How do you reach the conclusion that the issue is a "camera problem?"

The reason I ask is because it seems to be directly experienced only in Mac OS, not on Windows machines.

OK, David, you've seen my postings showing the glitch I have experienced and the fact that the cards, camera and edit system were PC only, right?

If you are saying the problem is predominately Mac, then I understand, but "only in Mac OS?"

Cre8tive

[esperman]

sounds like a P2 card problem. I'd isolate that particular card and test more.

[Mike Savino]

Niot sure if it's a card problem. I just shot another 4 cards full using two 8 GIG cards and offloaded to P2 store and imported to the Mac....no problems. You'd think that it would be consistant if it was a card problem.... Strrange...

I'm sending my camera in for repair. Where is the best place to send it to?

[Lenilenapi]

Mike, just to be clear - did you see it on playback in the camera before it ever left the camera and went into any other device?

Also, why can you not use write protection with the P2 store? I'm not familiar wirth it myself.

[David Saraceno]

If you are saying the problem is predominately Mac, then I understand, but "only in Mac OS?"

Cre8tive


My reading of the posts is that it is MacOS related.

I could be wrong, but I thought it was an OS X and FCP issue only.

Is it also extending to Windows and PCs?

[USLatin]

Here is a thread I started when I got the glitch... (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=942863&posted=1#post942863)

If you click on the link you'll see the severely destroyed frame (I got two ruined frames this instance).

This has happened before, but I deemed it a HDD problem since I was transferring to my Laptop's 4200 rpm drive... if hadn't happened in for a long time so I forgot about it. But when I went out to get some available lighting test shots for this short I am shooting in a week I got it again...

I DID NOT have the write protection switch on the write-protect position when transferring.

I have a PC laptop... a dv8130us from HP (http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-dv8130us-Notebook-Processor-LightScribe/dp/B000E21VOS)... the glitch happened with my Laptop's internal and a WD 1TB RAID1/0 HDD (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=270) hooked up via USB 2.0 which was at the moment set up in a RAID1.

I use Vegas 7.0e (latest as of this post), and I do have quite a bit of crap running in the background but not excessive.

I also tried using P2 Genie which I just got, but it could not back up a single dump... Iit wouldn't start and I got weird errors which I did not record. Then I tried copying manually and I got yet an other problem, where it couldn't copy some of the files... However I immediately tried dumping after a fresh re-start with nothing running and it didn't help. I then had to manually copy (no-biggie) and it did work that way only it errored on the copy if the LASTCLIP.txt which I created myself... but I got these horrible artifacts...

I ordered a different HDD, this time an enclosure from Thecus (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822102002) and two Seagate 7200.10 320GB drives (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148139). I wonder if I should just keep the 1TB for now since speed isn't much of an issue and aparently this doesn't isn't connection/HDD related. (I was waiting to get straight into a 4+ bay enclosure and the WD 1TB (P-O-S) was a hold-me-over to be used as storage later.


Where are we at? Is this something new? Does the write protection solve the issue? Has Pana commented?

[Mike Savino]

Seems to happen to only a few of us. Panny has not responded because its not happening to everyone. Looks to me like it could be electrical problem cause at the same time my headphone jack started to become finicky and I can hear timecode clicking in the headphone when it does work. (Not recorded but audible when playing back through the small speaker on the side) Maybe a short or something.???

To answer the import to Mac questions, I first saw the glitch when played back from the camera. NOT ON THE MAC. And no I don't have the cards as they get erase almost everyday.

Shot two more cards full yesterday and nothing. Camera---to P2 Store----to Mac.

I have a big shoot next week. I'm sure with the stress of trying to complete as many set-ups as possible I'll get a glitch. I will be checking all good takes from now on.

I love the P2 work flow... I can't see myself going back to my tape camera. ( which I still have... just in case)

I will be sending the camera in for repair once next week's shoot is over. Maybe the service center will find something.?

[USLatin]

Should I expect the problem to go away or at least ease off a bit by using the write protect while dumping?

[ozduc]

Should I expect the problem to go away or at least ease off a bit by using the write protect while dumping?

As of yet, I believe there hasn't been any reports of people having the problem when the cards were write protected. So it would seem so far, that is the safest method to avoid getting the glitch.

[USLatin]

Ok, so I guess I can expect this to be 90% taken care of by the write protection method... will post my experience when in post.

[ullanta]

Mike Savino seems to be seeing glitches in-camera; he at least has a problem that's neither Mac nor PC related; and which wouldn't be helped by the write-protect tab (since that would preclude recording at all).

Sounds like his cam has a lot of other problems, though, as well (bad connectors, audio spikes)...

[USLatin]

OK, so I just finished shooting "A Walk in the Dark" a short (10 to 15min) and we filled up my 8GB card about 25 times maybe 30... not a single artifact!

This time around I was dumping to an external HDD through my PC laptop using the write protect idea... I also made sure and had the PC powered with AC just for the heck of it...

Also, yesterday I went back to the bridge for an insert and I forgot to bring the HDD so I went ahead and dumped to my internal 4200rpm HDD while running on battery thinking that if anything went wrong I'd just come back (8 blocks away)... it is just fine!



For me the write protect eliminated artifacts all together... I was getting one to about 10 destroyed frames per 8GB card... now: ZERO

[HarryMaynard]

I have had a similar problem ( tetris style blocks ) when I copy to the P2 Store it stops copying and flashes an LED warning. If I try directly into my PCMCIA slot it shows an 'error code 36' and identifies the corrupt clip. This only happens with one particular P2 card. I have tried 3 others, in both slots and they have all worked fine. It seems to me that it is the card that is at fault.

[David Saraceno]

What system and software versions are we referring to?

[HarryMaynard]

What system and software versions are we referring to?
Mac OS 10.4.9 P2 store connected directly with USB. If I copy to P2 Store then it shows 'error' . if I use P2 store as a card reader ( drag and drop ) then an error shows during transfer and stops. the only way round this has been to identify the clip and remove it by inserting the card back into the camera

[HarryMaynard]

I had the 'Glitch' . . and I narrowed it down to the P2 card I was using. I tried all the other options, ie: write protect, from P2 store etc and it still showed up. . . but annoyingly, itermittant. I suspected the actual card. I sent it back to my suppliers, who sent it to Germany, who sent it to Japan. I received a new card after 3 weeks and the 'glitch' has disappeared. I sent with the card a description of the faults, but received no feedback from Panasonic.

[monkeyking]

Was this a 16gb card?

[vscomm]

I just shot tons of footage on a big expensive 14 hour day and EVERY SINGLE CLIP has the drop outs. Unbelievable. I'm a dead man. this clips played fine in the p2 viewer from panasonic.
Here's my workflow: hvx200 in 720 24pn on a 16gb card. camera has latest firmware for 16gb card. Put p2 card in pcmcia slot on a 2 year old Compact PC laptop. Load via laptop to maxtor drive via usb. Write protect was left untouched (off). Came back to studio to transfer to FCP and find that every clip is a mess. reimported, same problem. DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND CANNOT FIND A WAY TO SALVAGE THE FOOTAGE. P2 CARDS WERE ERASED AS PART OF NORMAL WORKFLOW.
-dead in the water.

[THoff]

If the digital fruit salad isn't there when you view the clips in P2 Viewer, then your clips are fine.

Either the files got corrupted in the transfer to the Mac, or FCP introduced the problem when it rewrapped the clips into QuickTime containers. There was a problem with that in early 5.0.x versions of FCP, and apparently there is a new but slightly different problem with handling P2 media in the latest FCS.

[USLatin]

If you dumped to a Mac laptop or are cutting in FCP ask the others, I am in the PC realm.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there is nothing you can do to salvage the footage other than Photoshop every frame. I hope this is not the case for you, but once the transfer is done and there are corrupted pixels, if you re-used the cards then there is no clean version of the footage. I really wish I knew of a solution. Keep track of this thread just in case I am wrong but I wouldn't gt my hopes up man. I am really sorry.


The way to avoid corruption when dumping cards, which worked flawlessly for me, is to switch the write protection tab on the P2 card itself before copying the file over. This has proven 100% effective for me in an XP-32bit laptop. I was getting many corrupted clips, but not every single one... more like one out of three or less than that. Since I started hitting the write protection switch I have not gotten a single bad clip.

All my best to you bro.

[hvx_germanboy]

I just shot tons of footage on a big expensive 14 hour day and EVERY SINGLE CLIP has the drop outs. Unbelievable. I'm a dead man. this clips played fine in the p2 viewer from panasonic.
Here's my workflow: hvx200 in 720 24pn on a 16gb card. camera has latest firmware for 16gb card. Put p2 card in pcmcia slot on a 2 year old Compact PC laptop. Load via laptop to maxtor drive via usb. Write protect was left untouched (off). Came back to studio to transfer to FCP and find that every clip is a mess. reimported, same problem. DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND CANNOT FIND A WAY TO SALVAGE THE FOOTAGE. P2 CARDS WERE ERASED AS PART OF NORMAL WORKFLOW.
-dead in the water.

I am really sorry to hear that, but how is the situation if you see the footage in the P2 viewer now? No artifacts, or finally artifacts too?

I would always give it a try and connect the maxtor on a PC again and check it there...that should definitly give you the answer (in NLE or P2viewer) if your footage is still fine or has been corrupted on a MAC....good luck...!

[murrayjob]

Has this "corruption" problem been resolved, I've owned a HPX502 (Asia-Pacific version of the 500) for just a couple of weeks.
I noticed 1x corrupted frame on each of three clips, only one frame but a real concern especially when you have no idea where it has come from, the original clips were fine in the camera but when I copied them to my laptop the corruption has appeared, any definitive answers or work around for this problem ?.
(Vision was shot SD DV 50i 4:2:0 from a 16gb card directly plugged in to the PCMCIA slot of an ACER Aspire 5024wlmi laptop PC running XP Home with 1x GB of Ram, files directly copied through to an external USB 2.0 250gb drive)

[Ted Spencer]

Was the P2 card write protected when you copied the files? So far this seems to be the only solution. Instances of this problem on the PC, while formerly almost unheard of, now seem to be popping up from time to time. Previously it was thought to be a Mac-only issue.

Again, write-protecting the card before transferring is evidently the answer. If you still have the original data on the card, you could try retransferring. If not, you might be able to fix it in something like Photoshop since it's only one frame.

Best of luck to you.

[USLatin]

Just to reiterate what Ted already dispensed. You are be one of the lucky ones. If it is only one frame you should be able to export those frames to Photoshop and clone them.

Also, I believe that not allowing WinCrap to try to write little markers of how far it has copied to the card does the trick. This is a guess, but that write-protecting the card saves your footage isn't guess. It has worked flawlessly for almost a year for me and nobody that read about the trick has come back to say they still have the problem.

[Can Scanner]

I ran into this problem today. I had copied footage from a 4GB card via an Acer laptop directly to a WD external HDD.
When I noticed the glitch, I copied the same card via the HVX to my desktop computer, and no glitch!