Dumping P2 to ext drive through a laptop

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dvxnerd

Active member
I'll be taking my laptop around with an external firewire drive attached. I noticed that the data on the cards in contained in a folder called CONTENTS. This folder has 6 subfolders containing Audio, Video, etc.

When dumping the full cards during my shoot, should I put the data from each card into a new directory? If I try to dump all the cards into the same directory, won't it overwrite the other data in those directories?

-Nerd
 
Yes, make a new directory for each card. Name the master directory after your project, and then under that directory make individual card directories, such as "Card 1" and "Card 2" etc. Then copy the full contents of the P2 card (meaning, the CONTENTS folder and the LASTCLIP.TXT file) over to the "Card 1" directory, and the next card to the Card 2 directory, etc...
 
Thanks Barry. I may have a big project in 2 weeks, so it's good to know all this stuff. I need your book badly. :)
 
Sorry to cross post, but got no reply in the technical section. Rightly so, because it was a dumb mistake, but...

I had been renaming the content folders themselves to help in archiving. Obviously, the dumb thing I was doing was renaming the file on the p2 card itself. This caused a problem with on camera playback when I reinserted the freshly dumped, but not yet reformated cards back into the camera. It did not recognise the renamed file, and in fact created a new, empty content file next to the old renamed one. (strangely enough, I was able to record some more footage on that additional content file, even though the card was 'full'...I wonder how much extra footage you can squeeze out of the card this way?)

Now I wait until it's copied to HD and rename it there. The Question...Will this screw up file recognition by FCP as well? I won't be able to test that out until tomorrow night, when FCP Studio arrives.
 
Probably. Don't rename the contents folders! Why would you do that anyway? Just put each in its own subdirectory -- "Card 1", "Card 2", etc. Make the "Card 1" directory, then copy "CONTENTS" and "LASTCLIP.TXT" into the "Card 1" directory. Repeat for Card 2, etc. I've been doing it this way for months and it works flawlessly.

I think you're asking for trouble if you start changing the card contents and renaming folders.
 
Because I have a huge issue with not being able to name the cards and give them "roll/tape" numbers, and I HATE HATE HATE the way the P-Store is a big clip dump with NO organization...I have been dumping the cards to the Hard drive then to the a FW external.

What I do Is create Roll 1, 2, 3 etc folders. Then if I fill up one card I dump it into the Roll 1 folder, and then put that folder to the external under a big folder with the project name.

If the time shoots over on to both the cards. then I dump one in the Roll folder...rename it Contents A, and the 2nd one and rename it Content B.

Now, the editor will have rolls that correspond with my log/report book and all is organized and nice looking.

Its an extra step and can be a huge pain in the ass, especially when you are location in the boonies like I am currently.

But, there has to some kind of organization...and Panasonic really dropped the ball on this part of the camera.
 
OK, I take that back...for "rolls" that went over two cards I made a folder for the role number, and two sub folders called ContentsA and ContentsB. THEN, I put the corresponding CONTENTS folders into them.

They work fine to import to FCP. No, I haven't included any of the LASTCLIP.txt files.

Anyone know what purpose they really serve?
 
yeah, i've been reading stern warnings about keeping "lastclip.txt" files.. what's all the hoopla about? i didn't save these files in my first project and everything still imports just fine..
what's the deal?
 
Barry_Green said:
Probably. Don't rename the contents folders! Why would you do that anyway? Just put each in its own subdirectory -- "Card 1", "Card 2", etc. Make the "Card 1" directory, then copy "CONTENTS" and "LASTCLIP.TXT" into the "Card 1" directory. Repeat for Card 2, etc. I've been doing it this way for months and it works flawlessly.

I think you're asking for trouble if you start changing the card contents and renaming folders.
Click to expand...


I thought each file was named differently anyway so it shouldn't matter. Is this not correct? I don't usually do the transfer read part, so I have not really noticed.

Can you put everything into one big folder i.e one folder for all the contents files, and one folder for all the audio files etc?

Also, do all NLE's need the LASTCLIP.TXT file, or just FCP?

I could try all these things, but usually somone already has and it is easier to just ask here. :dankk2:
 
You could probably put them all in one folder, but the nextclip & lastclip features may or may not work if you do that. Haven't tried it though.
 
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