Need Help Editing Feature Film Off Of Panasonic HVX-200, Technical Questions Galore

matthewkuborn

matthewkuborn

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Hello, I was recently contracted to cut a feature film that is now being shot on the Panasonic HVX-200 with an adaptor for 35mm lenses. They are shooting to multiple 8gb p2 cards and dumping them on set. Now, they are takeing these cards and dumping them to an external Maxtor 600gb USB 2.0 drive via a PC laptop. Now the A.C. working on the show who has been relegated this task has never worked a feature before and has defiantly not worked with the P2 workflow, for that matter he isn’t really that computer literate. (He’s an awesome guy it’s just that he’s camera dept. and not a post/tech guy). Here is my first prob. they are using Avid on set to view the footage off of the laptop. So according to the DP they have to keep all of the footage contained in a single root directory(contents) folder on the root of the drive. SO, the A.C. had been instructed to simply open the p2 cards and copy the video to the existing video file in the master contents file in the root of the disk… so on and so forth with all of the folder, clip, audio, and icon (as far as I can tell nothing is in the proxy or voice files). They have completely disregarded all of the LASTCLIP.TXT files from each card as they felt they are unnecessary. This brings me to question #1

1.) What does the LASTCLIP.TXT do? Feel free to be overly complicated, technical etc. Any details to its purpose? No one seems to know.
2.) Can a LASTCLIP.TXT file be created for the above- described amalgamation of 25 days of shooting into ONE contents folder? How?

So, I get all of these files on a Windows drive that my G5 can only read and not write to. There are a lot, A LOT, of discrepancies, this brings me to a few P2 questions and a F.C.P. question. (I am running FCP 5.0.4, QTime 7.0.4 and Tiger 10.4.6)

1.) Am I correct in assuming that the clip files are references that some how link the correspondingly named files in the video, audio, and icon folders?
2.) If I am editing in FCP and missing clip files can I use the video files in the video directory? Is there any third party software that can help me solve this issue?
3.) MOST IMPORTANT – In FCP, if I go to import from Panasonic P2 and chose the above described master contents directory and arrange the clips by name then go to the clip directory and open it next to the import window and also arrange it by name should both window’s items alphabetically match and have the exact same titles in both windows? More concisely why would I have clip files that do now appear in the import window?
4.) Is there Avid HD for Mac that edits the native MXF video? How does it Sync with the video? How does it all work Basil?
5.) WTF does FCP not natively edit MXF, I don’t want to have to cut this in avid, but I could… I would just have to purchase something I assume… I have Xpress Pro 4.8.1, what version for Mac has the native MXF capability?

If you can help me with ANY of these issues I’d love to give you a technical post advisement credit. It’s a $40,000 indie flick with at least DVD distribution (maybe theatrical? Haha) so its worth your time to answer maybe? I’ll bare your children? Leave your name and what email if you want some kind of credit, Thank you so much for reading all that and in advance for any replies.)
 
The lastclip.txt file is important. You must have it. There is a thread if you do a search on how to rebuid it.

I believe avid has native mxf file support.
 
No, I realize it is important, I am just wondering in what respect? No thread has any definite answer on how to recreate it.
People are saying you last "clip file" will be your first number (numerically last or....?)
and after that every one else is befuddled on the other options for the last 2 numbers.
 
As I understand it, the "lastclip.txt" file is needed to marry any clip that spanned two different P2 cards. That's what someone told us at the LA Bootcamp.
 
i mean other than that function (which i can live without) can anyone tell me what other use it may serve, or is that the only one?
 
I do not know the proper way to "rebuild" a LASTCLIP.TXT file, but I have had luck with copy and paste method. You simply take a LASTCLIP.TXT file and get info on it (apple-I), then uncheck the lock. This makes it possible to copy and past the file. If you have a clip that spans two cards, this method will not work.
Good luck.
 
darwinandpaine said:
As I understand it, the "lastclip.txt" file is needed to marry any clip that spanned two different P2 cards. That's what someone told us at the LA Bootcamp.
Click to expand...

This is as I understand it as well.

EXCEPT FCP does NOT use the lastclip.txt from what I understand. If you have to marry clips together you have to find them in the bin and "join thru edit" in the timeline.

As I've stated before, the first time I ever used the HVX I didn't bring over the lastclip files. It imported into FCP just fine.
 
Oh god… “The Sarlacc” you just made me pee a little! That’s what I like to hear! So if he is correct, and from what I am seeing he is (anyone feel free to rebuff) what could be causing some mxf’s that are in my master clip folder to not show up in the FCP import window? Any one have any insight into any of the other questions I posted? Thank you all so much!
 
We also are missing LASTCLIP.TXT files for some of our footage. I searched but was unable to find the thread explaining how to rebuild them. Anyone have a link?
 
Unfortunately this footage is part of a project that is already being edited in Final Cut. So if it is at all possible to rebuild the LASTCLIP.TXT files that is the route we need to take.

I have seen a ton of posts about this problem around the web but so far it doesn't look like any body has figured out a solution.
 
I've had a similar problem and wrote my own last clip file. I had someone capture for me and we had a miss communication. He renamed the contents folder and didn't transfer the lastclip.txt. We did a bunch of trouble shooting and eventually found a solution.

first off u must have a folder labeled contents or create a new one. for some reason fcp needs to recognize it as such.
the contents folder includes 6 folders: Audio, Clip, Icon, Proxy, Video, Voice. icon is thumbnails and video is mxf files tha tis where your last clip is.

take the name of the last clip in the contents folder<video folder make it's name the first line in the new lastclip.txt file. if you are unsure what the last clip is view them as a list and have the most recent date modified be the last one.

1.0 is the second line for the firmware i'm assuming

and x# is the last line. x is one number more than how many clips are in your folder. IE if you have 6 mxf files in your folder than the last number would be 7.

EX.
0003HJ
1.0
7

Save as lastclip text file. and put this txt file along with the contents folder into a seperate folder.

I'm hoping that you guys can recreate contents folders and write your own lastclip.txt files.

It worked for me, I can't guarantee it will work for your situation. We never took the contents out of the original folder, we only changed the name of it.


For future reference. I make individual folders for each card and drag all contents and lastclip.txt file into that. When u import into fcp5.0.4 using p2import. u can locate each card individually and also set appropriate loggin bins. That's my workflow, I would love to hear others.

Good luck

I hope that makes sense.
 
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I will give step by step instructions with screenshots if some one tells me how to post images onto the thread. I don't have a server and want to attach an image so I can explain the process a little more clearly. Do I need a server because any time i drag a picture onto the reply it just puts up

/Users/Sponester/Desktop/Picture 1.png

can u guys view this.

please help, so I can help
 
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Just to varify:

I took a bunch of old contents folders from multiple projects and made a new folder based off of my directions.

You can have one big folder with all of your clips in it.

You just have to drag the corresponding files into the appropriate files.

Audio files into the AUDIO folder
final cut xml files into CLIP FOLDER
Thumbnails (bmp's) into ICON
nothing into PROXY
exe xml's into VIDEO
nothing into voice

Put those 6 folders into a CONTENTS folder and write a LASTCLIP.txt file and your as good as gold.


I just took 3 seperate CONTENTS folders and made one, wrote my own txt file and imported with p2 into fcp.

If you don't have the bmp's don't worry u can still do it. those are just the thumbnails for the P2 import viewer.
 
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