Any interest in an alternative to P2 Genie?

T

ThousandWordPicture

Active member
Hi everyone,

I used P2 Genie for a while on set, until one day it failed on me and nuked the card and didn't copy the data. I found it to be less than ideal if a couple of different ways, and was never really happy with it, more a gut feeling than anything else.

So all these months later I put together a design doc for my ideal copy software and was able to get someone to code it all up for me, and his software is super slick. It's quite similar to P2 Genie in most respects, except that it double checks the integrity of the data and writes a text file with each file that was copied, its size and the date/time the copy was done.

-Copies to 1 or 2 locations using 1 read and 2 writes (meaning it's not much slower to copy to 2 locations)
-verifies the copy with each a size check (for speed) or a bit for bit check (for bullet proofness)
-logging to a .log file within each card folder for just that individual card and to a master log that is backed up on both destination drives as well as the system drive the app is running from and contains all the copies. All time stamped and thoroughly logged and named by project name (project name.log).
-optional sound files for copy start, success and fail - allows me to shoot with my laptop lid closed in my backback when doing solo MOS stuff so I can just keep shoving them in without looking, knowing all my data is there
-auto ejects the card after successful copy
-made with extra love

The next version will have an auto format option, an option to pop up the format box to do it manually (in case you have any doubts about the copy) or no format as it is now.

I'm wondering 2 things... first, do you guys have any feature suggestions? Anything I'm missing in that workflow?

And secondly, is there any interest out there in the community for this software or is the market saturated by P2 Genie? I was thinking I could suggest to the guy to put some kind of security on it and actually sell it for real and get some decent return on his time instead of just the peanuts I'm paying him.

Again, it's basically the same with just some extra piece of mind features that I personally really like and need.

Any thoughts?
 
I'd certainly be interested in checking it out. I'm headed to Yellowstone this month for several weeks so I could really put it through its paces.
 
Get me a program with P2 Genie functionality that works in GNU/Linux, and I'll pay top dollar. Of course you'd have to find a way to get P2 Cards working in Linux first.


"I was thinking I could suggest to the guy to put some kind of security on it and actually sell it for real and get some decent return on his time instead of just the peanuts I'm paying him."
Click to expand...
If by "security" you mean impliment some kind of Product Activation, then I'm not interested, at any price.
 
TwistedLincoln said:
Get me a program with P2 Genie functionality that works in GNU/Linux, and I'll pay top dollar. Of course you'd have to find a way to get P2 Cards working in Linux first.
Click to expand...
I will mention it to him. Don't hold your breath :p

TwistedLincoln said:
If by "security" you mean impliment some kind of Product Activation, then I'm not interested, at any price.
Click to expand...
I think you will probably have to put in a key, like most software, and agree to a 1 or 2 seat licence. But it won't activate the way XP does, he won't want to put in the time for that kind of functionality, and I also hate that kind of stuff.

Sounds like people are as interested in the software as I am (bit for bit verification is so hot). Since the author is already set up business-wise, it won't cost him much to put it up for sale, so he wants to go ahead with that once it's done. He should hopefully have a finished version near the end of the month for final testing, and then for sale soon after!

So get in now, before it's too late, with feature requests. Is there anything you want your copy software to do that's not already on that list?
 
Are you talking about Mac or PC software? If Mac, I'd be interested in checking it out for the verification feature. The P2 Genie folks promised a verification feature, but none has been forthcoming since the original version was released almost a year ago.
 
monkeyking said:
HD Log by Imagine Products has a free P2 downloading program.
Click to expand...

I don't think that that company offers a free downloading p2 program.

Do you have a link and what is its name?

HDLog is its priciest product.
 
http://www.imagineproducts.com/hdlog.htm
HD LOG Bronze (Mac) is the least expensive of the HD Log series at $300, but they recently added the free P2 download feature as part of the demo version even if you don't buy HD LOG.
I'm not affiliated w/Imagine Prod. , but I may add HD LOG to my arsenal soon.

google and you shall find.

chris li/Wash. DC dp
 
Copying without checking is like shooting without recording...

Copying without checking is like shooting without recording...

I'd love to buy this software! Count me in!

I suggest an erase-if-verfied feature, which would erase the card if the copy is verified but not if it is not.
 
Having a option to go from the card to DVD in data form not video for a backup purpose.

like as if it was a disk writing software.

and the option to copy from 2 or more cards at once for those than can
 
An option, to turn of the copy of audio files would be nice. So the copy-process should be mutch faster, wenn you don't recorded audio.

If this files are needed by the p2-format, the program could create some dummy files, with no content.
 
Here's an option I'm looking for: An invert-on-the-fly option that would read the MXF files from the P2 card, invert and reverse the image data, and write it in either the same-named destination MXF file or as an option, a separate flipped MXF file. That way, those of us using inverting 35mm adapters don't have to flip all the clips to edit them.
 
Hi everyone,

Sorry, things have been busy.

dstarnes said:
I'd love to buy this software! Count me in!

I suggest an erase-if-verfied feature, which would erase the card if the copy is verified but not if it is not.
Click to expand...

It will do this.

gdot101 said:
Having a option to go from the card to DVD in data form not video for a backup purpose.

like as if it was a disk writing software.

and the option to copy from 2 or more cards at once for those than can
Click to expand...
A DVD backup would be sweet. I will see how hard this will be... it may be too difficult/time consuming for a release feature, but perhaps could be added later.

2 or more cards should be possible.

Kermit said:
An option, to turn of the copy of audio files would be nice. So the copy-process should be mutch faster, wenn you don't recorded audio.

If this files are needed by the p2-format, the program could create some dummy files, with no content.
Click to expand...

Are you sure you need this? The audio files are quite small compared to the video, and are not usually more than a few hundred megs. The program can copy a full card 4GB card in 3 minutes with verification on my Core2Duo 1.66GHz 2GB RAM machine to a USB 2.0 drive. You can copy to two drives in 3:30, which should still give you enough buffer to shoot 1080 with backup and verification and just hotswap cards out. I really think it would mean the difference of only a handful of seconds.

If you really need those extra seconds, it shouldn't be too difficult to do. Why don't you delete the \Audio folder on a P2 card and put it through your workflow to see if you need dummy files? It's hard for me to test since I use avid and certainly don't need the audio files.


behrr said:
Here's an option I'm looking for: An invert-on-the-fly option that would read the MXF files from the P2 card, invert and reverse the image data, and write it in either the same-named destination MXF file or as an option, a separate flipped MXF file. That way, those of us using inverting 35mm adapters don't have to flip all the clips to edit them.
Click to expand...

I think when we get into actually interpreting and changing the picture data we're into a whole other ball game. I will ask for you, but it seems like that's quite a few levels beyond what we're doing.



Thanks for your suggestions everyone. Keep the coming!
 
Are you sure you need this? The audio files are quite small compared to the video, and are not usually more than a few hundred megs. The program can copy a full card 4GB card in 3 minutes with verification on my Core2Duo 1.66GHz 2GB RAM machine to a USB 2.0 drive. You can copy to two drives in 3:30, which should still give you enough buffer to shoot 1080 with backup and verification and just hotswap cards out. I really think it would mean the difference of only a handful of seconds.
Click to expand...

My problem is not the size of the audio-files, but the ammount. When I shot up to 100 clips on a 8 GB card, i have about 400 audio-files. That slows up my copy process every time. The video is copied in 7 minutes, but the audio took another 6 minutes, when there are so many files.

If you really need those extra seconds, it shouldn't be too difficult to do. Why don't you delete the \Audio folder on a P2 card and put it through your workflow to see if you need dummy files? It's hard for me to test since I use avid and certainly don't need the audio files.
Click to expand...

I have tested it now. You can delete the files in the audio folder, but than you have to change the .xml file in the clip folder and remove this part of the file:

Code: 
[SIZE=2]
<Audio>
 <AudioFormat>MXF</AudioFormat>
 <SamplingRate>48000</SamplingRate>
 <BitsPerSample>16</BitsPerSample>
 <AudioIndex>
  <StartByteOffset>32768</StartByteOffset>
  <DataSize>1259520</DataSize>
 </AudioIndex>
</Audio>
<Audio>
 <AudioFormat>MXF</AudioFormat>
 <SamplingRate>48000</SamplingRate>
 <BitsPerSample>16</BitsPerSample>
 <AudioIndex>
  <StartByteOffset>32768</StartByteOffset>
  <DataSize>1259520</DataSize>
 </AudioIndex>
</Audio>
<Audio>
 <AudioFormat>MXF</AudioFormat>
 <SamplingRate>48000</SamplingRate>
 <BitsPerSample>16</BitsPerSample>
 <AudioIndex>
  <StartByteOffset>32768</StartByteOffset>
  <DataSize>1259520</DataSize>
 </AudioIndex>
</Audio>
<Audio>
 <AudioFormat>MXF</AudioFormat>
 <SamplingRate>48000</SamplingRate>
 <BitsPerSample>16</BitsPerSample>
 <AudioIndex>
  <StartByteOffset>32768</StartByteOffset>
  <DataSize>1259520</DataSize>
 </AudioIndex>
</Audio>
 
[/SIZE]

The values are from my test-file. After doing this, FCP is able to import the P2-data without the audio-part. So it would be nice, if your program could also change the xml file. :)
 
Kermit, I have forwarded the information on. Your feature should be possible.

gdot101, DVD burning may be a challenge and might have to get patched in later. He says he already knows how to do it on a Mac, though, so it should be in the first version for Mac. Either way, it is a goal for at least a later version for both platforms, even if it can't be included right away.

2 or more cards should be no problem. They each show up as individual drive letters, right? We will just allow the user to select a range of drive letters instead of 1. It can likely only do 1 card at a time, though. When that feature goes in you will have to test it, since I only have the 1 PCMCIA slot. I'll be in contact via PM when that comes up.

behrr, sorry mate, as I suspected that's too much mucking around inside the codec to be included in this program :(

The Mac version will be started after a few sales have gone through of the PC version. Since the author is not a shooter, and has no idea about us in this community, he'll need to see a return on his time investment before investing more time in a Mac version. He says he does a lot of Mac programming, and figures he can translate his own code with a lot of ease. So I think you can consider the Mac version imminent as long as a few people pick up the PC version.

We should be nearing a final beta version for closed testing shortly, possibly within a week or so, so please get your feature requests in now!
 
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