P2 media offline after restart

C

cmus

Active member
I have upgraded to Media Composer 2.7. The new workflow for P2 is a great improvement. However, there is one problem that I am hoping one of you has a fix for. Here's the workflow for this project:

Shooting to P2 card.
Copying entire contents of P2 cards to external hard drive.
Creating a bin in MC corresponding to each P2 card on the hard drive.
Using the Import P2 clips function to bring in the footage into each bin.
Import and editing works flawlessly.

now the problem...

I close MC and then come back to work on the project again. When I open the project, all media clips appear offline. I have to reimport each P2 card again. All locators and marks are still on the clips when I reimport, but this project is growing large and there are about 18 P2 cards I have to reimport every time I restart MC. Is there some setting I have overlooked that will allow the imported P2 clips to appear online after restarting Avid?

Mahalo,
cmus
 
Are you editing off the external hard drive? Do you have multiple external drives? What's might be happening is, that since Avid relies on drive letters to locate online media, your hard drives are getting mounted all weird when in the Avid. There's a couple things that you might try...

1) Under (I believe) 'File' select 'Mount All'. This should rescan the system for attached drives, and more than likely, this will cure your problem. You can also try to 'Refresh Media Database' which is also under 'File'.

2) If that doesn't work, select all your offline clips, right-click or click the hamburger menu, and select 'Relink'. Tell the tool that pops up to scan all drives, and to relink to any online media. That should bring all your clips back online.

3) Or, I could be completely talking out of my asinine posterior and neither of these fix the problem. In that case, it's probably something more sinister... like Gremlins.

Have fun!
 
Unfortunately, it looks like #3 is correct. None of the other possibilities (Mount All, Refresh Media Database, or Relink) worked.

I am editing off an external drive, and I do have multiple drives. I have them all set up, however, to each map to a different drive letter which I never change for a given drive.

Any other ideas? Thanks for trying...
 
Ah... a Google search for 'avid import p2 offline' will reveal all...

Post on the Avid forums about this very issue: clicky. Seems to be a "feature". I'm wondering... could you trying consolidating the media in the bins, and just pointing the output directory to the input directory? It shouldn't copy/duplicate/delete anything, but it might break the existing links and then relink them, as well as create a new media database file (which is what lets Avid quickly see what is present on a drive).
 
cbrougham -

Thanks for the links. Looks like this is a known bug/feature. Hope they get it fixed soon. The consolidate method is exactly what I was hoping to be able to avoid. Seems like it would be real simple to tell the system to remember the locations of all the "virtual" P2 drives it registers upon first importing the footage. If Avid developers are listening - please fix this.

aloha,
cmus
 
This has been a pain from the beginning. Avid has to rescan all P2 media drives/folders everytime he boots. As of version X.7.0 you have the new 'virtual cards' function, but you still have to remount and rescan all mounted virtual folders. And, as these folders fill up, it takes a long time.

The only way to avoid this, is to move all MXF files from the CONTENTS folders to a single /Avid MediaFiles/MXF/1 folder on the same drive. This way, Avid only scans the folder once. The next time Avid just boots. If you add MXF files later on, Avid only has to scan the new material. I use this method when working with large P2 folders ( +500 clips). It's usually very quick( <10sec) because it's a 'move files', not a 'copy files' process. But there is no way to turn them back into a P2-card afterwards. Not that is necessary though.

For more info on the MediaFiles workflow, look at the sticky thread at the top.
 
Importing P2's is a 2 step process...with some rules. I had to discover this workflow myself as the Avid documentation is vague and incomplete. You will need to do this if you want your clips to stay online. This is the process for 2.7 MC or 5.7 Xpress on OSX. I have not verified this on Windows. If anyone can do this and report back that would be great.

Step 1: Clips to Bin...
(Actually this is from the Avid Documentation and it is correct first step) To import P2 clips directly from a P2 card or a copy of a P2 card on any accessible drive:
a. Open the bin into which you want to import the master clips and make sure it is the active window.

b. Go to File > Import P2 > Clips to Bin.
The Browse for Folder dialog box opens.

c. Navigate to the P2 volume:
Navigate to the actual P2 card.
If you copied the card to another drive, navigate to that drive and then to the folder that contains the Contents folder.
Do not navigate into the Contents folder or into other folders in the volume.The Import P2 option imports all the clips on the card.

d. Click OK.


 Now if you stop here, you can edit with your clips, but if you close out the program and try to come back your clips will appear OFFLINE. This next step is crucial for keeping them ONLINE.

Step 2: Import Media

a. Now with that same bin that you just did step 1. Select all the clips in that bin.

b. Then Go to File > Import P2 > Media.
The Avid will now copy all the files(video&audio) from your P2 drives or folders and put them into the media drive(s) that is setup for your Avid editing system. Now your clips will stay online all the time.

CAUTION: HERE ARE THE RULES FOR IMPORTING. failure to follow these rules could result in offline media, even though you followed the steps.

RULE 1 - You can only do "Step 2: Import Media" to a single bin ONCE! If you want to import more cards but already did the "Import Media" step to a bin; Create a new bin to import to.

RULE 2 - You must have all other bins (besides the one your importing to) CLOSED. It should have that little blue icon next to it in the project window. This includes sequences. If you do not do this, any other bins that you have open during this import process, the clips in those other bins will go OFFLINE.

RULE 3(actually this is more of a tip) - You can import multiple cards into a single bin. Just repeat Step 1 until you have all the clips you want in that bin, then do Step 2. This is the correct method if you have spanned clips on multiple P2 cards and you want the avid to see them properly.

Your media will now stay online even if you quit, restart or whatever. Just remember to follow these steps and rules everytime you want to import P2.

Hopefully this helps.

Take care
 
but.... if how to do if you work with 720/25 PN ??? improting to a 1080 will probably change resolution? and the when a new Avid can handle 720/25 PN ? how to restore it.
 
What dirtysanchez outlined is correct. I discovered that too but haven't yet updated the sticky. This is now a good time to do that. :) Many thanks!
 
Thanks a lot to dirtysanchez, his method works perfectly.
Does anyone know how come Avid can only manage only ONE "media" (consolidate) operation ?
 
on going problem

on going problem

Hi everyone... I've attempted the afforementioned solutions and I am still having trouble getting my P2 to import normally.

I recently had a friend use my HVX200 and FS100 to record my brothers wedding. Sure enough the FS100 fell and got damaged. It was sent away to a data recovery facility and we've managed to pull all the content from it although with some packet loss in certain clips. Luckily I had a spare FS100 with me and my P2 cards to finish out recording for the day.

Now, upon trying to load all the footage, I've been able to import both the P2 card footage and the second FS100's content. As for the dropped FS100, I can view all the footage with both video and audio in P2 viewer. I can also import "clips to bin" and it plays fine in the in Avid until I try to "import media". At this point, instead of consolidating my media, it makes everything appear offline in my bin.

Does anyone know what is happening and if there is a different method that I can get my media actually "online".

Thanks,
Craig
 
Ratzy said:
Hi everyone... I've attempted the afforementioned solutions and I am still having trouble getting my P2 to import normally.

I recently had a friend use my HVX200 and FS100 to record my brothers wedding. Sure enough the FS100 fell and got damaged. It was sent away to a data recovery facility and we've managed to pull all the content from it although with some packet loss in certain clips. Luckily I had a spare FS100 with me and my P2 cards to finish out recording for the day.

Now, upon trying to load all the footage, I've been able to import both the P2 card footage and the second FS100's content. As for the dropped FS100, I can view all the footage with both video and audio in P2 viewer. I can also import "clips to bin" and it plays fine in the in Avid until I try to "import media". At this point, instead of consolidating my media, it makes everything appear offline in my bin.

Does anyone know what is happening and if there is a different method that I can get my media actually "online".

Thanks,
Craig
Click to expand...

You may have to use the Media Tool, have you tried that yet?
 
I have a little experience using that method. My understanding is that you must copy all the MXF files into an Avid MediaFiles folder. Within it, would be an MXF folder and then a folder titled 1, right. I have got some of these folders on a copy of my media drives and I think they were originally created from other projects. Can I create a folder 2 for this project? How do I get this project to only import the new footage and not the older mxf files?
 
Ratzy said:
I have a little experience using that method. My understanding is that you must copy all the MXF files into an Avid MediaFiles folder. Within it, would be an MXF folder and then a folder titled 1, right. I have got some of these folders on a copy of my media drives and I think they were originally created from other projects. Can I create a folder 2 for this project? How do I get this project to only import the new footage and not the older mxf files?
Click to expand...

Yes you would want to copy and paste both the video and audio files into the folder. Yes you can make a folder titled 2, or 3,4, etc. I would just copy them into folder 2, then use the media tool and try to distinguish manually without taking the other files offline (it can get ugly and un-render projects from my experience.) But if you want to take the other files offline, just create a new folder inside mxf, say call it "hidden", then move 1 into that folder. Then when you use the media tool you will only see the contents of folder 2. Shut down Avid and move folder 1 out of the hidden folder, start back up and everything will be there.
 
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