16Gig card says "spanned"

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
I just installed the 16G P2 card driver in my 15" Powerbook. Then i tested it with some long takes recorded onto on P2 card. I was shootingt 720 24PN
When I looked at the shots in the import window of FCP (5.1.2) one of the takes ( probably the one that went over the previous 20 minute limit) said "spanned" on it. But I was only using one card. I did leave the cmera recording right up to the end of the card but that was on another take and that take seemed fine. I didn't actually try to import these shots into FCP.

What is this about? I need to use it tomorrow and don't want any problems. Don't have time to troubleshoot today either.

- Lenny
 
Does FCP say "spanned" for any recording that consists of more than one clip? Because of limitations in the FAT32 file system used by P2 cards, no single file can be larger than 4GB, so a 16GB card containing one continuous recording will consist of up to four clips that need to be reassembled by the NLE.
 
it probably says spanned because the cards are fat32 formatted and fat32 only supports 1.92 gb file sizes and it spanned the clip from one to another that exceeded the 1.92 gig file size.

edit: yeah what he said above.
 
The maximum FAT32 file size is 4GB, not 1.92GB.

Focus Enhancements' FS-100 uses smaller 2GB segments when recording, but this is their choice. My guess is that in their firmware they use signed 32-bit integers to keep track of the file size instead of an unsigned 32-bit integer as used by FAT32.
 
Here is my experiance with using the 16gig cards:

For long takes 4 - 8gig, due to the Fat32 4gig limit, it is split into two clips that say spanned and are automatically joined together on import into Final Cut Pro.
For longer takes that are spit into 3 or more 4 gig chunks, it says incomplete, and have to be joined manually in Final Cut Pro.

I don't know who to blame, Panasonic or Apple, but this is kind of a pain in the ass and I hope it gets fixed soon.

Note: I was using FCP 5.1.4
 
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Blame Apple. The P2 system includes next/previous links in the files; if Apple's not taking advantage of that info it's their fault.
 
spanned import

spanned import

If the clip is spanned due to its size, but only appears as one file on the card and in FCP Log and Transfer, how do you import to FCP? Log and transfer will play the file in preview, but when it is dragged to the area that does the transfer, the clip turns out broken with video information on only the first frame and grey for the rest of the video. The clip also looks to be half the lenght of the total footage. Anyone have any experience with this? I'm using Final Cut Studio 6.0.1 and a 16 gig P2 with 30 minutes of footage shot at 720 24PN.

*update- I'm using a workaround by capturing the old way with log and capture, but it keeps telling me my drive is running out of space (still 40 gigs left) and stopping after 5:27:21. Looking into that problem now. Any ideas?
 
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Raylight??

Raylight??

Ok, same problem again, different footage.

It took me hours to log and capture 2 cameras with the 5:27:21 duration issue. I checked the settings for duration and free space in FCP and everything looked like it should work. I kept pre-rolling each clip and had to lace it all together.

I refuse to do this again.

Is Raylight the only answer?
 
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