Case study: Vista Pc to FCP6: Woes and Solutions

Hunter Hampton

Hunter Hampton

Carbonite Member
Ok It was a User error! I am PC illeterate and Im quick to condemn when it comes to vista. Forgive me. I am leaving this post up anyways to serve as anti vista propaganda.


Howdy,

Last week was very stressful for us!

This is a long post but if you use a vista laptop for offloading. You might want to read this...

Let me fill you in:
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I have an hvx200 and one 16gb p2 card. I recently sold my macbook and bought a new gateway notebook with vista pre-installed.
(I wanted windows XP but did not want to pay extra for it.)

I bought a pc primaily to do taxes and word processing, but also to serve as a p2 dump station.

I was sick of renting extra p2 cards...

So I installed the p2 drivers before we headed down to Eugene to shoot for the weekend. The new P2 viewer is vista compatable so I installed it.
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Eugene, Oregon: First Night...

We finished shooting and at the Hotel I used P2 Viewer to check the clips, then I copied the entire folder (Contents and lastclip.txt) to the laptop.

Easy.

The whole weekend went well and we returned alive and well.
_______________________________________________________________

Come Monday I started to move the files from the laptop to my Mac. There is terrible problems with vista working with a mac! I ended up having to buy a new harddrive(external) to move the files to my mac. Ahh $90 bucks out of pocket...
_______________________________________________________________

FCP woes....

Final cut "Log and import" did not like my files ( Bad directory! It exclaimed!)

The ruff cuts were due by friday! And I spent all week trying to figure this out!

I ended up buying raylight. (Another $90 out of pocket) to watch the clips. There was no audio now!

There was also a massive headache in progress...

I finally figured it out thursday afternoon.

___________________________________________________________-__-_

OK here is what happened:

Some how my lastclip.txt file was altered

Here is what it looked like;

00099RT
1.0
100

Notice the missing .MXF on the 00099RT?

Vista did something weird to that textfile!

I changed it to 00099RT.MXF. Also the audio folder was moved inside of the video folder. I moved it back to the proper place.

Now final cut imported the clips and It worked!
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SO Bottom line of this study...

Be careful with vista. If you have problems when transfering P2 files. Check that lastclip.txt and make sure the .MXF at the end of your clip is there!




It was quite an adventure with vista. I almost threw my laptop out of the window ( completely serious)

Hopefully this helps someone out there.

-Hunter
 
Last edited:
I'm sorry Hunter, but I have a few problems with your so-called "case study": it is full of inaccuracies and conjectures.

Let's address these one by one:
There is terrible problems with vista working with a mac! I ended up having to buy a new harddrive(external) to move the files to my mac.
Click to expand...
Vista does not read or write the native Mac file system (HFS). However, the Mac can read but not write the Vista file system (NTFS), and both can read and write FAT32, which is what is also used by P2 cards. If you format your external hard drive using FAT32, both the PC and Mac can read and write it. If you absolutely need to write to HFS volumes from the PC, buy a product called MacDrive.
Final cut "Log and import" did not like my files ( Bad directory! It exclaimed!).
Click to expand...
Did you rename your files in the transfer? That's probably the single most common cause of import problems.
Notice the missing .MXF on the 00099RT?

Vista did something weird to that textfile!

I changed it to 00099RT.MXF. Also the audio folder was moved inside of the video folder. I moved it back to the proper place.
Click to expand...
Absolute ronsense. Vista does not alter the contents of text files and remove extensions from filenames, nor does it move folders around. You are blaming Vista for your own mistakes and passing this off as a scientific examination.

Here is the kicker: the LASTCLIP.TXT file was NOT altered by Vista, it never contains a complete filename that includes the .MXF extension, it only contains a clip name.

Finally, your moving of the the AUDIO folder likely caused the problem you mentioned earlier with "Log and Import" not working, and Raylight allowing you to see the video but without audio.
Be careful with vista. If you have problems when transfering P2 files. Check that lastclip.txt and make sure the .MXF at the end of your clip is there!
Click to expand...
Nobody should alter their LASTCLIP.TXT file to include the .MXF extension, it is not part of the clip name, and the camera never includes it in the file.
 
I was just sharing what happened to me. I am not trying to fool anyone.

Amazing... No matter what you post on DVXUSER, somebody bitches at you.

Can I get a witness?
 
I don't think THoff was 'bitching' at you...as much as correcting some inaccurracies.
I actually just checked 5 different P2 volumes on my system, and not one of my LASTCLIP.TXT files has a .MXF extension on the clip name.

The last thing anyone should do is mess with or edit their LASTCLIP.TXT file.
 
I'm not bitching at you, I'm just telling you that your analysis and conclusion is wrong, and that the advice you are giving may cause problems.

You failed to educate yourself about file system compatibility between different operating systems and then complained about the need to invest in another hard drive. When you did subsequently copy the files to the new drive, you messed up the copy process and tried to solve the problem by buying Raylight.

The problem you had with FCP refusing to import, P2 Viewer not working, and Raylight showing video but not playing audio was due to pilot error, and had nothing to do with a Vista problem. You just didn't make the connection that putting the AUDIO folder back in the right place at the same time that you doctored with your LASTCLIP.TXT file was actually what fixed the problem.

Instead you came to the conclusion that Vista puts folders in the wrong place when you copy them, and that it also magically alters the contents of text files. None of this stands up to scrutiny, and you would have realized that if you had tried to confirm your conclusion.

The good news is that both the drive you bought and Raylight will come in handy. An extra drive for offloading or backing up footage is always good to have, and Raylight makes working with P2/MXF files much easier than it is with FCP alone. You've wasted some of your time but none of your money, and hopefully you'll learn from your mistakes.
 
hunter richards said:
I was just sharing what happened to me. I am not trying to fool anyone.

Amazing... No matter what you post on DVXUSER, somebody bitches at you.

Can I get a witness?
Click to expand...

I'll be a witness... but sorry, not for you...:grin:

THoff does come off as a bit harsh sometimes, but that's mostly a side effect of the nature of posting online. He also happens to be absolutely right in this case.

I probably hate Vista more than anyone on these boards (I've called for a boycott of all software that uses Product Activation & DRM), but as much as I hate to say it, your problems don't seem to have anything to do with the OS.

Vista may impose insane DRM measures, lock you out of our own system, insult your intelligence, and take up way too many system resources.... but it doesn't arbitrarily modify files. Not that I've ever heard of, anyway.

Sorry.
 
I think your right. I did change the lastclip.txt to include the.mxf because I read it on a "how to repair lastclip.txt" post.

I still dont like vista.

And I still will blame 99% of my user errors on microsoft.

But the out of focus windows in vista are kinda nice...
 
Hey, I hate Vista too. Two years ago I figured I'd be one of the first adopters when it exits the Beta phase, but I've had too many problems with it.

The darn thing tries to protect you from yourself (in response to a perceived lack of security in earlier versions of Windows) by making you confirm alot of actions you just initiated. This "feature" is called User Account Control (UAC), and even if you are running with Administrator priviledges, you'll frequently wind up telling Vista that yes, you really did mean to do what you just did.

Worse, the spiffy new Aero user interface disables the hardware video overlay that is essential to most video applications. If you want to (or have to) use Vista, you'll likely have to turn off Aero sooner or later.
 
either an old PowerBook with a PC Cardbus slot or a MacBookPro with a dual adapter would have been a more prudent approach.

Video footage is something you can't recreate. I can't run an event again to get the footage In fact, "do overs" are the exception, and rare ones, in video.

Why buy based upon doing your taxes instead of a solid approach to transfering footage.

I don't see this as an issue with Vista, as I do with not being careful with workflow.

If this is "bitching" as you, then perhaps it's not intended but necessary.
 
David S.
Senior Member,

"either an old PowerBook with a PC Cardbus slot or a MacBookPro with a dual adapter would have been a more prudent approach."

- Thanks, Wanna trade?

"Video footage is something you can't recreate. I can't run an event again to get the footage In fact, "do overs" are the exception, and rare ones, in video."

-Excellent point, agreed.

"Why buy based upon doing your taxes instead of a solid approach to transfering footage."

- Interesting, I should have thought of that...

"I don't see this as an issue with Vista, as I do with not being careful with workflow.

If this is "bitching" as you, then perhaps it's not intended but necessary."

- Yes, your right. This is a messageboard. Bitching is nessasary.


David S, Before you spilled the beans and repeated what has allready been said. Did you read my post?
 
No, I didn't read your post. I just guessed at what you said.

Especially the part where you pointed out, "I bought a pc primaily to do taxes and word processing, but also to serve as a p2 dump station."

Given its lack of clarity, I needed to.

Good luck
 
Hey, I'm just posting trying to help.

I don't know you, and all I have to respond to is what you posted.

I wouldn't buy a Gateway to hold a door open, and I wouldn't trust it to transferring key footage

Video, as you know, gives you really only one chance to acquire it. That's why I buy the best compromise for video, and not for anything else.

best
 
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