FS-100 - Avid Import

Take_1

Take_1

Well-known member
Well... in the ever ongoing madness of changing workflow I ran into this today on Avid's web site: LINK

This should make things a little simpler, but still not perfect. At least it will help with keeping things significantly more organized rather than stuffing everything deep into the Avid MediaFiles folders. :D
 
OK... Now that I have actually had a chance to try this in the real world....

This is a really great find!!! :smile:

1.) Simply, create a folder at the root level of your media drive and call it anything you want (great for organizing your folders). Copy the entire contents of your Firestore (all folders and files) to your new folder.

2.) Disconnect your Firestore and launch your Avid.

3.) Use the "Import P2" command from the file menu.

4.) Bada Boom Bada Bing Baby! Instant clips in the bin!

I love this! No more weird journeys navigating through the Avid's MediaFile folders and adding strange extensions to numbered folders to try to keep things organized!

Very nice!:thumbsup:
 
Yo,

The one thing you'll find, however, is that when you close the Avid, and then restart, that all the clips you imported using "Import P2 > Clips to Bin" will be offline. You'll then have to go through that process again. To keep the clips online following the "Clips to Bin" procedure, select the clips in the bin and then use "Import P2 > Media". This will essentially run a consolidate process and copy the media to your media drive and make it belong to the project. When you relaunch, your footage will remain online.

My workflow then, in order to avoid copying the media more times than necessary, is to move the Firestore files onto whatever drive is going to be my deep storage/archive/backup and then run the "Import P2" process from there. Yes, you're still copying the media twice, but you'll have a backup that you can return to down the road to rebuild the project, plus you'll have all your media online and ready to use in your current project.

And, just a little more info in case you're interested... since I usually devote one archive drive to a client, I create folders with the project names at the root. Inside each of those folders, I create as many folders as necessary as the footage is shot and offload. Since I use both an FS-100 and P2 cards, my naming schedule is something like this:

(assuming the name of the client is ABC-sumthin'-er-other)

ABC_FS_082407_01 < first FS-100 offload of the day
ABC_FS_082407_02 < second FS-100 offload of the day
ABC_FS_082707_01 < only FS-100 offload of the day
ABC_P2_082507_01 < first P2 offload of the day
ABC_P2_082507_02 < second P2 offload of the day

.... and so on. It might not even be necessary to notate whether its P2 or FS-100... I just do it becomes I'm horribly anal-retentive. In any event, I can always go back and find my media fairly easily.

Hope that helps!
 
The way the "Import P2" feature works in Avid doesn't require that the CONTENTS folder be at the root level of a drive. You could have it 16 folders deep if you wanted to. For example, in my case above, the folder structure would look like:

X:\AWESOME_PROJECT\ABC_FS_082407_01\CONTENTS\VIDEO or \AUDIO or \WHATEVER

But, if I wanted to just organize my root directory by date, I could do this:

X:\AWESOME_PROJECT\ABC_FS_082407\01\CONTENTS\
X:\AWESOME_PROJECT\ABC_FS_082407\02\CONTENTS\

Really depends on how much pointing and clicking you want to do. In Avid in the "Import P2" dialog then, you navigate to the folder that contains the CONTENTS folder. In the example right above, you'd select either the 01 folder or the 02 folder--Avid will assume that to be the "root" directory and will search inside of it (at the first level) for the CONTENTS folder. All you clips should be parsed and imported then.
 
I have saved it on the root level and on my hard drive and it says it cannot find clips...I have also tried the media tool to find it and it only finds it when the fs 100 is plugged in...I am under the gun right now because I have to return my fs 100 and I cannot get the clips off of it.

I saved the entire contents folder on my hard drive. When I go to file-import p2-contents-and open it- I get the "no clip" message.
 
Don't select the CONTENTS folder. Select the folder that contains the CONTENTS folder. In your case, you might have to select the drive letter that contains the CONTENTS folder, unless you create a folder that you move the CONTENTS and LASTCLIP.TXT file into. That may be what you have to do in order to make it work properly.
 
Okay, I'm about to start working with the FS100 for the first time and want to make sure I'm understanding everything clearly...

We're shooting 720p/24pN to P2 on the FS100....plan on dumping the media off mid shoot day during lunch...

-Does this workflow change depending on the file format used (P2 vs. OMF, etc.)?
-Once the ingest is done for the first half of the day, what needs to be done to the FS to get her ready for more shooting? Reformat, etc.? (I'm sure my DP is familiar with FS management, I just want to hear it from you guys to confirm).

Any input/watch outs! are greeeatly appreciated.

Thanks!
MikeA
 
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