Getting Data from P2 cards

Sherman

Sherman

Well-known member
What process is most efficient in getting data from the HVX 170 to my Vegas Pro 9 timeline?
I have only one 16 GB P2 card so far.
Bought the camera a month ago and have yet to shoot a frame.
Still using my old DVX100a.
Gotta pry myself off that teet and get out of the comfort zone and into the future.
Should I use a card reader on location to get the data onto a laptop?
Then is it just a matter of dragging data onto a hard drive in my edit machine?:huh:
 
When my P2 Cards are full, I remove them from the HPX and insert them into my
laptop's PCMCIA card slot. Click and drag the media from the card to the laptops
hard drive. Once finished, I then click and drag the footage from the laptop to an
exteranal hard drive. And finally, I transfer the footage from the external HD to
my editing suite.

This all sounds a bit time consuming but it really isn't. It also gives me several backup options
before I clear the files off my laptop. I shot a drum instructional video in March over a two day
period using this workflow with 2 16Gb cards. Approximately 5 hours of shooting and accumulating
almost 80Gb of HD footage a day.

I prefer the laptop over a card reader only because it serves a multitude of
functions as well as dumping my P2 cards to.

Once you're in Vegas Pro 9, you'll need a third party plugin called Raylight which
converts your .MXF files into media that works in Vegas. I think there is a Beta
version for VP 9 available.

A final thought. The new P2 E-Series cards are now available and are very
affordable. I picked up 2 32Gb cards this week for around $1,200.00.

Good luck.

Mark Dalzell
 
Last edited:
Peabody said:
Thanks Mark, a great help!
Click to expand...

Peabody,

Glad to help out.

I owned the DVX100A camera since 2005. I loved it. But I made
the switch in Dec. to the HPX-170. Once you do, you'll never go back for so many
reasons. The resolution quality and ease of the P2 cards for two.

Another suggestion would be to invest in Barry's instructional DVD's.
"Sound For Film & Television" and "HVX Bootcamp". The HVX and the HPX are
very similar cam's. His in depth explanations really helped me
learn about all the functions of my camera as well as getting great audio.

Good luck.

Mark
 
Hey Mark,

I have the HVX200 bootcamp DVDs.
Bought them some time ago when I was thinking of moving up to the HVX200.
Was planning to sell them, but will review them now that I realize the HPX170 is similar in many ways.
Good ol' Barry. Gotta love the guy. Think it's a lot more than just money for him.
Loaded up Raylight ULTRA for Vegas 9 this morning.
Two shoots later this week and I want to get everything shaken down before I shelve the DVX100a.

Take care,

Dan
 
Just a technical question . I am using Vegas 9.0c & Raylight with Windows 7. I am newish to P2 HDPro. When transferring material from cards to HD, what should one transfer? The contents file and the last clip*txt file? I also find the clip identification confusing, when working with tape based formats trhe capture was linear, and it was easy to identify the clips, but with the P2 cards, can one set up a project/scene name? Is there some logic to decoding the clip identification? I got used to setting up my previous clip data in a folder with yearmonthday id, which made sense to me. I find P2 a great format for quality, but working with it in Vegas is such a pain, I am currently transferring all material to tape in camera and editing in DV widescreen.
 
You transfer the entire Contents folder with NO changes, no deletions, nothing. The whole folder, intact.

Then, you simply drop the MXFs from the Video folder onto the timeline. Should be as simple as that, unless there are still issues with Raylight and V9.

Best way for linear identification is to go into Detail view in the media pool and then sort by timecode.
 
David Jimerson said:
You transfer the entire Contents folder with NO changes, no deletions, nothing. The whole folder, intact.

Then, you simply drop the MXFs from the Video folder onto the timeline. Should be as simple as that, unless there are still issues with Raylight and V9.

Best way for linear identification is to go into Detail view in the media pool and then sort by timecode.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, it will help a lot. In fact I have been sorting by timecode to make sense of it. Can one rename clips? Another question I have is if I have to send a single clip to another editor, how do I extract the appropriate clip? What do I send? I had a request recently to send a clip of elephants which I had shot on P2 HDPro. (I made up a folder and in the folder I constructed it as a P2 Contents folder and copied the Video Clip, Audio & Icon) I could read it on my laptop and made a CDR of the data. The editor on the other end could read it (He was editing in FCP and believed he needed the Lastclip.txt file.) To send the entire 32Gb from the card over the internet would be rather problematic (I live in sleepy hollow and internet speeds here are somewhat lacking). Any suggestions?
 
You can rename clips in Vegas or Windows Explorer, but then you have to rename the corresponding audio clips, too, or you'll lose your audio.

The best way to handle this -- and to send single clips -- is to use Panasonic's P2 Viewer or P2CMS software. It's the best way to transfer footage from the card to your hard drive, it's the best way to rename clips and edit metadata, and it's the easiest way to send a single raw clip (by creating a virtual card in P2 Viewer; individual clips are already stored as their own virtual cards by P2CMS. Of the two, P2 Viewer is by far the easier to work with, but P2CMS has database capabilities).

As for media management in general, NLEs like Premiere Pro (CS3 or later) and Edius Broadcast will read the metadata of each clip, and if you assigned a UserClipName, it will read that instead of the indecipherable XXXXXX.mxf file name assigned by the camera. So, you can set up a name like "Scn 1 Tk" -- and then using the counter function, have the camera assign a take number -- and all your clips will be "Scn 1 Tk 0001," "Scn 1 Tk 0002," and so on; a metadata-aware NLE will let you sort on it. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with Vegas/Raylight.
 
David Jimerson said:
. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with Vegas/Raylight.
Click to expand...

Yes it does. The userclip name goes into the Tape Name column and you can sort by that. You can drag the column over to the left in the project media detailed view so the name appears right before the clip name, and reads as Scene 3 Take 0001 0001AA.MXF etc.

The date/time from the metadata is also sortable from the Comments field.

Also the latest version of Raylight Ultra (1.2) the Userclip name appears in the status line at the bottom of the Vegas explorer window so you can use it to find a clip even before importing it.
 
David Jimerson said:
You can rename clips in Vegas or Windows Explorer, but then you have to rename the corresponding audio clips, too, or you'll lose your audio.

The best way to handle this -- and to send single clips -- is to use Panasonic's P2 Viewer or P2CMS software. It's the best way to transfer footage from the card to your hard drive, it's the best way to rename clips and edit metadata, and it's the easiest way to send a single raw clip (by creating a virtual card in P2 Viewer; individual clips are already stored as their own virtual cards by P2CMS. Of the two, P2 Viewer is by far the easier to work with, but P2CMS has database capabilities).

As for media management in general, NLEs like Premiere Pro (CS3 or later) and Edius Broadcast will read the metadata of each clip, and if you assigned a UserClipName, it will read that instead of the indecipherable XXXXXX.mxf file name assigned by the camera. So, you can set up a name like "Scn 1 Tk" -- and then using the counter function, have the camera assign a take number -- and all your clips will be "Scn 1 Tk 0001," "Scn 1 Tk 0002," and so on; a metadata-aware NLE will let you sort on it. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with Vegas/Raylight.
Click to expand...
Just a further question, if I am editing something for broadcast, what format should I send it on to the broadcaster? Is there a standard format for HD broadcast? (I am used to having to send material on Betacam or Digibeta, D9 or DVCPro) In Vegas there are a series of *.avi formats (Example: HD 1080-50i YUV, Etc). If I copied material from the P2 Card to Vegas and then encoded it with this codec, is that suitable to send to other editors?
 
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