On Field offloading P2 card...

K

kabtv

Well-known member
I will work on a new project that will take me on the road(6 times) for periods ranging from 2 to 3 weeks, and like for lot of person here, offloading is new to me.

So, on a daily basis, I will have to offload my P2 cards on 2 hard drives(1TO. each), using a Laptops with PCMCIA slots ( Vista).

I would like to know what would be the safest and the fastest way to do a double offload(from one card to both hard drives) without any chance of losing this valuable material?

Is there a particular problem if I use a PC to offload cards and edit the footage on a Mac with FCP?

And back home, how import it in FCP?

Thanks guys for your help...!!!
 
Hi Kabtv,
Not sure about the dual off loading technique, other than to do it twice (copy from P2 to HDD and copy for HDD to other HDD). Maybe someone else has a creative idea, possibly using an automatic backup program.
As for PC to MAC, there should not be any problems if you offload the cards without errors. Be sure to protect enable the cards before inserting them into the computer. Be sure to copy all files including the lastclip.txt. Be sure to verify that they copied correctly without the GLITCH before formatting the cards. Your external HDD must be formated in FAT32 in order for both a PC and a MAC to read it. There is a 4GB limit with FAT32, but it should not be a problem with .mxf files as they are split up to accommodate this.

Once you are back on the MAC, FCP does not read the .mxf's natively, but will ingest them, converting the header to quicktime. This does not altar the quality or size of the file, but it does make a duplicate (not a bad idea for redundancy, but requires more HDD space).
The other option is buy RAYLIGHT, a program that generates .mxf.mov pointer files which FCP reads natively. I have found it to be a huge time saver!


J
 
Thanks J for your answer, to be sure than i got perfect offloading, i will copy from the card to each hard drive. Because if there is problem(glitchs) during the first offloading, i don't want to reproduce it on the second hard drive and, unfortunately, and to be honest, i do know if i will be able to check everything all the time...(yes, i know !!!)

Do you think i can do ''drag'n drop'' with the files?

I already tried(but not very hard...) to read .mxf with FCP , no problem with video but no sound...i don't know why...Raylight seems to be 'the thing, thanks for the clue...

KarL
 
I do dual offloading all the time. Drag the card to one hard disk, then drag it to the other. The copy happens simultaneously, and you're copying from the original source media to both drives. If you were to somehow encounter a glitch when going from the card to one hard disk, and then copy from that hard disk to the other hard disk, you'd perpetuate the glitch. I've copied from the card to multiple hard drives many times with no problem.

There is no problem with offloading on Windows, then editing on Mac. Just plug the drives in. If you use Raylight on the Mac, you can edit immediately after plugging the drives in, no need to even use log & transfer.
 
Thanks Barry for your answer...very helpfull...is there something with renaming files or try to keeping it organize?

just a quicky here: what is the easiest way to burn 0ne thumbnail on a dvd ?
iIn fact, it's more complicated than that, how can i change a .mxf files to be play by any dvd?
 
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If you rename files you'll probably make your footage unplayable until you rename it back to what it's supposed to be.

Use P2CMS or P2 Viewer to do the copying if you're at all worried about data organization.

To make files playable on a DVD, you have to run them through a DVD authoring application, just like you would with any footage from any other camera.
 
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