P2 Cards - No more than 999 clips for each one!

F

Faust

Active member
Did someone know it?
I didn't.

You can record up to 999 clips on a single P2 Card. Not more.
When trying to shot the 1000th clip, P2 camcorders will display REC WARNING ERROR with no chance to record again unless you delete one or more clips already stored.
If one cannot offload them to an external device, or if there is no further card to be used, it is impossible to shoot, even if there is a lot of free space on the card!

An example: with a 64GB card I have the possibility to store about 4h 16mins of standard definition dv PAL video.
Shooting 999 clips of 10 seconds each one produces 2h and 46m of recorded video, and I still have at least 20 GB of unusable free space on my card.

How can this be possible?
A 64 GB P2 card costs about 900 Euros and this limitation sounds totally absurd, considering that with the forthcoming 128 GB (or more) cards the 999 clips limit is simply ridiculous.
P2 camcorders operating manuals do not inform about that.

A dear friend told me about this fact (he saw the Rec Warning Error message twice in one year) and I've immediately tried with my cameras and my cards...
A dozen of tests confirm this limit per single card.

I only remember to have read something about it somewhere, some time ago, but I wasn't too worried about it.
Now P2 cards' size is getting big enough to transform a simple limit in a potential serious problem for P2 cameramen.
Another colleague said to me that the Focus DTE DR-HD100 has the 999 clips limitation too...

I'd really like to read your opinions about it, strongly hoping for some firmware update by Panasonic to extend this inconceivable limit.
 
Probably for the same reason you can't put more than 99 files on a DVD in FCP. I don't know the science, but I imagine turning the counter to add an extra digit requires more assets.

I'm pretty sure this is relatively common knowledge and not a problem for most people.
 
Jim Brennan said:
Probably for the same reason you can't put more than 99 files on a DVD in FCP. I don't know the science, but I imagine turning the counter to add an extra digit requires more assets.

I'm pretty sure this is relatively common knowledge and not a problem for most people.
Click to expand...
It takes 1800 DVD-RW (7200 GB) to match a 64GB P2 card's price...
It may not be a serious problem in many cases, you're right, but I'd like to know how many P2 system buyers are aware about the 999 clip limit.
Especially with no infos by the manufacturer.

The P2 OP-Atom MXF filenaming contains a 4-digit section for file-counting purposes, allowing up to 9999 different files to be theoretically stored in a single P2 volume.
The P2 camcorders' thumbnail menu in MCR mode can show 4-digit numbers ("1000", "1001", "1002", etc.) when 2 or more P2 cards are inserted.

My question is:
may it be another FAT 32 file system restriction, just as the well-known 4GB limit for each file?
Or whatever?
 
I found a fix for the issue. You can record 1 20 sec clip instead of 2 10 sec clips then cut them into 2 in your video edit program.

I know this could be an issue but if I had a gig that needed 1000+ 10 second clips I would find a way to say "no".
 
Yes, P2 has a 1,000 clip per card limit. This isn't really new info though, is it? I'm pretty sure it's in the manual somewhere.
 
EDIT: couldn't find it in the original HVX200 manual, but this part is on page 78 of the HPX370 manual:
OVER MAX# CLIPS: The limit for the number of clips that can be recorded to one P2 card (up to 1000 clips) has been reached.
Click to expand...
 
This limit thingy is causing me massive angst. I'm switching to Sony. Oh, Sony has issues too. Ok, I'm switching to JVC......

Grant
 
Faust said:
Have you ever heard about P2 Viewer?
Click to expand...

Doh, missed the mark again. When I read your post I had a vision of someone pressing record 24000 times to test something anal. Wasnt directed at you, just the way my brain perceived it instantanously. I thought that vision was funny. I often see posts of the rediculous when people are "testing" something. Anyway....

My personal experience is, the max number of clips I have recorded in a single day was something like 450 approx. And even that number is a rarity in my case.

And its very easy to switch to another card right?
 
Barry_Green said:
EDIT: couldn't find it in the original HVX200 manual, but this part is on page 78 of the HPX370 manual:
OVER MAX# CLIPS: The limit for the number of clips that can be recorded to one P2 card (up to 1000 clips) has been reached.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Excellent, Barry, thank you very much for your searching.
I've found something in the HPX301 Italian manual too.
And they talk about the above mentioned REC WARNING ERROR, explaining that the message appears when it has been attempted to record more than 1000 clips.

Mmmmh, specs and restrictions MUST be more visible, readable and clear, imho.

A concrete "fix" might be...

One-clip recording system has been implemented on the new Hpx370.
Also, it has been released as a firmware update both for the AJ-Hpx3000 and the AJ-Hvx2100...
I don't know exactly how it works, but if it joints several shots (up to 99) in one single file...
That would be the only solution to record more than 1000 (999!) clips (start-pause sessions) onto a single P2 card.

How about it?
 
As I understand it, the one-clip recording thing has been introduced not so much as to increase the total number of clips on a card, but as a concession to the way certain NLE systems work, especially NLE systems used by news cutters. Those who are used to bringing in all the b-roll as one massive clip and slicing it up on the timeline, instead of bringing in individual clips.

Is the 1,000-clip limit per card really a problem? I mean, assuming you're using DVCPRO-HD or AVC-Intra, that's one minute per gigabyte, so on the largest card in existence (the 64GB card) if you made 1,000 clips on a card, each clip would have to average less than four seconds. As long as your average clip is four seconds or more, you'll never run into the limit. I can't really imagine a scenario where someone would fill up an entire card with clips that were less than four seconds each.

Even in AVC-Intra50, you'd be looking at a 1000 clips at about 7.5 seconds each. That seems like it's more likely to happen, but even then, will it? Is this a real major concern? Seems pretty unlikely to me.

Now, if they introduced 2-terabyte cards, then yes, absolutely that 1,000-clip limit would seem like it would be a potential issue. But then again, two terabytes would be 34 hours of footage, so ... :D
 
Noel Evans said:
Doh, missed the mark again. When I read your post I had a vision of someone pressing record 24000 times to test something anal. Wasnt directed at you, just the way my brain perceived it instantanously. I thought that vision was funny. I often see posts of the rediculous when people are "testing" something. Anyway....

My personal experience is, the max number of clips I have recorded in a single day was something like 450 approx. And even that number is a rarity in my case.

And its very easy to switch to another card right?
Click to expand...
It is a rarity for me too, Noel, I use multiple P2 cards and that's out of the question.
I mainly shoot daily ENGs and I have fast access to thousands and thousands of short clips archived during the last three years and I just need to copy+paste hundreds of them onto a P2 card until they are about 990, then I press the REC button the times needed to reach the 999 limit.
Sorry for my sarcastic comment anyway, I misperceived your funny purpose...

The fact is: I pay for an expensive larger size support to exploit it till the last byte because I need more space, and I don't want to waste it just because I've recorded the last clip available!
When you have two cards and you're shooting the 999th clip on the first one, recording doesn't automatically swap on the second slot because this only happens at the end of the first card's space.
You oughta change slot (with the proper user button) and start a new clip.

I'm not saying that this is an issue, I just think that there are always few informations about technology "limits", compared to the enthusiastic advertisers always speaking loudly about nothing else than the best sides of everything.

Ah, business...:undecided
 
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