P2 viewer bug?

E

eLeventy

Well-known member
Anyone care to verify this? :

Create a virtual P2 card using the P2 viewer. Now drag and drop a bunch of clips from a real card to the virtual one. This works fine, and is a nice and easy way to copy media to a HDD. This way you get a 'supersized' P2 card, which you can use later on in Avid for example.

But, there seems to be a bug when a long clip is spawned over 2 different P2 cards( exclamation mark in the thumbnails): The first card copies just fine, but when you try to copy the second one( no matter in which order), the P2-viewer complains that the file already exists. Although the actual filenames differ ( like 0002FT.MXF and 0004HQ.MXF), the P2-viewer thinks it's the same( eg. 0002FT.MXF). Probably because the two are linked.

The viewer refuses to copy, unless you choose 'overwrite', which isn't good either. Manually copieng the video and audio mxf's works just fine. They don't show up in the P2 viewer, but Avid has no problem with it.

It's really annoying because it breaks the automatic copy process. If other people have the same problem, I'll try to contact Panasonic about this.

eLeventy
 
eLeventy- I'm on a PC . . . don't know what you're using. My NLE handles this without issue, but if I understand what you are saying then, yes, I see your problem (Edius Broadcast, somehow sees the entire clip even though it is split).

When I copy stuff over from P2 cards or my P2Store (using P2 Genie) the same situation exists but as the split files are in separate directories I have no problem viewing them with the P2 viewer. I may be confused due to lack of information or misunderstanding but perhaps if you have not already tried the P2Genie you should give it a go. I would guess if your NLE is not P2 aware you may still have an issue.
 
The NLE( Avid) works just fine. The problem is within the P2 viewer itself. It lets you create 'virtual P2 cards', which are actually folders on a harddisk. The nice thing about this, is that you can keep on adding clips to this virtual card by copying clips from a real card to the virtual one. So, you create a huge virtual card which contains all your media for a specific project. An NLE like Avid is fully P2-card-aware( ie, it can use a P2 card as a media-drive without importing), so you can use these virtual card for organising your archives.

This works fine, unless there is a clip that is spawned over 2 or more cards. The P2 Viewer refuses to copy the second part. It thinks they have the same filename so it wants to overwrite the previous one. But actually, they have the same UMID( 'Unique Identifier', a sort of internal serial number), but different filenames. So, there is no reason it should overwrite the other clip.

You have to go out of the Viewer, and copy the files manually, which is annoying. After this, the complete clips shows up fine in Avid.
 
I'm quite sure the P2 Genie with the "single folder" feature turned on would eliminate this problem, but I don't have Avid so I can't try it out.
 
I do this all the time. The trick is to use the P2 viewer after you have finished your shooting. During the shoot, copy each P2 card to its own folder. Afterwards, fire up the P2 viewer and set up each folder that has P2 card information as a virtual P2 card. Then create a new destination folder and set it up as a virtual P2 card. Set up the Primary Bin to show all virtual P2 cards. Set up the Secondary bin to show the destination folder virtual P2 card. Then just select all, drag, and drop.

A few weeks ago I shot a 1.5 hour event this way, and ended up with a single 1.5 hour clip in Avid. Cool beans!

geo.
 
This sounds like a great tip,

(as i got a documentary with 140 "virtual cards" that i have to import to edius "card by card")

I havent tried this yet, but i would fear that something could happen in this workflow, i think the problem with the "spanned" clips could be the "lastclip-file"-WHAT happens to it if you put all the files in your "big" folder?

Maybe this is the answer to your copying problem...id be really curious to hear more about this "workflow" as it could save a lot of time when importing to the NLE..!!

Lets investigate on this, maybe also someone like Barry could jump on this and comment it...!?!!
 
I don't know about Edius, but Avid doesn't even look at the lastclip.txt Probably, it will work fine: by using the P2 viewer to copy the clips to the 'mega-P2 card', it takes care of updating the file-structures, the XML-file, and so probably also the lastclip.txt

Copying using explorer just makes a big folder. When using the P2 viewer, it makes it behave like a real P2 card. And you can keep adding clips to it later on. This makes it a very nice tool ( except for that annoying bug!)

For the Avid users outhere, the trick is in using the dos 'subst' command to turn a folder into a drive, tricking the NLE into thinking it's a real Card.
 
Cool. I never thought of using subst, I was sharing the folder and then connecting it as a network drive on the same machine. The sharing and connecting can be a PITA on my laptop, because it doesn't work unless there's a network present, and I can't get it to recognize an RJ45 loopback connector as a network. I've been carrying an ethernet switch around with me. Guess I can ditch the switch!

geo.
 
eLeventy said:
I don't know about Edius, but Avid doesn't even look at the lastclip.txt Probably, it will work fine: by using the P2 viewer to copy the clips to the 'mega-P2 card', it takes care of updating the file-structures, the XML-file, and so probably also the lastclip.txt

Copying using explorer just makes a big folder. When using the P2 viewer, it makes it behave like a real P2 card. And you can keep adding clips to it later on. This makes it a very nice tool ( except for that annoying bug!)

For the Avid users outhere, the trick is in using the dos 'subst' command to turn a folder into a drive, tricking the NLE into thinking it's a real Card.
Click to expand...

This sounds very nice, i will go for it...!

If my route for the bug wasnt the right one, anyone out there who knows to solve the problem in this workflow with spanned clips??

This would make life much easier for me!
 
I dug up this old thread with some new info, and a solution for the 'P2 viewer bug':

Apparantly, it's a bug you can safely ignore.
The original problem: insert a card wich contains the first part of a long clip. The clip show up with an exclamation mark in P2-Viewer, because the second part is missing. Copy the clip to a virtual P2 folder. Next, insert the 2nd card, which shows the last part of the clip, also with an exclamation mark. If you try to copy the second part to the virtual folder, to make the clip complete again, the P2-viewer shouts that that clip already exists, and asks you to overwrite or cancel.

The solution: I always took the 'cancel' option because I didn't wan't to overwrite the first part. Until a collegue was hasty and clicked on 'overwrite'. To our surprise, the first part wasn't overwriten, but the whole clip was now complete. Very simple, but confusing, in the end.
 
-In the P2-viewer, click on "Tool", then on "Setting Virtual P2 Cards". Click on the "Entry Virtual P2 card" icon ( left of the red cross ), and select an empty folder somewhere on your harddisk. They should fix the japanese english in the menus one day...

-Click on "View", then "Show Secondary BIN", then "All Virtual P2 cards"

You can now drag clips from the real P2 cards( top) to the virtual cards( bottom), which will copy them to your harddrive.
 
There's a user manual for the P2 Viewer that gets installed when you install the software. Explains a few things that aren't so intuitive to figure out by yourself...
 
Thanx guys.

I thought that little icon was greyed out and never bothered touching it.

Barry - you are right. This aint too intuitive (especially for such a small app.)

Firestore is another that would be less than helpful when it comes to a decent operating manual. Wish they would get users to help write these things.
 
GeoMar said:
I do this all the time. The trick is to use the P2 viewer after you have finished your shooting. During the shoot, copy each P2 card to its own folder. Afterwards, fire up the P2 viewer and set up each folder that has P2 card information as a virtual P2 card. Then create a new destination folder and set it up as a virtual P2 card. Set up the Primary Bin to show all virtual P2 cards. Set up the Secondary bin to show the destination folder virtual P2 card. Then just select all, drag, and drop.

A few weeks ago I shot a 1.5 hour event this way, and ended up with a single 1.5 hour clip in Avid. Cool beans!

geo.
Click to expand...

I've created a new virtual P2 card the way you've described it. No problems to view it using the P2 viewer. But if I copy it back to a P2 card there is no way to play it on my HVX200. Repair doesn't work neither. I assume that there is a problem with the clip names.
 
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