P2 Viewer the only way to create virtual P2 cards?
- Thread starter Scott B
- Start date
I don't know about Avid Xpress Pro, but on FCP 5.1.2, which I'm using, you can make an archive of your P2 card on the hard drive, creating a virtual P2 card. It's not very easy to manipulate using FCP, compared to the P2 viewer on the PC, so if you're planning on shuffling shots in and out of various virtual cards, it's going to be a pain. But if you're just looking to create virtual copies to archive your meta-data along with the shots, this works fine.
Raylight does it.... but thats PC too.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Are you talking about rendering your final project to a "virtual card"?
Avid does it in its newest version, on both the PC and Mac.
EDIUS Broadcast does it.
Vegas and Premiere Pro can both do it, using Raylight and its P2 Maker utility.
Basically any major editing program *but* FCP allows it.
In FCP your only real option is to print your video out your firewire port and have the HVX record the incoming data stream, thus creating a new P2 card version of your footage. Hopefully this will change in the oft-rumored FCP6, but as it stands right now that's pretty much the only way to do it on FCP.
Avid does it in its newest version, on both the PC and Mac.
EDIUS Broadcast does it.
Vegas and Premiere Pro can both do it, using Raylight and its P2 Maker utility.
Basically any major editing program *but* FCP allows it.
In FCP your only real option is to print your video out your firewire port and have the HVX record the incoming data stream, thus creating a new P2 card version of your footage. Hopefully this will change in the oft-rumored FCP6, but as it stands right now that's pretty much the only way to do it on FCP.
AbstracTheory
Well-known member
using a mac, you're going to want to create a disk image of the p2 card... open disk utility in os x once you see your p2 card on your desktop, then click on the volume and click the new image button.. make sure the image format is read only and the compression is set to none.. then just name the file.. this will create a .DMG file which is a disk image or virtual card.. the file is saved to your hard drive and when you open this file, it will mount an exact replica of that p2 card.. hope this helps..
Barry_Green
Moderator
What you do is "print to video" from FCP, and then tell the HVX to capture the incoming firewire stream. So it's the same concept as if you had output your project to tape. It's not a "project" anymore, it's a finished/rendered video file.Kholi said:When you do that, from Final Cut, does it play back with everything there? As in any adjustments, cuts, etc... Will it play back your project in camera?;
AbstracTheory said:
Thank you all for your replies!
My dilemma is that I have already downloaded the media from the P2 cards to Sata drives and now I want to have access to it in Xpress Pro. Unfortunately, Disk Utility does not see folders, only disks. The only workflow option with the tools at my disposal seems to be dumping all the media into a folder named "Avid mediafiles/mxf/1". This gives me no linkage back to the original P2 sources, which would be fine for a short piece or a commercial, but we are likely to have over 100 hours of material by the time we finish this film.
Can P2 Viewer make virtual P2 cards from files?
I'm going to post another thread with my workflow to date. It could be I need to revisit my capture strategy as we continue to shoot. Oh boy.
Dan Montgomery
Active member
There is also an old command from the DOS days that lets you treat a folder as a disk drive -- it is called SUBST, which is short for SUBSTITUTE. It was intended to make working with long path names easier, or allow programs that didn't understand directories and only disk drives (yes, they did exist!) to work with the new hierarchical directory structures.
The syntax for creating a virtual drive this way is
If the files are on a network or if they are on a local share, you can do something similar using the Tools -> Map Network Drive menu item in Windows Explorer.
The syntax for creating a virtual drive this way is
SUBST [requested drive letter] [path of your files]
such as
SUBST G: C:\My Big Project\P2 Media\Reel1
You delete the virtual drive explicitly using
SUBST [virtual drive letter] /D
or by rebooting.
If the files are on a network or if they are on a local share, you can do something similar using the Tools -> Map Network Drive menu item in Windows Explorer.