Problems capturing P2 media in FCP

lestimides

lestimides

Member
To begin with, I have fairly limited experience with P2.
I have been handed an external drive with P2 footage (presumably captured from P2 cards). Some of the main folders have both the CONTENTS folder and the LASTCLIP.txt file in them, and some only have the CONTENTS folder without the LASTCLIP.txt file.

I've tried bringing the footage into FCP through the FCP log and capture window. Some of the clips were converted to .mov clips just fine, and some were not. When I look into the Capture Scratch folder I see all of the clips I had tried to import. However, those under 4GB are showing up in FCP, while those that are said to be 4GB are not showing up. Nor are they playable in QT or in any other media player.

Now I know they are not all exactly 4GB large. So, it seems there is some problem with clips that are bigger than 4GB - they get cut off at 4GB and rendered unplayable.

Is this possible? Has anyone ever had that problem? Please help.

Thank you,
serge
 
Ok, additional searching turned up a similar problem discussed here before, and it looks like the trouble is with hard drive formatting. Will try using a different external drive or see if the 4GB limit is somehow removable.
 
Is your Capture Scratch folder on the same hard drive as the footage? If not, the hard drive it's on formatted as FAT32 or HFS+? If HFS+, it shouldn't be a problem.

You may well have a number of a clips which exist on P2 cards as 4GB, exactly -- if they were long takes where the clip file size would exceed 4GB, they'll be split into 4 GB chunks, and then whatever remains.

What the problem may be is the absence of the LastClip.txt files.
 
First off, you should be using "Log & Transfer" in FCP (not Capture). All P2 cards use FAT32, 4GB limit in their file structure, so re-formatting the hdd will do no good.

As David said, when a clip exceeds 4GB, it rolls over to an new clip. It is the LASTCLIP.TXT file that controls this. If you have disturbed the P2 file/folder structure in any way, your clips may not log.
 
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