Slow P2 Import FCP

[GabePL]

I've just started using the HVX P2 workflow and am wondering if my experience is normal, or if there's a kink in my system...

Everything works fine, it just seems that when I import the P2 data into FCP it is very very slow. 20-30 minutes per 4 gig card.

I'm using a Powermac G5 dual 2ghz machine running FCP 5.04. I transfer each 4 gig P2 card from my P2 store onto a 7200rpm maxtor firewire 400 external drive. I then use the "Import P2" option in FCP. This is where it seems to snag. It starts the import, and seems to buzz along fine, giving me a 4 minute estimate at first. Then, when it reaches the end of one of the clips (based on observation of files as they are created in the capture folder) the system seems to hang, I get the spinny ball of death, i hear a whining sound coming from inside my computer case, and the time estimate starts to climb. After a few minutes, it moves on to the next clip, goes along fine, then hangs again, repeating this process until all of the content has been imported. The whole thing takes between 20-30 minutes for a single 4 gig card.

It doesn't seem to make a dif'c whether I use an internal HDD for the FCP scratch disk, a dif't firewire drive, or the same firewire drive as where the mxf files are originating.

Is this amount of time normal in your experiences? Can you think of anything that might be causing these hang ups?

If I just walk away and let it do it's thing, it all seems to work out in the end, but it just feels like there's something fishy going on...

Any feedback or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Best,

Gabriel

 

[DaRedHead]

For me the 4gig P2 downloads only take about 6 minutes.

Do you run into the same problem when importing into FCP directly from the hvx?
How are you transfering the P2 cards to the firewire drive? Camera to HardDrive?

eric
www.dordperiod.com

 

[GabePL]

Yeah, I get the same result when I import directly from the HVX. Same thing if I import directly from my P2 store. I've mostly been transferring P2 data from the P2 Store's HDD to my HDD, but I've also tried other ways of doing the transfer before doing the import, and it all comes down to the same thing.

Just based on my observation of the process, it seems like the data copying involved with the "Import from Panasonic P2" goes along fine, and the snag happens maybe when FCP is doing it's unwrap/wrap function on the mxf files. It doesn't seem like it's that intensive of an action though that it should be putting so much strain on a system that is otherwise functioning just fine.

I have 2.5 gigs of RAM.

Thanks for pondering with me...

 

[GabePL]

Got it figured out. Now I feel dumb of course. I had Sophos Antivirus on and running automatic file scanning. I completely forgot that it was even on there. As soon as I realized it and turned it off, it started working fine.