The P2/Powerbook/P2CMS/FCP workflow?

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drcheese

Well-known member
Ok, bare with me on this post. I made the switch to P2 this week, they wooed me with the 16GB rebate card so I sold my FS-100 for $1500, bought a pristine Powerbook G4 (last gen 1.67 GHz, 1 GB RAM) on eBay for $700 and plan to use the extra money to buy another card later this year.

I love P2, yet figuring out a specific workflow has been a chore at times, this forum is amazingly helpful, but sorting through it all is conflicting, and a little lacking on P2CMS since it's so new.

But here's what I'm doing (depending on my accuracy this may also be helpful to people new to the workflow as well):
  1. Insert Card into PCMCIA slot of Powerbook.
  2. Open up P2CMS and use the File -> Export tool to put MXF files on an external hard drive
    • This maintains the P2 format that FCP (5.0.4 in my case) recognizes
    • I don't use the "Do Compare" function as it doubles the import time.
  3. Verify Data is on Hard Drive (I just visually glance over?)
  4. Eject P2 Card in Finder, then Pop it out of the PCMCIA slot
  5. Switch P2 card to non-write protect, re-insert card
  6. In P2CMS: Select All Clips from the P2 Card, then go Edit -> Delete and confirm.
  7. In FCP use File -> Import -> Panasonic P2, find your hard drive folder, import the clips.
    • If you have Raylight (which I'm considering) it will keep the files in their MXF format as opposed to wrapping it in a quicktime format.
This is what I'm doing, it works, but I feel like there must be a better way. And I have some questions:
  1. Am I right in using export instead of ingest in P2CMS? The P2 format seems better for FCP?
  2. Does export differ in any way from just copy/paste the files directly from the P2 card?
  3. When using write-protect on the card and the Export function, I have to stay close by and hit "Ok" for each clip to confirm the clip is locked. Is there any way around this?
  4. There seems no way around ejecting/changing WP/re-inserting P2 card when looking to delete the files? (assuming you can't do it in camera due to live recording)
  5. What exactly is the Export "link" option used for?
Thanks for reading this far, the P2CMS documentation is beyond terrible and any help that you guys can give will, as always, be much appreciated.
 
1. When you choose "ingest", it copies the files off the cards and onto a hard disk -- wherever you specified that your database is to be located. But, it doesn't maintain the directory structure of the card -- instead, in the database, it separates out each clip into its own "contents" folder. So for importing into FCP or some other app, that would be tedious. So yes, Export is probably the better option.

2. The "export" is probably doing the same thing as a finder copy/paste would, but I can't say for sure.

3. I don't know about the write-protect thing, that does seem silly. On the PC I just put the card in and drag & drop the files to a folder, there's no confirming or read-only stuff going on.

4. Use a Windows PC and you can skip all that. Windows PCs don't need the cards to be write-protected, so you can plug the card in, drag 'n' drop the files, and then format the card all in the computer all in one step.

5. If you've ingested the footage into a database, the "export hard links" option exports a P2-looking directory structure but there isn't actually any contents in that directory -- instead there's reference files that point back to the files in the database. So if you chose to ingest the files into the database, you could export hard links of your directory structure to FCP. It'll use the database's copy of the files, but it'll get its folder structure from the hard links you exported.

They're pointers, essentially. They're not copies of the files, they're pointers to the files that are still contained in P2CMS's database.
 
Ahh, ok. The links are only useful if using the Ingest function, and that's because they can simulate the P2 format. Agreed though, I don't see the point of using ingest/link as opposed to just export. Except perhaps for the added functionality within P2CMS that using ingest (and creating a P2CMS database) would give you.

All in all, it seems like P2CMS is useful for the P2Viewer ability, and perhaps some error checking happens with the exporting, but you could just copy/paste and get a similar result (and not have to click "ok" for each clip).

Thanks for the info!
 
Make sure you have all the drivers for the MAC loaded.
I use an external drive to dump the P2 cards too.
Only use P2CMS to review footage.
I use Raylight for the MAC.
It takes 2 sec to do it's thing to your footage that is copied to
your harddrive.
You can then review footage directly instead of using P2CMS.
And with FCP loaded on your MAC you can edit in the field.
When I get back to the office I off-load the external to
a G-RAID. If you did any editing with the external drive
you may need to re-link your footage.
I have used a PowerBack and P2 since Feb 06,
never saw glitches and we now use 16 gig cards
with no problems.....
We will be upgrading the laptop when we take delivery
of our RED in Jan 08, not sure if we will stick with P2 and the HVX
if the RED is solid.
 
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