What workflow should I choose?

[morisato]

I'm so confused as to what I should do for workflow. My only issues with the choice of workflow is money and convenience. Can anyone outline the necessities in each workflow option? I recently canceled my fs100 order because the way I saw the workflow was...

Film onto FS100 for 90 minutes.
Change FS100 battery.
Offload 90gb of footage onto a HDD.
Wait for media transfer.
Pop the FS100 back on and do more filming.

For $2000 you get ease of filming for 90 minutes, then it's a headache. Seems like if you're shoot days are less than 90 minutes, then it would be fine, but if not, you'd most definitely need 2 FS100 to get by.

Then I thought about the P2 route. For $1300 you get 2-4gb. Workflow would be something like this.

Film for 4 minutes.
Change cards.
Offload while you film for 4 minutes.
Repeat - repeat - repeat

This route seems more fluid than the FS100 route but consistantly hectic with all the card swapping. The reason I canceled my FS100 was because this route seemed overall cheaper and more fluid. You could basically buy any off the shelf HDD, enclose it and hook it up to a laptop and have unlimited storage. Are there better options out there yet? I know the cineporter is coming out soon. But until then, what else can I do?

I'm just waiting for Barry to write a program that flashes a PCMCIA card reader with firewire connectors to read P2 cards and directly transfer it via the firewire connector into an enclosure containing an off the shelf HDD. Kind of like the USBToGo but instead of USB connectors on both ends, one side is P2 and another is Firewire. When is that going to happen Barry? Give us a release date!!

 

[Shane Ross]

Anders Holck, the creator of FCP Rescue, is working on a program called P2 Genie that will automatically copy the contents off the P2 card onto a hard drive and erase the card. SO far it is in beta testing, but it is working pretty slick for me.

Depending on the format you shoot, you have between 4 min (1080i60) and 16 min (720p24 24PN) of record time to keep rolling while the card offloads. But to ease things a bit it would be wise to get 3 or 4 cards.

 

[endmarks]

The bottom line is that there is no perfect solution yet. At least for me. I have been using the P2 to powerbook to hD solution for a few months now. I have used it in 1080 and 720 mode. It is very time consuming to have to off load p2 cards to a hard drive. It requires a support system to perform it while continuing to shoot and make your day. You need space, extra equipment and crew to keep it going.

Then, you have to download everything into the NLE and convert to quicktime, if using fcp, then you have to look at the footage and log and interpret the file names.

so, that being said, It is probably easier and quicker at this point to stay old school and use a tape. But, once this gets figured out then it will be a great system.

I am going to go with the firestore route and continue to use my p2 cards as well.

 

[carlone]

This is where Avid shines because it deals with MXF files directly, no need for conversion. I think any of us doing this today are simply on the front lines. When bigger P2 cards come out this process will become MUCH easier. Just having a 16GIG P2 would smooth out this process.

 

[lpcvideo1]

I have been doing (mostly) what you have given as your P2 option above. It works great, with some caveats.

1. It is easy to mix up the cards, wreaking havoc with your footage. I have copied one card twice, and erased the other without copying. Footage lost forever. Granted, a solid procedure with checks would help, but the human error factor at the end of a long day when everyone is fading is too great for me.

2. The copy process to laptop can take longer than I would like. For one, you have to be sure you have places (directories) to receive your footage--no biggie if you plan ahead. You have to wait for your P2 to be recognized, load, and copy (Anders' solution sounds great, btw.), then you have to "safely remove hardware" (which hasn't always worked smoothly for me), then reformat the card. All this is fine, but there always seems to be one of those steps that sticks in the mud and delays things.

3. Then you have to pray all copied properly. So far everything has for me, but I get nervous every time I do it.

All that being said, I like the workflow. So I went ahead and bought a p2 store, for all of the reasons above, plus the reason you stated. I like the copy-verify-format and ease of use the big copy button. EDIT--it also will alert you if you have recorded a card already--nice. I get it Friday.

For all the value the firestore brings, I am hesitant to use it. I really like the P2 workflow. Just me, though.

Someday, I'll also pick up a Cineporter, if it turns out to be all that we think it is. Of course, with the firestore, you can simultaneously copy to P2 cards as well, so maybe the redundancy there could be helpful to some.

 

[dregenthal]

Edius Broadcast is pretty sweet. Take this with a grain of salt . . . I have only had it since yesterday. It will read right from the cards in the camera, the P2 Store, or your hard drive.

If they're (for example) on the P2 Store you can leave them there (although I'm not sure why you would want to do it that way) and Edius will create a reference to them. Or . . . you can have them copy them to a folder of your designation. The nice thing is that, because you can see the thumbnails, you can (another example) create subfolders for different scenes . . . nice when you have a ton of files, select the ones for that scene and drag them to the sub-folder. Really cool organization.

You can also, as a part of the copy process, have the program automatically add a prefix of your choosing to the files (think, "scene 1" "love scene" whatever).

Broadcast actually places ALL of the MXF files in one "Contents" directory for each project with the same structure and subfolders you would see on your P2 cards. You can combine any number of them (if desired) to a single file. And, remember, you have the capability to write the timeline out to a new MXF file.

Cool huh? I think Canopus (Grass Valley) is going to become a major player in the PC NLE market.

(I also have Xpress Pro HD and Premiere Pro/Raylight).