When To Format A P2 Card?

DGW

DGW

Well-known member
Can anyone tell me if it is recommended to reformat the P2 card in the HVX200A prior to using it for a new shoot (in any of the formats?) or is it acceptable to simply offload the clips and then delete them in camera to recoup the available space? I have been doing the latter without any problems, but I wasn't sure if there was a benefit to reformatting the card each time you needed a full capacity P2.
Thanks in advance for any comments.
 
You reformat the card when you know that you have securely backed up the data on the card.

I would not recommend deleting data off the cards before reformatting. It's better to be safe than sorry.
 
Thanks...but let me ask the question in a different way. I am being careful to ensure my backup data is good. What I am trying to get at is this...If I shoot till I fill my card (say perhaps 30 or so clips) I then use the 1394 host mode to transfer the contents to a hard drive. Then I am deleting the clips to make available space on the P2 card to shoot more clips. Is this procedure typical, or should I then reformat the card (instead of just deleting clips) to gain available space before I begin shooting again?
 
Most people just reformat.

I have P2 Formatter on my MBP so once a card has been dumped to two drives and the clips verified, I just use P2 Formatter to reformat the cards. You can, of course use the camera to do the same thing, IF the camera isn't still rolling on a long interview, for instance.

Dan
 
i have 2-32 gb p2 cards. Both say the available space is 35 mins each. Am I reformatting wrong? Shouldn't I have I have twice as much room. 720/24p is my set up..
 
I simply re-format as well. I keep the footage on the cards until my next shoot, that way I have the footage on the mac, the mac backup and the P2 cards until the next shoot arrives. I usually format 1 or 2 times a week lately. It has been working out so far, no corruption, etc.
 
At my shop, we reformat all of our cards in-camera after the footage has been transferred to three separate physical devices (networked editing drive + editing drive's RAID 0 backup + offline source footage archive drive), one of which is stored off site in the event of a catastrophic event.

Formatting cards immediately prior to using them on a fresh shoot helps to prevent data corruption, and is good practice if you're concerned about the integrity of your footage!

Also...
i have 2-32 gb p2 cards. Both say the available space is 35 mins each. Am I reformatting wrong? Shouldn't I have I have twice as much room. 720/24p is my set up..
Click to expand...

Unless you need your 24p footage to smoothly integrate with 60i footage, you should be using 720p/24PN (PN=progressive, native frame rate). You'll get the same look & feel, but around 80 minutes (instead of 30 min in 24p) per 32GB card!
 
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