Workflow from Windows to FCP

V

vfranke

Member
Just returned from a 2 week trip with 450 gigs of 720 30p and 60p footage. quick note on my back up flow from windows to FCP- hope it helps (I avoided using FAT32) Probably this is out there, but I never found this method when searching

In field:
1- downloaded P2 to laptop and bus powered ext. harddrive with Windows P2 genie.
2- at night (when had power) copied files to larger external drive called "master field hard drive" (still windows)
3- Also burned each card to Dual layer 8.5 Gb DVD's- because eventually had to erase laptop hard drive.... Yes i had 3 copies, but very bumpy rds and had air travel.

Edit suite with FCP:
3- Plug in "master field hard drive (windows OS)" and "edit drive (mac OS)" to G5 and set capture scratch to edit drive.
4- FCP can read files from the master field drive- so use import from P2 in FCp to import all footage. So this converts all fiels to QT files on the MAC OS drive and can edit from there.
5- I have all my mxf files backed up and so can erase master field drive and use for next trip and edit from edit drive (1 TB G-raid drive)

I realize this uses an extra hard drive ( in my case a 500 gb G-drive) in the mix, but can use it for subsequent projects. This way i avoid using FAT32 and any partition issues.

Hope this helps- and as always, looking for any comments to improve flow.

Thanks-
 
Quick question: how did you get your G5 to read the Windows drive? I assume it was NTFS since you are not using Fat32.
 
I am using OS 10.4.8 and FCP 5.1.2. Yes, my NTFS drives can be read from but not written to. It just can- I did not change any settings.

When i spoke to G-technologies tech support about formatting they told me about this. I had not heard of it before, but just figured I hadn't researched things enough.

Sorry for lack of details....
 
Yes, Mac OS reads but not writes NTFS. I use MacDrive, which allows a PC to read/write to HFS+ volumes. So, I just have all of my portable and removable drives formatted HFS+ and let MacDrive recognize them as E: F: G: , etc. It is very cool product. Version 6 now works with Vista.

Ned Soltz
 
I currently use a WD Passport USB-powered drive to copy P2 files...similar to the above workflow except instead of download I copy the P2 using the PCMCIA slot on a Windows laptop directly into the Passport formatted Fat32.

Then I copy the Passport files through a Macbook Pro into a LaCie formatted Mac OS Extended...and then ingest from the LaCie. I could also ingest directly from the Passport saving a few minutes; however, this gives me an extra copy of the source MXF.

I have not had any trouble yet with Fat32 and larger files. Last night I captured a long performance in one shot to the P2. The video MXF is 3.92GB and had 4 audio MXFs at 68GB each. They seemed to copy completely to the LaCie and also seem to be complete and glitch-free in FCP playback.

However, based on what you guys are saying, I can format the Passport to NTFS and perhaps avoid any large file issues.

Is that right?
 
nsoltz said:
I use MacDrive, which allows a PC to read/write to HFS+ volumes.
Click to expand...

I knew there was a product like this and wanted to get it. Turns out that MacDrive doesn't work with XP !!!

Anybody know of a product that will let XP read Mac drives?

thanks,
td
 
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