-
Grey Screen on importing archived P2
Long back story, simple question.
I have P2 mxf files backed up onto DVDs. When I try to reimport these mxf’s into FCP 5.1.4, some of the clips work fine, but others show up with a uniform grey video image but working sound and timecode. In fact, spanned clips, when relinked in the P2 import window, will show a grey screen on the bad clip and then suddenly cut to moving video of the working clip.
It seems to happen more often to spanned clips.
Could this just be a bad burn onto DVD? Any ideas?
Thanks!
-
6 Replies
-
Do you have all the contents in place including the video files?
Have you tried dragging the contents folder and lastclip.txt to another harddrive before importing?
Jeremy
-
Yes, all the files are in place. The P2 directory structure is correct and all the corresponding files are in there.
I tried copying the reels off the DVDs and onto a hard drive. No luck.
Since it occurs mostly with spanned clips, I tried copying the bad clip as well as the next reel (with the spanned media) onto a hard drive, but that’s when I saw it mix the grey screen and working video.
-
How many DVDs total of footage do you have?
-
Lots. But I also still have all the mxf files on an external hard drive. I checked those and couldn’t find any problems.
I’ll explain my archiving workflow and maybe someone can spot a problem:
The P2 reels vary in size from 1gig to 16gigs. I can backup to DVD any reel under 4gigs. Those that are over 4gigs, I duplicate a suitable number of times and then bring them back into FCP P2 import. There, I can rebuild the duplicates by removing clips until I get the size of each one down to ~4gigs. Make sense? Thus, for example, while reel 1006 might be put on one disk because its 3gigs, 1007 (15gigs) will become 1007a, 1007b, 1007c, and 1007d.
I’ve never had any trouble importing files from these divided reels as long as they are on a hard drive (checked them when I started having the grey screen problem). Only once they are on a DVD do some clips seem to show up with only a grey screen. My guess is that there is some sort of problem created by dividing the reels up into subreels.
-
Have you loaded absolutely all the footage into the log and transfer window at one time?
If yes and you are still seeing grey, it could be an organization problem.
-
After I located a bad clip I tried loading in all reels that might’ve had some related media on them. For example, bad clip shows up on 1003b, so I loaded in 1002a, 1002b, 1003a, 1003b, 1004a, 1004b, and 1004c. No luck. I haven’t tried loading in -everything-. I might try that as well.
I went through many of the P2 directories and couldn’t find any problems, though its possible I missed something.
Could the lastclip.txt and the divided reels be having some sort of conflict?
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up