HPX 250 clips broken into 5 min clips

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Sam.
My card reader is as single slot and looks like this

with this inside

FCP X see the

But I can’t seem to copy/clone this to my media drive.

So instead I’ve been creating a finder folder, labeling it and copying the

in it.

How do you get the card itself to copy to your media raid?

I can drag it to a drive but get an alias. I can import it into FC and FC will give it the camera name you see in pic which was created in the finder by right clicking the card and renaming it.

Is there any import feature in FC X that would be a way to sorta transcode it to a codec like what you are doing in 7?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Sam Lee]

FCP X automates the file transcoding process internally and user can’t change any setting. The three popular 1080pformats: AVCHD, AVC-I (P2), Sony IMX (SxS) will automatically recognized only clip name. It will ignore all other directory attributes that are irrelevant to most editors.

The only way to manually preserve P2’s file structure is by creating a camera archive for each card. Thanks but no thanks when I have 50 cards per day to deal with. Your probably are asking why this is important. It’s because if you ever need to work in PC Windows, the raw P2 media will be Mac/PC compatible otherwise you’ll be stuck to Mac only once it gets rewrapped to .MOV and you delete the native P2 raw media. FCP does not perform a bit for bit data transfer to another hdd for you. That has to be done with OSX Finder or Shot Put Pro.

Manually creating a folder name in OSX Finder is one of the simplest ways to transfer the raw data from P2 and other raw cam formats. A more elegant method is by using 3rd party app called Shot Put Pro. For $100, it’ll automate the process and even verify that the data is 100% error-free. Eventually if you shoot a lot of footage, you will need this util to expedite the offloading process.

At this point in time, I have not been able to find an efficient file rewrapping workflow in FCP X that will result in smaller library size. I contacted Apple and others but no luck. The only viable solution now is to rewrap in FCP 7 and import as a native AVC-I 100 .mov clips. That is the most efficient for FCP X now. Perhaps next year if enough users complain, Apple will revamp their P2 AVC-I support.

[Craig Alan]

So I guess I’ve been doing the best I can without going to shot put pro

is shot put how you are keeping the images of the cards i see in your pics?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

So I guess I’ve been doing the best I can without going the shot put pro

is shot out how you are keeping the image of the card itself?

The problem I had the last i tried this was FC kept both folders I created in the finder even though I was trying to span them. I guess it doesn’t matter – it did span the clips that ran long. But it did not treat the two cards as one. I had one pause in the recording and it put the extra clip on one or the other of the two folders I created in the finder as the Camera name in the browser.
I will try it one more time creating a clean new library and see what gives. I need to get those cards back in circulation. Maybe if I put those two folders in a master folder with the master card name? And just point FC to the parent folder?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Sam Lee]

FCP X should not break up the spanned clips unless when you import it, a folder is missing. BTW, FCP 7’s Log & Transfer function is a great tool to determine if all of your P2 folders are present for uninterrupted spanning. Sadly, there is no such tool in FCP X. It’s so necessary but just not present in FCP X. Perhaps you may want run it as a spanning evaluator tool but doesn’t have to perform the Log & Transfer function. I actually use FCP 7 as a tool to determine if all the spanned clips from all the cams are present before reformatting all of the P2 cards. It will say immediately give you either spanning is complete or incomplete by adding or removing P2 folders. Be aware that if you have P2 cards mounted, it will go to that first. And if you know for cetain that only 2 P2 cards are shot, then you have to mount 2 of it. If not, eject the P2 drives and custom point it to the two P2 folders closest to \CONTENTS on your hdd instead.

If I’m not mistaken, FCP 7 & X prefer the one closest to the P2 folder. If you put a two folders before it, it may not see the clips. For certain, FCP 7 will give you an invalid P2 dir error right away if there are 2 folders. It only wants a single folder before the P2’s \CONTENTS media). I typically will compound select all the folders right before \CONTENTS and that seems to work everytime.

[Craig Alan]

I have a copy of 7 around. Haven’t used in in two years. But would love to get smaller file sizes. Hope I can remember how to use it.

Well the clips now got spanned as i shot it and the two folders for each cam is just a way to sort the clips, It has little after the span to do which card of the two in each cam it got recorded on. It just seems to span what it needs to from the other folder.

Still don’t get how you get the card file icons mounted on your media raid unless its just the result of using shotput pro?

I’ll look into how to start naming clips in the p2 cam.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Sam Lee]

If you have been shooting all short clips on the first card, nothing will be spanned of course. But if you happen to be using the last 1 Gb on a 64Gb P2 card #1 and record 20 min non-stop, that last clip will get span over to 64 Gb P2 card #2. There’s no logical reason for the clip to span over when the first card is not filled to the maximum capacity it can handle. For scripted type of shoot with short takes, I typically do not span the card. But unscripted docs, I will span it since it’s unpredictable and don’t want to be bothered with changing media during an important scene that can’t be reshot or recreated.

And if course you can continuously record as much as you like. The longest that I record continuously was 4.5 hours at full AVC-I 100. Every other hour I swap card and it keeps on recording. You really have to be comfortable with the blinking green on the P2 slot to remove it. It can get a bit nervous. But the blinking green and blinking orange works for me every time. Looking back this is a pretty risky thing to do and I would pause the camera as much as I can. What if you accidentally remove the wrong slot with blinking orange (indicating that it’s recording)? I haven’t experience this but I think only the last 5 min will be bad and not the entire duration of the spanned clip.

Those P2 icons can only be generated from the P2 readers (PCD-35, PCD-30) and the AG-MSU10 mobile storage unit. It cannot be created from an internal or external hdd. Those icons are from Panasonic’s genuine gear and they have their own custom volume P2 artwork. But you must install Panasonic’s own free P2 drivers software. It helps a lot to tell where the media originated. Shot Put Pro doesn’t generate icon when the folders are copied. It’s just a simple media copying utility with full verification.

[Craig Alan]

[Sam Lee] “But unscripted docs, I will span it since it’s unpredictable and don’t want to be bothered with changing media during an important scene that can’t be reshot or recreated. “

That was exactly the case here. And I was a newbie at it. Previously I just told talent that when the media card runs out that particular scene is over. But this time I had a strong feeling it would need to run over 100 min instead of 70 and it did.

My reader is a panasonic AJ-PCD2 with one slot. Is the new thunderbolt one good and capable of maintaining the icons. It would save me time if I didn’t need to create a folder for each card. But I would need to learn to name them in camera like you do.

Now that I copied both card copies to the raid and imported both at once, it broke the clips into the lengths they were shot, just like you said.

I’ll try to blow the dust off an old copy of 7 cause I would really like to cut the file sizes down.

I’m a one man band on this particular on-going non-scripted project and the assistant editing job is so important to its survival.

Thanks again.

PS if I get 7 up and running, I’ll be looking into how to transcode the media. Compressor can’t do this?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Sam Lee]

Panasonic’s P2 rich metadata gets cut out in FCP 7 & X. Only camera model, serial #, clip name, & shot marker gets imported in FCP X. With that in mind, the clip name is only useful. I do lots of unscripted docs and have been using generic names. The most useful for me is separating each camera. It’s virtually impossible to sort of six cameras using P2’s default clip name. You can update the metadata via the SDHC on the HPX-250 or go in and enter it manually. It’s a bit cumbersome in the camera but it works just fine. I typically would increment the shoot day clip name in the camera. The only downside to this is that you have to remember to do it everyday. If you forget, that clip name metadata data will forever be stuck. To avoid mistakes, I keep it generic as much as possible these days.

https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/professionalformatsandworkflows/index.html#chapter=7%26section=4%26tasks=true

Regarding rewrapping and transcoding in FCP 7: I’d strongly recommend to rewrap the file. That’s the default codec handling setting when installing FCP 7. Transcoding to Pro Res 422 from AVC-I takes a lot of CPU time and a bit more hdd space per file. When you have a large raw footage asset, the space adds up to Tb with the transcoded Pro Res 422 or HQ. There’s no setting in FCP X to treat the P2 AVC-I 100 media as native or transcode to Pro Res 422 or HQ. Plus the file size for AVC-I 100 & Pro Res 422 .MOV: Pro Res 422 is a bit larger. This gets expensive when you have a big library. You cannot transcode directly from Compressor. Earlier version of Compressor only takes regular clips and not camera raw. Quality wise, I feel more comfortable working in native AVC-I 100 .MOV codec than Pro Res 422 .MOV. It will preserve all of the gamma and other parameters as closest as possible. The most important thing here is FCP 7 & X take in the rewrapped AVC-I 100 .MOV files just like Pro Res 422 .MOV. You can verify that the P2 AVC-I 100 clips are indeed a rewrapped type by simply go to Quicktime and look at its codec setting. It’ll state AVC-I 100 vs Pro Res 422.

Come to think of it, I have yet to investigate whether FCP X is forcing all P2 formats like a transcoded media Pro Res 422 HQ. I always wondered why it’s so much larger when I import P2 natively in FCP X than when I rewrapped in FCP 7 as a native AVC-I 100 codec. I typically save about 60% of disk space when using FCP 7 rewrapped .mov. That’s a huge space saving for large projects. And quality wise, I can’t tell the difference between the two: AVC-I 100 rewrapped or Pro Res 422 HQ transcoded .movs. Most of these were shot with the HPX-3100s, PX5000s, and few HPX-250s cams. With that in mind, I don’t see a need for Pro Res 422 at the expense of ~60% more disk space needed.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Sam,

That could be a huge space saver.

So how do you rewrap the media in FCP 7?
Do you ingest it and select an option in the import preferences?
Then when its done how do you export all the clips to FCP X?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.