Ideas on Speeding up P2 Card Import to FCP via Powerbook?

[John Chater]

Jan wrote>Are you transfering the footage or importing to FCP? I found tranferring an 8GB card from the P2 Card slot to be under 7 minutes, regadless of what I shot on it. If you are using 1394 for tranfer to a tower, then again it should be faster. USB is not the way to go from the camera to an Apple computer.

Hi Jan

I was importing to FCP via the PC Card slot in the Powerbook G4. The USB2 connection was from the G4 to the HDD. We chose the import to FCP option because that allows us to quickly scan the imported footage for any corrupted data before we erased the card.

If I was to go your faster route and transfer the native P2 files to a HDD, is there anyway to confirm the files are are uncorrupted before I erased the P2 card?

For myself I am only interested in a workflow that would allow the camera to keep shooting. Anything that would tie up the camera isnt very practical in a real world shooting scenario. So i dont really have any interest in how fast I can transfer data from the camera. I have clients who get impatient during the 30 secs it takes to bar and tone tapes.

[Noah Kadner]

If you are moving the data from the PCMCIA slot immediately to the USB-2 external drive- that’s essentially doubling the amount of time it takes to move data because it must pass through the PCMCIA slot at one data rate, then through the Powerbook’s motherboard then finally back down the USB-2 slot at a much slower data rate.

I’d suggest making enough space available on the Powerbook’s internal drive to ingest an entire card at once. Then you can move it to the much slower external drive as you’ve ejected the P2.

-Noah

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

john chater:I was importing to FCP via the PC Card slot in the Powerbook G4. The USB2 connection was from the G4 to the HDD. We chose the import to FCP option because that allows us to quickly scan the imported footage for any corrupted data before we erased the card.

You would be faster doing this with the 1394 connection, on a MAC that is just faster, at least it seems that way to me.

>If I was to go your faster route and transfer the native P2 files to a HDD, is there anyway to confirm the files are are uncorrupted before I erased the P2 card?

Using the Finder I checked the files and once I saw that I had files in the ICON, Video and Audio, I moved on. I guess I trust computers, and no, nobody has to flame me for this statement, I have been working with computers copying an backing up files sine 1983, and the times that the computer makes a mistake is when I make a mistake. I figure if it is there. its there. But you should ask Jesse and Mariuz at Abel, I think they have an applet that does a verify.

>For myself I am only interested in a workflow that would allow the camera to keep shooting. Anything that would tie up the camera isnt very practical in a real world shooting scenario. So i dont really have any interest in how fast I can transfer data from the camera. I have clients who get impatient during the 30 secs it takes to bar and tone tapes.

I think that there will be some initial growing pains on how to work in the IT domain and those very customers will be the ones raving how they don’t have to spend hours digitizing. Yes we all want to work out the workflow as it is important. Funny, I have been working with the 4 GB cards and find the small size transfers so quickly I hardly notice it. I have transfered so stuff of of 5 GB cards and it seemed to take forever in comparison.

The other thing we did, is one we transfered into the computer, we ran a copy to another drive. The laptop I have has a USB and a 194, and so I copied from one to the other.

Anyhow, it will be more interesting here once we have more owners.

Best,

jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[David S.]

[Jan Crittenden Livingston] “Funny, I have been working with the 4 GB cards and find the small size transfers so quickly I hardly notice it. I have transfered so stuff of of 5 GB cards and it seemed to take forever in comparison.”

Jan, you are suggesting then that the cards be transferred via the PC Card slot on the PowerBook, and not imported into FCP until the shoot is completed.

Then after transferring each, use the Disk Utility to reformat to FAT32.

Is that correct?

And how do you keep each card transfer folder named differently without writing over the previous one?

David S.

[Tony]

No I don’t think that is what she meant.

Think of it as any normal copying of data from hard drive to hard drive.

1) Record media onto P2 card lets call this card “Mini Me”

2) Create a folder on a master hard drive which you will copy to.
The master hard drive in this case will be called “Big Moma” with a folder named “Mini Me BK1” . The master hard drive can be an internal or external hard drive.

For future reference I will refer to the master hard drive/folder combo as
“Big Moma/Mini Me BK 1”.

3) Copy “Mini me” to “Mini Me BK1” folder on Big Moma Hard drive.

3) Confirm files are ok on Big Moma hard drive drive in either in FCP or in finder.

If you feel confident all is ok then – Return P2 Mini Me card to camera for shooting at this stage or wait until after step 4

4) Copy folder “Mini Me BK1” to second HD called “Lil Moma” with a folder on it called “Mini Me BK2”

The second hard drive could be a firewire, usb or whatever storage device you choose but to save time I recommend using USB 2 or Firewire for all hard drive to hard drive transfers.

Any additional copies will originate from “Big Moma/Mini Me BK1”.

The advantage of called each folder by the original P2 card name and backup number is you can track back to discover where any problems might have occurred during the different stages of copying the media (ie the P2 card itself, Big Moma or Lil Moma hard drives).
In addition you will be able to compare the files for reference.

Another suggestion would be to start naming the P2 card by a numbering sequence similar to what we use when shooting tape except adding the number of passes a card has been subjected to on a given day in order to keep track of what order the footage was shot.

“Card 1-01″ meaning P2 card #1 pass number one
” Card 1-02″ would mean Card #1 pass #2.

If shooting multiple cameras add the letters A,B,C,D …. to the name. Two possible scenarios would be

A/Card 1-01 meaning – camera A, card one, pass one
B/Card 1-01 meaning – camera B, card one, pass one

or

Card 1A-01 meaning- Card one, Camera A, pass one
Card 1B-01 meaning- Card one, Camera B, pass one

If we go one step additional to save time in the field create all the Card name folders in advance within a master folder called by the client or project name.

For example

Big Moma hard drive contains

1-Master folder called “HVX Test BK1”
2-Within this folder are all the subfolders for the cards
Card 01-01
Card 01-02
Card 01-03
Card 01-04
etc, etc

Add a letter if using multiple cameras.

Copy from the original P2 card to each specific folder each time a new pass is completed.

At the end tape copy the entire folder called HVX Test BK1 to secondary hard drives but be sure to rename the additional copies as “HVX Test BK2” to keep track of each successive copy.

The beauty of this system is you can have all the folders made up in advance and simply rename the master folder on a per project basis.,

Tony Salgado

[Steve Freebairn]

you just set up a raid with disk mirroring in the OS. It is under the administrative tools setting.

[Ron Shook]

Steve,

[Steve Freebairn] “you just set up a raid with disk mirroring in the OS. It is under the administrative tools setting.”

I’m aware of that possibility, but it doesn’t solve the problem which is one drive for the client and one drive for me.

Ron Shook

[Gary Adcock]

[john chater] “The USB2 connection was from the G4 to the HDD. We chose the import to FCP option because that allows us to quickly scan the imported footage for any corrupted data before we erased the card. “

John
this is not a recommended workflow for FCP as FCP does not support USB for scratch disks due to the packeting protocols.

did you reformat the USB drive for the Mac OS? That will slow you down also.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[John Chater]

>Gary wrote: this is not a recommended workflow for FCP as FCP does not support USB for scratch disks due >to the packeting protocols.
>did you reformat the USB drive for the Mac OS? That will slow you down also.

Hi Gary

Good meeting you at Macworld the other day.

Okay so we decide to use USB2 from the laptop because Apple have abandoned the Firewire 800 on the new laptops and wanted to make sure that USB2 would work going forward. So are you saying with a G4 Powerbook we should use Firewire 800 to the HDD? If so will we have to use Firewire400 on the new MacBooks?
The HDD was probably formatted to the MAC OS. Cant confirm right now. So how should we format the HDD?

I know you have tested everything including the new Macbook Pro. What are you recommending as the fastest way to import to FCP, storing on an external HDD. What import times are you getting from a full a 8gb card? Faster that 13-14mins?

Im still sticking with a workflow that imports to FCP, rather than just downloading the full P2 cards. Mostly because this is a selling point to producers and also because I want to see the footage to confirm its existence. Trusting a file has downloaded is not good enough. Contrary to Jan’s opinion I have had CF confirmed downloads of jpegs to my computer. Only later when I went to look at the images did I find them corrupted. Those we my family snaps. What is coming out of the P2 cards is my career.

Best
John Chater
http://www.chaterfilm.com

[Gary Adcock]

[john chater] “So are you saying with a G4 Powerbook we should use Firewire 800 to the HDD? If so will we have to use Firewire400 on the new MacBooks?”

hey john
FW 400 is the way to go. I have tested this using the current P2 Card reader in both my laptop and in a Macbook pro (what a stupid name!) What ever connection you have to a car reader is most likely going to be USB and any other connections will cause a problem.

[john chater] ” What import times are you getting from a full a 8gb card? Faster that 13-14mins?” I have only tested 2 -8g cards ( i only have 4’s) and in all cases my tests approx. follow the 1gig per minute transfers — the more ram, the faster the drives, the faster the transfer my 4g cards transfer at about 45 secs per gig.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA