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Keep or Delete P2
I’m sure this has been asked, but I cannot find the answer.
Keep or delete original P2 files after Log and Transfer into FCP6 quicktime? What are people doing?
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12 Replies
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KEEP THEM.
After you capture your tapes, do you throw them away?
Didn’t think so.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
In fact when I am done with tapes, I throw them against the wall and then dance on their little shattered bodies.
Ha ha!
So what I am doing is transfering the P2 through FCP6 from my raw drives into the CalDigit. I’ll just keep everything like it is then. I’ll store the P2 hdd as if they were tapes, and the QT’s are mirrored on the RAID. Done.
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Thank you for answering both my questions by the way.
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[The HPS] ”
Thank you for answering both my questions by the way.”I could do without the sarcasm. I get enough of that with my kids.
“What are people doing?”
I am buying bare internal SATA drives. 250GB or 320GB…whatever is cheaper per GB. Then I have a USB to SATA cable I got from OWC for $30. I archive to those drives, wrap them in plastic and put them on a shelf in my office. $80 for the drive typically.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
I delete the original P2 files and just keep 2 copies of the QTs. First, this saves a little storage space because I don’t keep the really bad takes. And second, if you kept a P2 copy and a QT copy, and you lost the QT data, then you would have to re-import the P2 data and make sure to give the clips the same names that you did before. What are the chances of that happening?
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Well, doing it that way is restrictive, in many ways.
1) QT footage of P2 imports that looked fine with FCP 5.0.4 had issues when people upgraded to 5.1.1, the images skipped. Solution was to reimport. Who’s to say this issue won’t pop up again?
2) There might be future NATIVE support for MXF files. Currently with RAYLIGHT you can work with them natively in FCP.
3) What if you need to use the footage on another system you are SOL. Because the DVCPRO HD codec only works on Macs with FCP installed. If you needed to use the footage on an Avid or Premiere or Edius, you’d have to convert it, causing loss of quality.
So really, why not keep it? How many bad takes do you have? Drives are cheap. What might be a bad take in the past might be GOLD in the future. I use lots of bad takes as quick edits. I want ALL the footage.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Shane, have you actually used Raylight to import an MXF to a FCP timeline? I downloaded a demo version of this program it is seems kind of funky, and I couldn’t figure out the workflow to make this happen. Is it pretty simple?
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Shane,
You bring up some good points. But after some thought, I’m still inclined to delete the MXF files. The main reason is that it would be difficult, in case of data loss, to go back and re-import the MXF files and re-name each clip with the same names as before. I suppose if you originally imported them without re-naming, then it might be easier to re-link the clips.
In response to the points you brought up:
1. Skipping video: I think FCP 5.0.4 was the first time that FCP was able to handle P2 video, so there’s bound to be some bugs. I would think that everything is stable now. (If not, then I’m SOL).
2. If there’s native support for MXF in the future, then it would make sense to keep the MXF files at that time. But the current QT files will still work also (barring the problem mentioned in #1). Raylight uses low resolution proxies, and I don’t really see a need for it with FCP, since FCP can losslessly convert MXF to QT.
3. I hadn’t thought about using the footage on another NLE, but I would think that would be rare. Maybe in the future, FCP will have a utility to convert QT back to MXF (like Edius does). How do people move DVCProHD clips between NLE’s today, say from FCP to Avid, without going back the the MXF files? Export to uncompressed HD?
And I do keep pretty much all of my clips, because sometimes the bad ones can be used for blooper reels. I just discard the useless ones, like when you roll the camera, then nothing happens.
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We’re importing all the P2 media into FCP. Then we archive the raw P2 media to LTO3 tape on a Scalar 24 tape library.
Robert Longwell
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Raylight for the MAC is still in Beta…and I am still playing with it. It’ll get there.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net
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