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Logging with P2 workflow
We’re looking into the tapeless workflow for corporate production. We need to log all of our footage, and have it searchable so we can call up shots from as much as three years ago. We currently shoot DVCAM, log in the field with FCP, then digitize. By shooting with P2, we lose the ability to log in the field as a shot is being recorded, and the logs have to be created after the fact. With this in mind, it appears we are trading digitizing time for time spent creating proper logs before we can start our post production. There doesn’t seem to be any way to log the clip name generated by the P2 into any sort of logging software (I had a comment from the Sales Rep for HD Log to this effect) and then keep track of what we have and haven’t shot.
Am I missing something in the P2 workflow? Record the clips, import into FCP, then start editing with clips that have no information on them other than arbitrary names assigned by the camera, with no way to know what they are without viewing them. We shoot 400-500 clips to a program, so going in and naming each one with appropriate descriptions and scene numbers will take as long or longer than digitizing from DVCAM tape.
I understand we can get HD Log to auto generate a log file for us, but then we still need to enter in all of the information about the clips that we currently do on the fly as we record on DVCAM.
Has everyone abandoned logging in the field with P2? The only way I see this working is to try to marry an external log with time code (that won’t match the clips generated by the P2 camera) with an auto generated log created with HD Log.
With tight budgets, our programs are scripted, marked with scene numbers and descriptions so we know exactly what we have and haven’t shot. We love the idea of P2, but we can’t get past losing all of the ‘soft’ information or the need to add it after the fact.
I’d appreciate comments, perhaps Ms Crittenden Livingston would have some comment on this too.
non-linear since ’94
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6 Replies
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So why would you use HD Log in the field, it supports the P2 MXF file and from what I see works extremely well. If you are on a PC you can use the P2 view and add your log notes in the metadata as well. So rather than do it on a sheet of paper you will log in the computer, but either with the HD Log Gold or the P2 viewer you can log your info in the metadata, and this data can be searched. You can also put in a User clip name if you want.
Hope that helps, or did I miss the entire question?
Best,
Jan
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems -
We work in a scripted workflow. We connect our DVCAM via Firewire to a Powerbook. We then launch FCP, and open the Log and Capture window. As each shot is taken, we mark an in and an out, scene number, description and whether the shot is ‘good’. At the end of the day, we end up with 100-150 shots all logged, ready to digitize. We don’t commit a frame to tape without logging it.
With P2, we would copy the files to a hard drive, let HD Log create a log for us, hunt through each clip to figure out which scene it belongs to, then add in the description and whether or not the shot was ‘good’ to use. This sounds like having to review footage that we really don’t need to see again until we start to edit.
I’m not sure the time spent digitizing is sufficiently offset by the need to add in the information we have to have in the log.
We’ve been using variations on this work flow for about 10 years, generating text files using Pipeline Digital’s Autolog to import into an IMMIX VideoCube, right through logging directly into FCP.
It appears to me that with P2, you end up with a number of random clips with little direct organization until you have an opportunity after the fact to organize the material. Or am I missing something?
non-linear since ’94
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Jan,
Are there any plans for a P2 Viewer for the Mac?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut pro 5
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[Paul Webster] “We work in a scripted workflow. We connect our DVCAM via Firewire to a Powerbook. We then launch FCP, and open the Log and Capture window. As each shot is taken, we mark an in and an out, scene number, description and whether the shot is ‘good’. At the end of the day, we end up with 100-150 shots all logged, ready to digitize. We don’t commit a frame to tape without logging it.”
But you could continue to work this way with the HVX.
[Paul Webster] “With P2, we would copy the files to a hard drive, let HD Log create a log for us, hunt through each clip to figure out which scene it belongs to, then add in the description and whether or not the shot was ‘good’ to use. This sounds like having to review footage that we really don’t need to see again until we start to edit.”
Or you could with each Card you load in go thorugh and do the same logging info as you did before, just in 4 or 8 GB loads. End of the day it is all logged, then back-up and ready to edit.
[Paul Webster] “It appears to me that with P2, you end up with a number of random clips with little direct organization until you have an opportunity after the fact to organize the material. Or am I missing something?”
It really depends on how you look at it. Frankly I would be logging as I go but those that want to sort it out later can work that way. The very least bit of organization in working with the Cards, and off loading them will pay off, and you can name the file for each of the cards by the scene name. You do set up a sense of organization and yes it can save time in digitizing and you don’t have to archive the bad takes, unless you want to.
While the universal clip name keeps things from being recorded over, you can name your clips during the shoot, via the SD card loading or as I said once you are in the ingest and transfer. You can set up with HD Log the ability to make the notes in the MXF, which I regard as the MASTER and then morror the drive for back-up.
Anyhow if you are capturing as you go with the capture now window, that obviously moves away for the MXF and more to the XML and there the HD Log could also be used.
Hope this helps,
Jan
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems -
Hi Mitch,
At this time the only P2 viewer available is on the front end of the HD Log Program offered by Imagine Products. I think that the HD Log does for their customers the very thing that any person moving into the data based domain needs to do, and that is create an archive and have that be searchable.
I know that Imagine is having conversations with the guys at Quantum, who have a new DLT device that have an MXF aware part of the drive and so when it starts to stash the content, it keesp the MXF stuff up front and so when I go to search for it agains the MXF, it is up front and in the database, and I can extract just that clip I want by TC. So the way I see it, is that if you realize that you need to think archive, you get a very nice archiving system with HD Log and a P2 viewer on top of that, and it is faster than the P2 viewer that we offer on the PC.
Hope that helps,
Jan
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, AG-DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems -
You make an excellent point, we could off load the files card by card and organize them say 20 at a time. That could work.
I’d also like to thank you for your input. This is helping us understand how the workflow actually happens. I now ask for a little patience, since I’m about to get into the ‘really stupid questions’ department.
[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “Frankly I would be logging as I go but those that want to sort it out later can work that way.”
I don’t understand how any log we make before the P2 files are copied to a hard drive (HD Log or in FCP) would relate to the P2 footage in logging ‘as we go’. Can you get the P2 clip name, TC In and TC out information directly from the camera before it comes off the card, via serial or Firewire? If we want to log as we go, I don’t understand how that log will line up with the actual P2 files. Can you tell me how we can log as we go, and how that will ultimately connect with the P2 files?
[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “you can name the file for each of the cards by the scene name.”
Can you name each file, or each card? We would want to name each file on the card, not the card itself. We might have 20 different scenes shot on each card. How is this accomplished? Do you need to do it through a menu option on the camera?
Can you write to the P2 cards if you are capturing TC information via Firewire at the same time for logging purposes?
[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “While the universal clip name keeps things from being recorded over, you can name your clips during the shoot, via the SD card loading or as I said once you are in the ingest and transfer.”
For SD loading, do you mean a Secure Digital card with data loaded on that you can put into the camera to ‘transfer’ scene information to the files on the P2 card? Or are you referring to the P2 card itself?
non-linear since ’94
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