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LTO tape Archiving/Restoring (Symantec/BackupExec) stripping P2 MetaData (AVC Intra 100)
Hello all,
We began shooting the AVC Intra 100 format to P2 cards this fall. Almost all of the original P2 content had been archived to LTO tape, using Symantec’s BackupExec software (run on a PC platform)
We recently needed to Restore a program back from LTO tape and when it came back, all MetaData had been stripped.
Finder window shows the MXF files as ‘Kind – Document’, wheras P2 files which have remained on our macs show up as ‘Kind – Unix Executable File’.
When I look at the media inside P2 Viewer Plus, the mac based content has tons of MetaData, while the media restored from LTO tape does not show any MetaData.
I’m editing with FCP 7.0.3, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. Our acquisition workflow is: Record to P2 cards in AG-HPD24 recorders, dump P2 media to harddrives, Log and Transfer P2 content in FCP7, which then become ‘spanned clips’ (Finder shows as ‘Kind – QuickTime movie’.
We do not believe this is an issue with how the P2 media was acquired, nor does it seem to be an issue with FCP/OS/QT. I’ve been working with all this media (and moving it around) without issue since we began shooting the AVC Intra 100 in September.
Any ideas on how best to re-instate the stripped MetaData and further, how might we avoid the issue moving forward. Our presumption until we get this figured out is that everything on LTO is of no use to us in the future.
A couple of side notes: When I tried using the recently Restored content and FCP wouldn’t see it in LnT, I tried copying one camera angle to an external hd, (to try using LnT on a second mac where it would have been done the first time), and was prompted to use my Admin password just to copy the files. This had never happened before. We do not believe it’s a permissions issue. I’ve moved the original P2 media previously without issue. Also IIRC, this is the first time we’ve attempted ‘Restoring’ the P2 media from LTO tape when shooting this format. (no need to berate me for failing to fully test the LTO workflow, I’m unhappy enough as it is and we’ve always had success restoring other formats of P2 media, along with Firestore and tape-based media) This issue seems to be specific to using Symantec/LTO tape when archiving the AVC-Intra 100 format.
Bottom line, why might the process of archiving to LTO tape be stripping the MetaData and changing the files to ‘document’ vs. ‘Unix Executable Files’?
Has anyone run into this before and did they use any software solutions to fix the problem…i.e. re-instate the MetaData?
Wasn’t sure this should go in this Forum or FCP, but it seems more relevant to P2.
Thanks,
Kevan -
3 Replies
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I’d take a look at Imagine Products PreRollPost. Expensive but may be what you need.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Creative Pro Users Group -
Thanks for the suggestion Rick.
This looks viable moving forward, but we’re hoping someone has experienced the issue and might offer suggestions for fixing the media already stripped of MetaData.
I’ve had one suggestion to see if a PC would recognize the clips, (prior to restoring back to a mac) so we’ll give that a go as a first step.
Obviously, we need to upgrade our LTO tape archiving setup.
The upside is that we still have our ‘live cut’ capture files for most of these events. This issue seems to be very specific to the AVC-Intra 100 codec (while it’s still in the P2/MXF structure).
K
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I wanted to post a follow-up to this issue that may help others in the future.
As outlined in my original post, we were getting Restored (from LTO tape) P2 media that was not recognizable by FCP7 LnT, nor were the media/files/folders in their original state.
After a lengthy conversation with Symantec Tech Support, we’d determined that it was basically a permissions error. They were able to talk me through some Terminal commands that got us about halfway there, then I sat with my IT guy today and we were able to successfully get all content back to it’s original state.
I will note that we are upgrading our BackupExec software and hopeful that this resolves the underlying issue moving forward. My IT guy also mentioned that there was a ‘flag’ to either archive as ‘locked’ or ‘unlocked’. It’s quite possible that this flag was the culprit to begin with and we will test that next week.
There were two Terminal commands that were required to fix the issue:
1) We had to ‘unlock’ all folders/files in the P2 heirarchy using “chflags -R nouchg {folder name]”
2) We then changed global permissions using “chmod -R 777 [folder name]”
I am currently running LnT on the files that as of yesterday were still useless to us.
A caveat…if you are not familiar with using Terminal commands, please consult your IT professional if you ever need to run these processes, as improper use of Terminal commands can muck up your rig.
K
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