MXF necessary?

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Bill,

The MXF files are like your master tapes, not to keep them means that you have no way to go back to the original files, should you find that you have a problem. Most of the problems that have been “big” problems could have been easily resolved with a reimport from the MXF, but since there was not MXF to go back to the options become pretty ugly.

Let me finish with this question. Would you throw away your master tapes once you have the images loaded into your computer? Treat the MXF with the same due respect.

Best,

Jan

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

[Kevin J. railsback]

With the addition of P2 Log and P2Genie, I find it easier now to keep backups of the original MXF files.

I can quickly view all the clips via P2 Log and import only the ones I want to QuickTime. It’s extremely fast and I don’t have to try and load a bunch of QT files into the viewer or FCp to see the clips I want.

I use P2Genie to copy the P2 card to the HD then archive them on DVD’s.

I can quickly locate the right clips with these two programs.

[Tom Ang]

I’m with Jan, here. Besides, take a look at the file sizes. A typical P2 volume I have is 6.74GB in size. Of that 6.56GB is taken up by the .mxf files themselves, the tiny rest is made up of the sound (only two channels in this instance, admittedly), icons and what have you. And only my Mac journaled HDD, the .mxf files are actually slightly smaller than the wrapper .mov files that FCP creates. Costs per gig being what they are, I see no sense in not archiving the P2 volumes while working with the .mov files.

[Lars Wikstrom]

You know Bill I have to say that I walk a different path then the other people here. When I got the camera 6 weeks ago I took my laptop to the jobs and imported the footage right from the card into FCP. I was told last week that this was not the perferd method of working but I have not seen any problems with that process. No one here has said there is a loss in quality putting a new wrapper on it from MXF to MOV so I am guessing there is no loss.

If you are going to be editing in FCP then it will need to convert your MXF to QT anyways. When I finish importing a 4 gig card I drop that into Toast and burn a DVD of the clips from the Capture Scratch folder. When I come to dump the next P2 card the last one is burned and verified.

Jan is right that it is like your master tape but the fact is it is not a tape. It is 1’s and 0’s sitting on a hard drive and if your drive or disc dies then it dosen’t matter if it is MXF or MOV’s

I will still keep doing it this way even though it is not the perfered way since it works for me. The only probelm that you will come across is Panasonic does not offer the Quicktime Codec as a download from thier site. So if you give the files to a friend to take home to look at on their PC they won’t play. Found that out the hard way. but the camera is still great!

-Lars

[Shane Ross]

One issue that is happening with imported footage is that footage imported when a user was running FCP 5.0.4 is somehow not working right when they upgrade to FCP 5.1. Solution…reimport from the MXF files. If you didn’t keep the MXF files and allyou had were those quicktimes, then you’d be up a creek.

Jan said it best when she said “After you shoot a tape and capture the footage, do you toss the tape and keep only the captured footage?” I sure don’t. Who knows what advancements bring, and how those advances will interact with the imported files you have.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Lars Wikstrom]

But that problem shouldn’t be with the Quicktime clip. That would have to be a FCP bug. If it plays fine in QT player then it should import and play fine in FCP. The great power of FCP is the ability to work with native formats like .MOV’s .PSD’s AIFF’s and so on. With Avid everything needs to be converted in and out of that world. MXF’s are to new and I know that Apple format is QT. They may or may not adapt that format in the future or continue with the converting like it does now.

That must be a bug that will more then likely get fixed or it will cause alot of problems and perhaps turn people away from the P2 format if it will cause lots of more work when upgrades come out.

-Lars

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[doka15] “But that problem shouldn’t be with the Quicktime clip. That would have to be a FCP bug. If it plays fine in QT player then it should import and play fine in FCP.”

Lars,

There is this problem, yes it shouldn’t be, but it does happen, the only solution has been to back up a step. If you do not have the MXF, you are totally at a loss. Lesson here is save the MXF files, always.

Best,

Jan

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

[Bill Marcellus]

Jan and all- thanks for clarifying the need to keep the MXF version of the media. So far our tests are going well. We start shooting Monday on a project that will result in ten hours of finished program material. I’ll try to keep this forum updated on our experiences with the HVX-200 and P2 workflow.

Thanks again for your help!

Bill

[Jim Blokland]

So if you are dumping P2 cards to a P2Store, with no laptop on set, how do you preserve the MXF files when copying from the P2 Store to the Mac?

Real world advice appreciated.

Best, JIM.

OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO

[Shane Ross]

By dragging the CONTENTS folder and LASTCLIP.txt file to an external hard drive. The P2 Store will show like 16 partitions, each with a CONTENTS folder and Lastclip file. Drag those to separate folders you make on another external hard drive (Card1, Card2, Card3, etc) and keep this drive as your master drive.

Then import into FCP onto your media drive. Just like my tutorial points out: P2 Workflow Tutorial

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net