P2 Content Management Software

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jason Pence] “It seems live a viable product to check footage, ingest, and log footage, but it seems redundant with the log and capture in IN FCP. “

If you are receiving the material and doing log and cap yourself, FCP works very well. P2CMS is handy before you get your footage to the editor, in my opinion.

Jeremy

[David Tate]

Personally, I’ve found that the P2 Contents Management Software is the most reliable method that I’ve used to transfer footage from a P2 card (mounted on my Mac using my HVX200’s firewire port) to my hard drive.

Every now and again, clips I attempt to import via FCP give me the “red exclamation point of doo…” err… “the red exclaimation point of retry”.

[Bob Woodhead]

I use P2CMS for offloading P2 (either direct from HPX500 or from cards). P2CMS copies MXFs to RAID 1 box, this becomes “camera masters”. Multiple projects are stored until full, then new drive set laoded. Full “master” discs go on shelf (2 drives, same data). Data is copied from RAID1 set to online edit drives (RAID5). Then use Raylight to instantly create QT reference files from MXFs – these edit directly in FCP. No importing. When done, just erase media off online RAID, as “camera masters” are safe. LOVE RAYLIGHT!!!

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
http://www.CoolNewMedia.net
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500

[Arthur Aldrich]

I find P2CMS useful for modifying metadata after the fact, and for creating metadata prior to shooting.

The issue I have with P2CMS for offloading cards is that the clips all get tossed into one directory, lossing the individual card structure.

Maybe it’s the way my brain works, but I prefer to see the individual reels on the drive.

Check out HD Log for offloading P2 cards. It can copy to multiple volumes and run all cards unattended. We used it at the iditarod with good success.

HTH,

Art Aldrich
OTEK TV
Leader, NJFCPUG

[Bob Woodhead]

You know, I’ve just never even considered the P2 cards as reels… guess it’s my complete video background – not a frame of movie film to be found. 😉
With Raylight (a *MUST* for FCP users), your clip management is to a large degree controlled by your metadata clip naming, so in my workflow there’s a single folder with ALL the QT reference files (dozens, hundreds, thousands, whatever), BUT, when it comes into FCP, all the clips are named logically. EG; BRoll equipment Take xx, BRoll People Take xx, OnCam Interview Take xx,….
Raylight will also create subfolders based on metadata Program Name, which I use as “Project” Name, since the Clip Name handles organization so nicely.
Now if **ONLY** you could display UserClipName in the VF/LCD…. helloooooooo Panny!!!!

[Jason Pence]

Thank you all for your insight.

This is a follow up question for Bob.

Because I am currently what limited to drive space, I just acquired a 1TB drive and I believe it can be set up as RAID 0 or 1. Realizing that I’ll eventually need an archive drive. What would be the best configuration for the 1TB working drive? This will be used for offloading, rendering, editing, storing.

(My field workflow) will be HVX200 – 32GB P2 – Dual systems Adapter – MBP – Lacie 200GB Rugged for loading the P2 Contents.

(My home workflow)

Off Load Lacie Rugged to 1TB for rendering, editing, storing – FCP6

Best,
Jason

opticalbliss.com

[Bob Woodhead]

Just in case, a review: RAID 1 = “mirrored drives”, so 1 drive can fail & you still have all data on 2nd drive. Data is written to both drives @ same time, but only read from one. So, you lose 50% of total space, but have 100% backup in case of drive failure. RAID 0 = “striped, no parity”, so you have 100% space & read/write to both drives at same time, so speed is maximum. BUT, if 1 fails, lose ALL DATA.

You’ll have to decide what safety/cost tradeoff you’re comfortable with. I’d say use your 1TB drive as RAID 0 for best performance. For data you have elsewhere, or can be easily re-created (video off tape, audio off discs, renders of any sort, etc), there’s no need to worry. Project files, created art or any other type files should be kept backed up, on a DAILY basis, to another drive. Those files shouldn’t take up a massive amount of space compared to your video files, so it shouldn’t be an issue.

So now you’ve got your camera files to deal with. You really should have 2 copies at all times. 1 set on 200GB, 1 set on 1TB while working a project. Project is done, copy all project files from 1TB onto one or two “bare” external SATA drives. Cheapest way is to use:
https://www.newertech.com/products/products_univ_adptr.php
Only $25! 2 drives of course gives you much more safety.
Then erase 200 & 1TB, go shoot some more.

[Bill Thomas]

To Bob:
Thanks for the info on Raylight. I previously have been inporting using the basic feature of P2CMS (not the database feature) and the using Log & Transfer in FCP.

But my workflow is a bit different; I don’t use metadata at all (too much work in the field for a single shooter). Most of my shoots are: 1st day – interviews, 2nd day – B-roll. I then create 2 folders on my working drive where I upload the respective footage, ie: David_Int and David_broll

Then it was easy in Log & Transfer to pick the clips and rename them as need be. But realizing I would soon run out of space, I decided to try what you mentioned – Raylight. I think I will purchase it, but I only have 2 issues at this point;

1. When I select 3 or 4 folders I’d like to make QT reference files for, Raylight puts them ALL in the same folder. There goes my folder organization! My workaround is to either rename the clip BEFORE I bring it through Raylight, or just bring 1 folder at a time into Raylight, then put THOSE output files into their own subfolder.

2. When importing reference files into FCP, there is no setting for which audio or video channels I want – it brings everything in! (1 video and all 4 audio channels). Kind of a hassle for B-roll where I don’t need the audio. ( Unlike in Log & Transfer where I could decide what I want imported.) My workaround: separate the audio from each and every b-roll clip I need. A pain – yes, but if it’ll help me save a lot of disk space, I guess I can live with it. (BTW, Raylight tech support has no fix for this issue).

Any other hints Bob would be greatly appreciated!

Bill

[Bob Woodhead]

For (1), yeah, just do one folder at a time. The QT ref file creation is so fast, it won’t add any time to the workflow (last batch I did was 65 clips, took maybe 3 seconds).

For (2), same here, I was at first, like “but I don’t NEED all those (empty) audio tracks!” Just wasted space. But, compared to the video it was nothing, and since my archive workflow holds all the clip data (A+V) anyway, it wasn’t worth spending time figuring a way around it. (Since I don’t save my “working” MXF files – only the “camera master” files.)

One tip I think the guys at Raylight should stress more is that’s it’s a good idea to save the QT Ref files along with your project archives. That way if you need to re-load the project, you don’t need to run Raylight again, and perhaps change settings from the 1st time, thus mucking up what would otherwise be a smooth, painless, media relink.

The one thing I REALLY WANT is an easy way to edit the SD card metadata file when shooting. If I used a cell phone that took SD cards, that’d be an option, but my iPhone won’t.

[Bill Thomas]

[Bob Woodhead] “One tip I think the guys at Raylight should stress more is that’s it’s a good idea to save the QT Ref files along with your project archives. That way if you need to re-load the project, you don’t need to run Raylight again, and perhaps change settings from the 1st time, thus mucking up what would otherwise be a smooth, painless, media relink.”

In fact, they mentioned that in one of their support e-mails, but I guess I thought it would get too mixed up with dozens of duplicate file names in the same folder.

I guess I could always keep the QT reference files on the working drive – just in another folder besides the raw files.

Thanks again for the tips…

Bill