P2 Footage without lastclip.txt file. Help! Using Raylight

[Jeremy Garchow]

That doesn’t sound like a lastclip problem, it sounds like a drive format problem. What format is your scratch drive?

I am a bit confused by your post, though. Have you logged and tranferred your clips so they are movs? Or do you have the raw p2 MXF data? What do you mean you can open from the directory and play movs prior to FCP6?

[Andrew Dieringer]

Sorry for the confusion…

I have raw .mxf files. When I double click them from the finder they open up in FCP6 as 00:00:29.22 length clips. Which is VERY curious. Previously when I did this they opened fine and played the full clip as a converted .mov

Scratch drive is o striped I believe. I didn’t set it up. Where can I confirm this on my computer? Should I call the tech that set it up?

Thanks.
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[Jeremy Garchow]

So have you logged and transferred?

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/p2fcp6/video-tutorial.php

[Andrew Dieringer]

I can’t log and transfer without a lastclip.txt file. I get an “invalid directory structure”.

Anyone know what’s up with the 00:00:29.22 time length of my .mxf clips when opened/played in FC6? I feel like this may give some insight into the problem or a work-around?

Any insights into Raylight would also be appreciated.

thanks,
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[Jeremy Garchow]

[andrew dieringer] “I can’t log and transfer without a lastclip.txt file. I get an “invalid directory structure”.”

That’s not true. Point FCP to the encompassing CONTENTS folder, and not the “Video” folder. It could be that your whole p2 directory is screwed up somewhere if you are getting that error.

Jeremy

[Andrew Dieringer]

OK, that was helpful. It turns out you have to have the folder named “CONTENTS”. I had given that folder a unique name for obvious reasons, (multiple shoots).

So I made another folder, renamed the named folder back to CONTENTS and whala! imports fine and you’re right no lastclip.txt file required.

Thanks Jeremy!

Best regards,
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Now what’s Raylight good for again?

[Jeremy Garchow]

Alright now that we got that all sorted….

When you transfer your footage from P2, you make a new folder for your project, then inside that folder you make a folder for each card. So you have a folder named CoolProject, then inside that you have folders named CoolProjectCard01 – CoolProjectCard10 or however many cards you shoot that day or project. Inside each Card folder you will put the CONTENTS folder and usually a lastclip.txt folder from the card you transferring from. As you see the lastclip.txt is not necessary, but the CONTENTS folder and it’s specific directory structure most certainly is.

What Raylight does is it turns your MXF files into QT ref movies and also combines any metadata that you have entered in to the MXF structure and attaches it to the ref movie (you need third party software to do this easily), and then you can simply import those QT ref movies to edit with instead of logging and transferring.

You also might want to check out calibrated software. It also allows direct importing of MXF media:

https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/

[Karl Fortier]

I’m having a similar issue! I didn’t save/copy the Lastclip.TXT file…I’m not even sure if I’ve got the CONTENTS folder. I’ve just got the AUDIO CLIP ICON PROXY VIDEO VOICE list. There is data in the AUDIO, CLIP, ICON and VIDEO files.

Is there any way to retrieve this footage, perhaps as a QT ref movie, using Raylight or some other system? I do not currently have Raylight.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Perhaps, you can salvage it. Simply make a folder that is named CONTENTS and put the other folders in there. You will then have a full p2 card structure. Is it just from one card?

Next time, you need to make a folder for each P2 card. You then drag each CONTENTS folder and lastclip.txt file into that folder. For the next card, you make a new and separate folder.

Better yet, buy the awesome Shotput P2 to do the dirty work for you.

Jeremy

[Karl Fortier]

Thanks, Jeremy! I’ll give it a try. I’ll be sure to do it right next time.