Problem Importing P2 Footage Into 10.1

[Jeremy Garchow]

P2 footage needs to be rewrapped so no matter what, it’s going to make a .mov version from the op-atom MXF media that p2 cameras record.

[Ben Mullins] “It also thinks that some of the clips are coming from a Camera source rather than a folder on the drive, even though it recognises other clips from the same location correctly. “

Can you explain this one in more detail, or better yet show a screen grab or three?

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

And sometimes, you have to double click in to the encompassing folder, and fcpx will display the card contents.

If you are in list view, it behaves a little differently than if you are in thumbnail view.

[Bret Williams]

Wasn’t there an issue with copying a card to the root as well? I don’t ever do that, but remember it being an issue.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yes, great call.

[Ben Mullins]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the advice. So X can’t natively handle P2, it will always transcode no matter what?

With regards to the other issue, what I’m doing is right click/Import Media then navigating to the folder where I have my P2 card saved (in this case ‘Card 01’), selecting the Card 01 folder and hitting Import. Some of the clips import and transcode, whereas other clips during the same import will come in as though they were coming straight from the P2 card itself, with X showing a little camera icon on the thumbnail to highlight it as such. I then have to go File/Import/Reimport Media in order for X to transcode those clips. If I don’t do this, the next time I open up X all the clips with the little camera icon on the thumbnail are offline and even though I go to File/Relink Media the relink dialogue box shows nothing to relink. The only way I can get the clips to relink is to do step 01 again and import the entire P2 card all over again. Obviously this is a pain! Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Ben.

[Ben Mullins]

Hi Bret,

I don’t copy cards to the root either but good to know.

Thanks,

Ben.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Ben Mullins] “So X can’t natively handle P2, it will always transcode no matter what?”

It handles it without an extra plugin. You don’t have to transcode, it just rewraps to a .mov container. This is much faster than a transcode to ProRes.

[Ben Mullins] “Does this make sense?”

I haven’t seen this. Is it possible for you to post a few screengrabs? Are you sure the media is all p2 and not a mixture of p2 and avchd?

Also, are you letting everything import before quitting?

Jeremy

[Ben Mullins]

Hi Jeremy,

I just tried to recreate the problem to take a few screenshots and it’s not happening! Everything is importing as it should now. I think what may have happened is that originally when I was selecting the folder to import from I was just highlighting it, then hitting Import, rather than actually twirling down the folder to see the clips stored within. When you mentioned above that X handles the two actions slightly differently I tried the latter and the clips imported fine so maybe now X is seeing them correctly all the time.

When X rewraps the .mxf P2 files to .mov does it still require the original P2 source to read the .mov files or are they independent? Can I delete the P2 card folder? I don’t want to lose the disk space that the .mov files now take up.

Thanks,

Ben.

[Jeremy Garchow]

That makes sense.

I would not delete the p2 card contents, but rather archive them to another hard drive.

As long as you have a copy of the original p2 media somewhere, you can remove the it from your working drive.

The P2 files are your camera masters, and should anything happen (drive failure, gremlins, lightning bolt) you’d need access to the original p2 media to restore the library.

Jeremy

[Ben Mullins]

OK, thanks Jeremy, much appreciated.