Question about work flow from tape to P2.

[Ray Palmer]

Jeff,
What a great list of the 2700 improvements over our original 27F.
It would have taken me while comparing spec sheets to come up with what you gave me.
Thank you.
Ray

Ray Palmer, Engineer
Salt River Project
Phoenix, AZ
602-236-8224 office
Violence may not be the answer but it sure cuts down on the questions.

[Emre Tufekci s.o.a.]

Ray,

We run a very similar system like your with 4 FCP edit bays connected to a main server. The archiving process is not too complicated but requires a little bit of getting used to. You should figure that out before you purchase your cameras as it is an essential part of the workflow.

Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Ray Palmer] “We do the whole production. We write, shoot, edit and archive. “

OK, so do we. Then the shift from tape to P2 will be awesome for you.

I can outline our workflow a bit, and maybe it will be right for you, maybe not.

We shoot P2, we transfer to two drives in the field, we transfer that material to our raid once we are back in the studio.

From here, we use P2 Flow to edit the metadata on the native MXF files. From P2 Flow, we then fire over the MXF files to FCP, without log and transfer (but you can also use log and transfer with p2 flow if you want) with the MXF IMport plugin. This way, we are editing the native MXF files and don’t have unnecessary redundancies of media (that being the MXF files AND log and transferred Quicktime files).

We edit, we master, it sits around for a while, then we archive. For archive we have an LTO4 machine from Cache-A. It’s ironic that everything we do eventually goes back to tape, but the advantage is that it’s not just the camera originals getting archived, it’s the entire production (graphics, stills, project files, etc).

Here’s a really down and dirty example of P2 Flow in action that I made for another post:

https://reels.creativecow.net/film/p2-flow-example

And here’s how MXF Import works. I will say that I made this tutorial before FCP7 and P2 Flow existed, so some of the tools are now outdated, and AVC-Intra now works natively to the suite, but the general workflow is there. You will see the speed and ease:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/garchow_jeremy/dvc_pro_hd.php

Also, the picture on the 2700 is really very nice. Write back with questions.

Jeremy

[John Rosson]

Ray,
I own an HDX900.
The camera takes beautiful pictures as you know, but I can count on one hand the times I’ve used the tape.
It’s great to have as a backup — but I use the FS 100 attached to the top (with a specially designed cable). I’m careful, have had none of the cable jiggle issues others have had to date — and have in that respect been file-based since I started using the FS 100. I just drag the QT files to a hard drive, and then drag the reference files into FCP.
The one issue I have is weight. The 900, with an AB 140 on the back plus the FS, and a small light — is hefty in the field.
Long story short – I’d like to move to the file-based 2700, get better pictures, and lose some weight.
It seems to me you have the best of all worlds. Why not get the 2700, move to file-based, but roll off finished product to tape (assuming you have either a 1200 or 1400 deck)? You could also keep a ‘best of’ raw tape master reel and add to it as you go along.
That might ease your concern?
Best,
JR, Allied Artists