transfer times of P2 media

[Shane Ross]

[Trevor Ward] “1. how long will it take to copy the contents of my card to the hard drive?”

16 min. Typically 1 min per GB.

[Trevor Ward] “2. how long will it take FCP to “import” the footage (convert into editable quicktime files)?”

Same amount of time if you use the Log and Transfer method. Because all FCP does is copy the footage to your media drive and put it into a QT wrapper.

But if you get third party software like Raylight, MXF4QT or Calibrated that allow you to work with the MXF footage natively, conversion takes seconds. HOWEVER…you still need to copy the footage from your backup drive to your media drive…so about the same amount of time.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
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[John Fishback]

Using a MBP and Duel adaptor, we xfer 16GB with Shotput P2 in about 12 minutes with verification. Also, if you set in and outs as you log and transfer, as soon as you add a clip to the queue you can start looking at the next clip. Works very fast.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
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[Trevor Ward]

Is this the time to transfer from the card onto the hard drive or the time to copy the file from MXF to Quicktime (log and transfer encoding in FCP)?

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[John Fishback]

12 min is for P2 card to FW800 hard drive transfer.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Jeremy Garchow]

I find the AJ-PCD20 to be about 2:1 so 16GB would be about 8.5 minutes, 32 Gigs transfers in about 17. Once it is transferred, you can use MXF4QT Import and import your footage right away with metadata:

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

Also, editing DVCPro HD will be much faster than editing a long GOP codec such as XDCam. I had my first XDCam edit fly across my desk the other day (footage was already transferred and presented to me on a hard drive) and it was the worst editing experience I have had in a long time. The conform process is ridiculous, changing the render setting to ProRes still resulted in massively long export times. The only way to do it was to edit in a ProRes timeline and that seemed to work out alright, although I was getting some weird playback errors with drop frames on a machine that has never dropped frames on fully rendered timelines. Weird stuff and it’d drive me batty to edit with it on a daily basis.

I-frame codecs are much easier to edit with and process.

[Bret Williams]

I had the same experience until someone said to turn off “full” in the render checks. It went back to the normal editing and rendering I was used to with dvcprohd. No more conform crap.

You can choose to render to prores with an xdcam timeline to increase the quality of graphics.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bret Williams] “You can choose to render to prores with an xdcam timeline to increase the quality of graphics.”

Right, I did that, but when you export, it then transcodes everything back to HDV. It’s silly.

Working in a ProRes timeline was (to me) the most efficient. Even though I was getting those playback errors.

Jeremy

[Bret Williams]

Sorry, I didn’t notice you mentioned rendering to ProRes before. Why did it conform to HDV? You meant XDCam, right?

We have been doing XDCam sequences with XDCam render just 2 weeks ago, and were exporting current settings for QT compression with EClipse. Everything operated just like we were working in DV or DVCProHD. Quick renders. Normal exports.

The only time I have have long renders was when I had the “full” render checkbox on with XDCAm. That throws it in to conform land which appears to be pointless. It would also control the render level on export as well, which would mean long conforms.

I did some tests and turning off the full render didn’t make any difference in quality of video or graphics. Go figure.

But you’re right, the long gop timelines are a pain. Probably best just to go ProRes.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bret Williams] “Why did it conform to HDV? You meant XDCam, right? “

Same thing to me. Long GOP hoo hah.

[Bret Williams] “The only time I have have long renders was when I had the “full” render checkbox on with XDCAm.”

Interesting. Never heard that one before your last post. I’d imagine that the full option actually rebuilds the I frames. I have no idea what that does for quality.

[Bret Williams] “But you’re right, the long gop timelines are a pain. Probably best just to go ProRes.”

I agree. It was my first project with XDCam and I have no idea if we will get anymore as it’s not what we shoot.

Jeremy

[Dave Jenkins]

But doesn’t it it render to full on the export anyway, which makes the export time go way up?

[Bret Williams] “The only time I have have long renders was when I had the “full” render checkbox on with XDCAm. That throws it in to conform land which appears to be pointless. It would also control the render level on export as well, which would mean long conforms.

I did some tests and turning off the full render didn’t make any difference in quality of video or graphics. Go figure. “

Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.8GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCP 6.0.4 OS X 10.5.5 QT 7.5.5