Working with HD Log and P2 content into FCP

[John Fishback]

Checkout Raylight. It allows you to work directly with MXF files in FCP.

https://dvfilm.com/raylight/mac/index.htm

John

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[Shane Ross]

You aren’t importing twice. You use HD Log to offload the card onto a hard drive…the original MXF files and original file structure. This hard drive is now your SOURCE TAPE if you will. That should be the backup drive. Then you use FCP to convert the footage into Quicktime (with zero quality loss), and here you can name and organize your footage.

I have a workflow right here: P2 Workflow with FCP 6 It doesn’t have HD log in the mix, I use the FINDER to drag the files over here. But I prefer HD log and the Verify option.

If you use Raylight you should still have the MXF files backed up on a hard drive, and then also on your media drive. And with Raylight you can see all the meta data…FCP ignores all but time code and reel number. Either way, you have the footage twice…as you should. And FCPs log and transfer is as fast as copying the footage to a drive manually. So now it is all about the metadata.

Shane

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[Niklas Wikman]

Bright, clear and concise, as always :-). Thanks, Shane. I’ll go for the offload in HD Log (good thing I can do it onto three drives at the same time) and then on my Scratch disk (and not the backup disk!) I use Log and Transfer then.

(but it nags me a little to pay 200USD for a verify function…)

But isn’t Log and Transfer duplicating the clips? Or are they just converted to QuickTime? Sure disk space is cheap now, but it seems foolish to have the footage as both MXF AND QT…

There’s an option to create FCP XML in HD Log, but to be honest, I can’t get it to work. Have just given it a quick try – and the manual is 143 pages…(!)

[Adam Smith]

If all you need is Verify, you could use P2CMS (free from Panasonic) to pull footage from the cards and catalog it, as well as modify metadata, make selects and backup or duplicate with verify. P2CMS also installs DVCPRO-HD drivers so you can view MXF files directly in quicktime player, and even import them directly into FCP, assuming you don’t mind re-syncing all audio tracks.

Log and Transfer does indeed wind up duplicating your media as it re-wraps the content as quicktime movies. It is possible to make mistakes as you Transfer… things like having Remove Duplicate Frames set incorrectly can really screw up your imported footage.

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[Dan Montgomery]

Yes, and FCP’s users manual is much much longer . Just skip to the “Easy Setups” section for working with P2. It’s only a couple pages long and tells you step by step how to bring it in and put it into FCP. You can convert within HDLog, rename the MOVs, or just pass reference QT pointers to FCP. Many choices. Find the workflow that you’re comfortable with.

Video logging is just the beginning…