[Bob Woodhead]

Call me paranoid…. verified copy to a RAID 1.

[Bob Woodhead]

What’s faster Noah? I get 1GB/min to a RAID1. Was hoping this would be about as fast as it gets.

(Caveat – this test was yesterday using data from MBPro via FW800 out to RAID. DuelAdapter due in today, so don’t know if that’ll slow down the transfer.)

[Bob Woodhead]

Ditto RAID 1 for field backups. The data moves to a RAID 3 for editing, and the RAID 1 drives go to the shelf when full to serve as “camera masters” archive. I would prefer to use LTO3 for long-term archive, but don’t have a drive yet. Takes 16 minutes to copy 16GB card. If you edit on FCP & aren’t using Raylight, STOP! and buy it.

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
http://www.CoolNewMedia.net
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500

[Bob Woodhead]

Small production company here… we were shooting BetaSP & DV. We became interested in “offering more” to our clients, as well as get moving in HD, but in a somewhat affordable, professionally-oriented camera format (shoulder-mount, 2/3″ chipped, etc). Did NOT want to get involved in any tape or expensive media readers. The HPX500 was the only camera to offer this combination. Period. End of story. 5 year warranty. No moving parts. I’ll probably be senile before the P2 card insert cycle is reached. Loving the workflow (most of the time).

Will something better come along? You know what….

I DON’T CARE!

I’ve got the perfect tool for my budget, and (fingers crossed) there’s no need for a maintenance budget. So all I have to do is go shoot and make $$$.

Thank you Panasonic.

PS – ask me in 5 years what camera I want.

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
http://www.CoolNewMedia.net
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500

[Bob Woodhead]

As Barry sez, only 4 sets of 6, but, with a laptop you can keep as many files as you want in a top-level folder on the card, and swap ’em around as needed.

[Bob Woodhead]

OK, this will be a very… *special*… reply. 😉

I also found that importing via Log & T wasn’t bad, but as you, hated renaming files. (Of course, on tape, you had to do that AND realtime injest, so aren’t we impatient. lol)

Metadata on the SD card: scene files are totally independent of metadata files. Day before shoot, I edit the metadata files with the various data options I think will be needed. (clip name= “on_cam take”, “broll take”, “greenscreen take”, etc etc. Easiest way is to use a miniSD card reader & edit the files right off the card. It’s not possible to “see” the miniSD card via USB or FW via camera, without using the P2CMS metadata option (VERY clunky for lots of edits). So I might have 3-8 metadata files from which to choose while shooting. (But if you’re shooting drama or something, and you want, you could have “Scene 1 Take”, repeated 99 times as separate files, so you could go to “Scene 99 Take”.)

While shooting, the camera records the loaded metadata onto each clip. The “user clip name” field of the metadata is automatically incremented every time you hit record, eg; “broll take 1” “broll take 2”. Note that the clip name you put on the card was “broll take” – the camera adds the #. When you switch to a different setup, you load the appropriate metadata file (“on_cam”, maybe). This way your shots are automatically “metadata’ed” (roughly) by content.

Raylight will then use the “user clip name” field of the metadata & rename (append, actually) the clips with this field’s entry. Voila! Sorted clips!

P2CMS really isn’t bad, once you use it a few times. It provides verification of the transfer off the card (VERY important), visually shows which clips on the cards have already been transferred, allows multiple clip metadata editing (to some degree), formats the cards, and has a P2 Viewer app. (other stuff too) The onky improvement I’d like to see would be the ability to select multiple P2 cards at the same time for transfers.

Raylight will also let you (watch closely here… nothing up my sleeves…) edit directly from the camera! And after you edit, it will then write your edit BACK TO the P2 card in the camera! You can then play back the edit in full HD quality, right off the camera! wow. (maybe not quite as wow on the 200, as there’s no HD-SDI out.)

Hope all this clears up the confusion in a… special… manner. 😉

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
http://www.CoolNewMedia.net
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500

[Bob Woodhead]

Re-read my post above… the metadata workflow is outlined fairly carefully.

[Bob Woodhead]

“No, how do you modify the metadata with a Mac? ”

Use an adapter to mount miniSD card on MBP, then just edit the metadata file with TextEdit…. it’s just a text file, with a special extension, in a special folder.

OR… if you meant “how to modify metadata AFTER shooting”, you can with P2CMS, but it’s a one-at-a-time process for clip names.

[Bob Woodhead]

P2CMS will create a user-defined folder for transfers. It also verifies after the copy.

For “auto” naming, the best bet is to use Raylight. It creates QT reference files from the MXF (P2) files that FCP can use without importing. Big time & space saver. Also, it can preface file names with user metadata that the camera records with each clip.

Example:
in the P2 camera, metadata file on SD card has the following info stored –
Program=Movie_11_27_07
UserClipName=OnCam Take
Shooter=Bob
Location=Atlanta

this info is recorded as metadata onto each clip as you shoot. the “UserClipName” is appended each time with a #, that can be reset to 001. In example above, you’d get “OnCam Take 001, OnCam Take 002”, etc

When I offload cards via P2CMS, I’ll use the option of creating a folder for the transfer, eg, “BigMovie”. Now all MXFs go into that folder from camera.

Raylight then makes a folder called “Movie_11_27_07”, holding QT reference files of all clips from that day. (folder is based on “Program” metadata.) Each clip has a name something like “OnCam Take 001 0021EK.MXF.mov”

So with minimal typing, you’ve got all your MXFs from each project together in a folder, Qt refs in folders based upon shoot day, and files named according to content. Bingo. By having several metadata files on the SD card pre-edited, you can switch from having clips called “On_cam” to “broll” to “wild” etc etc

Capice?

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
http://www.CoolNewMedia.net
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500

[Bob Woodhead]

I’ve been using P2CMS to copy media off cards, as it has a verify function.
1] anyone know if it’s slower/faster to use P2CMS vs standard file copy (with or without the “lastclip” last method… man, that’s weird)
2] how do you verify the copy if not using P2CMS