[Helmut Kobler]

An app called P2 Flow lets you do that–the feature is called “Virtual Tape” and it lets you select any or all of your P2 clips, and export them as a single QuickTime reference movie, which can then go into Final Cut (or Compressor, or whatever else that works with QuickTime files).

The problem is: you also need P2 Flow’s companion application, called “Import QT” as well. It lets QuickTime play native P2 media. The whole bundle of P2 Flow and Import QT costs $599.

[Helmut Kobler]

Yes, you can name your clips. P2 metadata includes a field called Custom Clip Name–that’s the field you’d use, and editors like Final Cut and Avid read and display that name for the clip (Dock1, 2, Garden1, 2, etc.).

You can set this up pretty easily before your shoot by using Panasonic’s P2 CMS app (free for download for Mac and Windows) to set up the metadata fields, save them to an SD card, install the SD card in the camera, and use your camera’s menus to choose the right metadata file from the SD card.

Or, you can shoot your footage first, and then get a program like P2 Flow (google it) to quickly add metadata to all the clips, including Custom Clip Names that increment ala 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Panasonic’s P2 CMS also lets you edit the metadata of clips after they’re shot, but P2 Flow is more powerful and has lots of other useful features. But it costs $$.

[Helmut Kobler]

I have worked with five 32GB E series cards since they came out in June, and now five 64GBs. Never had a problem, and they’re very very fast when transferring data to my RAID. Love em.

[Helmut Kobler]

I really like my PCD-35 5 card reader. It attaches to a Mac Pro via a PCIe card and is blazing fast. Might be overkill if you’re not transferring a lot of cards at one time, though, but if you are, it’s hard to beat.

https://www.studiodaily.com/main/technology/pvr/ROI-Review-Panasonic-AJ-PCD35_11176.html

[Helmut Kobler]

My workflow is a little simpler, largely because my work doesn’t have to be accessible by other workstations.

I shoot with one 64GB E series P2 card and five 32s (while I wait for my other four 64s to come in….where oh where are those, Panasonic??). Most of the time, I don’t need to worry about transferring footage in the field, I can do it once I get into the office. If I do have to offload footage in the field, it goes to a Raid 1 hard drive.

From there, my general worklow has been: Back at the office, I offload all the cards with a 5 card reader (PCD35) very quickly to a RAID 6 Sonnet drive, using Shotput Pro software. I use P2 Flow to edit the metadata. Before doing anything else, I pop in an LTO4 tape and copy the footage to tape, so I’m 100% sure I have my backup. Then I edit from the Raid 6 in Final Cut Pro, and can erase my cards anytime. I edit the raw MXF files like Jeremy does (no Log and Transfer), using MXF4Mac’s QT Import software.

I have also started to experiment with a different workflow, which is to put the P2 cards in my 5 card reader, and do a direct Log and Transfer within Final Cut (this does not require using Shotput Pro for offloading, nor does it need the MXF4Mac software for editing in Final Cut). Then,I copy directly from the P2 cards to my LTO4 drive, to make a backup of the original card contents. It’s a simpler workflow for when I am just shooting casual stuff, experimenting, etc.

[Helmut Kobler]

Here’s a review I wrote for StudioDaily of another LTO4 solution (Mac based). I use this hardware/software combination regularly in my own work, and have had no problems.

https://www.studiodaily.com/main/technology/pvr/LTO4-Tape-Archiving-on-the-Mac_11294.html

[Helmut Kobler]

Personally, I use Shotput Pro’s standard verification (“File Size Comparison (Fastest)”….The Imagine guys said that the more stringent “File Contents Verification” is really there for people who are paranoid. Their words, not mine! 😉

I’ve had no problem with the faster verification method, and I found that using the slower method almost doubles the transfer times.

Anyway, I would love to use ProxyMill for making proxies, but it doesn’t take advantage of multiple cores on a Mac Pro very well. I have a Nehalem 8 core MP, and Proxy Mill uses about 200% of my machine’s CPU load, whereas Compressor can use about 4 times as much. It’s just much faster. The Imagine guys told me that they’re going to take advantage of some of Snow Leopard’s features to speed that up…when that happens, I hope to become a ProxyMill user too.

[Helmut Kobler]

That’s just crazy talk, John. P2 is just beginning to hit its stride! The bigger card sizes (64Gb), the lower prices for cards (E series), the lower prices for cameras, the better software tools for managing and editing metadata (P2 Flow), Final Cut and Avid support for AVC-Intra, etc. etc. P2 is finally beginning to feel mature to me (in a good way), and I’m really enjoying this ultra-smooth workflow I have.

You say “We demand affordable and archivable media”… Well, P2 **is** affordable; you make a one-time purchase of media cards, and never have to pay a cent for media again. For production companies that shoot a lot (as opposed to the individual shooter who may shoot rarely), P2 represents a HUGE savings over buying endless tape of XDCAM cartridges.

As for “archivability”, well, you might as well condemn a lot more formats than P2–like Sony’s cards for the EX1 and 3, like the Red camera, like JVC’s new camera line, etc. The fact is, archiving is far better with a tapeless system like P2. My footage goes straight from my cards to a Raid 6 and then to an LTO4 tape, which stores about 26 hours of 720p/24 footage per $50 tape (and reads and writes that footage faster than a single hard drive could). At the same time, my workflow instantly creates proxy videos of my footage, which are small enough to store on my editing system, so at any time, I can see instant previews of *anything* I’ve shot, and quickly grab an LTO tape to restore hours of footage with a button click or two. To me, that’s a whole lot better than having to manage and store a library of hundreds of video tapes, each with about 30-45 minutes on them, which have to be manually fed into an expensive deck one by one if you ever need to go back to them.

Anyway, I highly doubt Panasonic is ready to retire P2 and go back to tape or a strange and klutzy hybrid like XDCAM disk. Time will tell…

[Helmut Kobler]

Connie,

If both P2 cards record these white speckles, and you see the artifacts before you even transfer them to a computer (ie, when playing back in camera), that seems to indicate there’s a problem with your camera, right? Maybe it’s time to have a Panasonic dealer take a look. Or maybe you should try to update the camera’s firmware (if possible), which might throw things back into whack.

Sorry you’ve had a tough time with P2. It’s usually a breeze to work with. I used to shoot all the time, and just do a Log and Transfer directly from the cards right into Final Cut. Never had a problem for years. I never used the Duel Adapter–just connected my HVX200 to the Mac via a FireWire cable, and then did a Log and Transfer. This goes against Jeremy’s advice of copying the cards to your hard drive first, and then doing a Log and Transfer from there. I agree it’s good form, and I now do something similar, but it can also be a pain (you’d essentially make two copies of the footage on your computer–ie, the card copies, and then the QuickTime-wrapper copy that Final Cut creates during the Log and Transfer). Some projects simply didn’t warrant the hassle.

Anyway, I would focus your efforts on troubleshooting your camera first. Good luck….

[Helmut Kobler]

Adam,
My sleep issue is that the Mac simply won’t wake up at all. The little sleep light continues to pulse despite me trying to wake up the machine.

My Snow Leopard experience has been very disappointing. Some great P2-related software from the MXF4Mac guys just don’t work in SL. The P2 driver is iffy. My BlackMagic Decklink SDI drivers don’t work properly when using AVC-Intra-originated footage (I get all sorts of interference during playback). The QuickTime X Player is horrible. They got rid of the JKL controls in the Player, as well as QuickTime Pro’s editing features. Yes, you can still run the QuickTime 7 player to do that, but there’s no way to globally tell Snow Leopard to open all QuickTime movies in QuickTime 7 instead of QuickTime X, so new movies I acquire are constantly opening in QT X. Additionally, Snow Leopard has introduced an annoying bug in Spaces that prevents it from switching from one app to another when they’re in different spaces. And yet, none of my apps take advantage of Snow Leopard’s features, so I get no performance benefit.

I’m going back to Leopard as soon as I get a little time…