John Heagy
Forum Replies Created
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Try using QT Player Pro to create the ref movie. Copy and paste each of the 24 movies into one QT movie. This may not load into FCP for playback though as FCP does not like TC breaks.
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Thanks for the in depth response Jeremy. Seems most of my issues are either not issues to you, or solved by wrapping in QT by third party tools for FCP. We use Calibrated and CatDV to solve our issues with P2.
I agree that FCP’s file name centric linking is a pain. That’s why we have our own linking system in place, it uses what I assumed would be universally adopted metadata that’s been around since the days of Thomas Edison… Reel and Timecode. I do understand that I could substitute Reel with the 64 character Global ID, but Reel is useful for communication purposes. People refer to reel name all the time, it’s part of the video production vocabulary. Nobody’s going to walk in an edit room and ask for: 060A2B340101010501010D4313000000413F84D4635305DD0080458230DC9013 I know that’s the UUID, but that’s my choice… 6 digits or a number that exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe? I know… but how many people actually enter a custom User ID on the camera?
It remains ludicrous that “Reel” was omitted and “Altitude” was added. Reel links not only our 300TB worth of media, but all the trillions of frames we have on tape and film. Backwards compatibility… that’s what Reel gives you!
I also agree that the P2 system was designed by IT minded engineers. It’s obvious that Reel was omitted because there is no “Reel” in computer data. I suppose we should not use the term “clip” or “bin” because that refers to film. The whole P2 system is a classic case of IT purism over practicality, and is at the root of most of my complaints. I’m surpised they settled on such a short file name for the actual files. The uniqueness of a file name should not be virtualized in metadata, but hard coded in the file name itself. IMHO
As far as separate or embedded metadata goes… why not both? Again, Panasonic chose the a purist approach and virtualized most all metadata. If one drags a video mxf out, it will “know” it’s timecode, but what about all the other pieces? I abhor the idea that a piece of media can be “orphaned”, or basic information lost, my moving it from it’s “Home” aka “CONTENTS”. All our QT media has embedded Reel and TC and will link no matter where it goes or how it’s chopped up. We can spawn a linking database anywhere, at any time, because the media is self contained and includes linking criteria. We do have additional information stored in a database, but all it’s “papers” required for full “citizenship” are self contained at the file level. I would welcome a mxf OP1a file as long as it included the necessary “Papers”.
There are absolutely solutions to my issues with P2. But I do like the idea of mounting a Ki Pro Mini on the back of a P2 camera. Of course adding a Ki Pro like that would add a failure point. I suppose the P2 recording could serve as backup.
Thanks for reading
John Heagy -
Thanks Gary, that’s good news. I’ve never used the SxS slots in the Ki Pro. It makes sense to format all media (HD and SS) the same, but didn’t want to assume. I believe the Ki Pro Mini will be the 1st device that does not use FAT32 on CF.
How does the current Ki Pro increment the volume name when two SxS cards are inserted?
Thanks
John Heagy -
[John Heagy] “”Breaking cameraman of needless rituals” “
Ok that’s a bit cruel of me, so I’d like to retract that because it’s hard to argue against not formatting cards in the recording device. That stemmed from the general NO_NAME frustration.
[Jeremy Garchow] “The P2 format mitigates a myriad of challenges and is unbelievably well thought out. Though some people see it as ‘stupid’…”
Hi praise for P2 in an Aja forum. Count me in as leaning toward the ‘stupid’ camp. I’d be interested in the many challenges P2 mitigates as compared to the Aja QT based work flows. See how I brought it back to an Aja discussion there 😉 So what are my issues with P2… let’s begin.
1) NO_NAME… nuf said
2) FAT32 and spanned clips on the same card. Acceptable on consumer stuff.. not professional.
3) CONTENTS… over and over again.
4) No way to give someone a shot without creating the whole CONTENTS dir all over again.
5) “House of Cards” atom directory. Move any .xml, or .mxf and the shot is invalid.
6) No Reel/Tape metadata field. This one is really hard to believe! There is an “Altitude” field… so that’s useful. Calibrated will map “Program Name” to “Reel” in QT to fix this glaring omission.
7) 0001BZ.mxf Only two hex numbers to ensure unique file names! So you may get duplicate filenames once every 1000 shots or so.
8) Requires specialized “P2 aware” software to view clips.
9) No “wrapped” clip to open directly.
10) Last_Clip.txt… another puzzle piece to loose.
11) AVC-I is too “heavy” for editing when compared to ProRes. It’s fine for deliverables and playout servers, but is not an edit ready format… IMHO
12) Panasonic P2 media manager can only deal with P2 media. This is true off most camera manufacturers. Arri… take notice there!
13) Proxy file with no TC track or quality audio… useless!Compared to a QT ProRes Ki Pro recording.. ahh… like that move back to Aja?… P2 media is a virtual “lock box” After a free ProRes decoder download, I can view our production ProRes media on any Mac or PC including TC! On the downside… there’s Apples secrecy paranoia and their “damn the torpedoes” upgrade policy!
Nuf said!
John Heagy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I can help you out on the appropriate P2 Forum, but your P2 cards don’t have to be named NO_NAME.”
Thanks Jeremy, I’ve spoken to Panasonic and am aware one can rename P2s via the Finder, and even format with the serial number using Panasonic’s P2Formatter app. Unfortunately if one formats a card in a camera… NO_NAME is the only result. Unless there’s a forum called “Breaking cameraman of needless rituals” I don’t think anyone can convince cameramen that formatting a P2 card on a Mac or PC trumps the camera. It’s hard enough just getting them to label the darn things much less whipping out a laptop to format a card each time.
The whole FAT32 NO_NAME thing needs to die, so I’m hoping Aja kills it on the KiPro Mini!
John Heagy
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I suppose if one is loading/copying one card at a time the same name is okay, but not when you mount 5 P2 cards all coming up NO_NAME it invites errors. I’d much prefer a unique name that can be tracked back to the the camera or recording device that created it. Serial number and date_time of format would be perfect.
KP_12345_09152010_1732
[Fred Jodry] “please drop an e- mail”
What’s your email Fred? -
Very nice! With all due respect… this what the Ki Pro should have been from the start.
Here’s my favorite sentence in the description:
“Flash cards function as standard HFS drives when connected to a Mac computer via any standard off the shelf Compact Flash reader”.
Finally!.. no more FAT32 NO_NAME volumes with 4GB “chunked” files. Somebody please tell me the Mini Formats the HFS CF cards with a unique volume name based on some user defined criteria… please! I’d be thrilled with a date stamp as volume name… anything but the same name over, and over, and over again!Now.. make a Ki Pro Maxi that’s 19″ rack mountable with two 4GB fibre connections… kidding! First, release the new Ki Pro firmware so we get more than two channel audio… not kidding!
John Heagy
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LTC In and Out… Hallelujah!
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One important caveat: FCP will only accept ProRes in broadcast frame sizes in the timeline. It’s easy to create any ProRes frame size in AE and all will appear fine, it will even play in the source window in FCP, but when you try and place it in the timeline… no go! You’ll get an error. The good old Animation will work at any frame size. Odd Apple imposed this restriction even in ProRes4444.
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Hey Adam,
First off, when you say “raw component”… do you mean HD-SDI? It’s true, HD-SDI transports a digital component signal, but simply saying “component” invites confusion with analog component… unless you do mean analog component?
Ki Pro is the closest one can get to a digital file recorder as a “VTR replacement”. It has all the inputs, including LTC TC, something I wish the Kona 3 or future Kona 4 would add. It records only ProRes using built in hardware encoders. You cannot access the media as it records. Since the Ki Pro has TC inputs, aside from making a “Multi Clip” in FCP, there’s no need to manually sync the media.
Telestream Pipeline also uses hardware encoders but does not have it’s own storage, like the Ki Pro does. The dual stream data is streamed via a single GigE connection. One could plug 3 or 4 HD Pipelines into a single Xserve Xsan client. Unfortunately it lacks a LTC TC, but oddly does read VITC on the sync input. The trick is playback while recording, what I like to call “chase playback”. Telestrem offers a basic package called Pipeline Live that supports this. Building 4 Media can use Pipelines as well as two inputs per Kona 3 card.
EVS is the 800lb gorilla, a turn key solution, and costs well over $100,000 just to get your toes wet. It does chase playback and integrates with FCP.
We have 32 HD ingest channels via Kona 3 equipped Xserves, all Xsan clients, using Building 4 Media as the ingest and playout software. It does chase playback and relies on SNTP for TC, or embedded TC in HD-SDI.
Blackmagic makes a two input card and Matrox a 4. I don’t know what software suites takes advantage of the multi stream ingest though.
Good luck
John Heagy