[Josh Wallace]

Hi Matt and Dan,

I’m trying to do a very similar thing with some stereoscopic footage.

Tried Dan’s expression and works a treat!

Thanks,

Josh

[Josh Wallace]

One option could be to create the Motion Template projects locally, add them into an FCP Templates project, then move that FCP project and the individual Motion Template projects with associated media to an XSAN folder accessible by all editors.
You may need to relink a few bits and pieces initially but if you keep the folder paths relative it should be pretty straight forward.
When editors want the Motion Templates they open the master FCP Templates project ( which just acts like a container really ) and drag and drop the Motion Templates they want as clips into their edit project. ( Alternately an edit assistant could add these into new projects before the editors start which might make things simpler. )
By sharing Motion templates this way you could get around aliases and having to install copies for every User / machine.
This way the text box controls in FCP are independent for each instance used, but, the danger is, if one editor selects a Motion Template in FCP and chooses Open In Editor, and changes a stylistic thing, like the colour of the text, or the background, and saves it, all the instances used will update to that.
Ideally you would write protect the folder containing the master templates on the XSAN so no one can modify them.
If an editor chooses to Open In Editor ( Motion ) alters a template and chooses Save as Template, instead of just Save, Motion will place a new Template into the editors Home > Library > Application Support > Final Cut Studio > Motion > Templates folder.

[Josh Wallace]

“Bring them into Motion. You will be able to handle files up to 4K wide for moves and Motion has built in support for image sequences.”

How can you get Motion to work with images larger than 2986 x 2986.

If I try working with images larger than that I get a warning message saying the image is too large to display correctly. If you click OK it brings it anyway, scaling it down to fit and worryingly squishing the image vertically slightly.

Is it a graphics card thing?

[Josh Wallace]

The P2 Store has been a really useful and at times key part of my P2 workflow in the field for several years now (for short form projects). It is far more practical than a laptop in many situations (ie it’s small and runs off camera batteries) and it’s simplicity of operation means any muppet can perform a verified card offload for you if you’re preoccupied actually shooting. If only there was some will from Panasonic to find a way to upgrade the drive size it could be part of my workflow for several more years. Surely it can be done, this is a $1050 dollar box rendered obsolete because it has a cheap 60GB drive in it and the manufacturer isn’t looking after their customers by trying to find a way to future proof it. It’s actually embarrassing telling people that I own a $1050 60GB box!
The affordable price of Sony’s SxS cards really is starting to make me think twice about P2.

[Josh Wallace]

Had to come up with a feasible workflow like this for a big, fast turn around, multi P2 Cam shoot in New Zealand earlier this year.

After much testing the best workflow I could find involved;

Using P2 Log Pro to create metadata to load via SD Card to each of 7 Cameras (HVX’s and HPX500’s).
Metadata included Camera Op name, Description of what they were shooting that day but most importantly a UserClipName that ID’d each camera and created incrementing UserClipNames in camera, ie A CAM TUES 001, A CAM TUES 002…
I would do this for all the cameras before the beginning of each days shoot.
( I think there’s also now a free Panasonic tool for creating and uploading metadata to camera so don’t go out and buy P2 Log cos it’s day is done! )

Next step were the Logging and Transferring stations ( PowerBook G4’s ) where full P2 Cards from the field were copied to the edit machine. For this we used P2CMS – this is the one thing it does well and relatively simply, a verified copy of the Contents of each card.
( It does a whole lot of other stuff involving a database or something but forget about all that, it’s confusing as hell.)

Raylight for Mac was installed on the edit machine, you only need it on one machine.
This was setup to scan the edit drive and create Quicktime Ref files for any new MXF files that arrived. It was also set to create new names for these QT Ref files based on the UserClipName from the metadata and the actual MXF file name, this is great, in a matter of seconds Raylight will generate QT Ref clips with meaningful names that are ready to edit in FCP and that you can track back to original material if necessary.
I set it to make these QT ref clips in the same folder as the original MXF Video files so each card still exists as a self contained Folder that could be moved around and still be Imported into FCP using Log and Transfer or can be edited immediately using the Raylight QT Refs.

We actually had another step here where we would open the Raylight QT Refs up in FCP on another networked Logging machine. Here a Logger would make logging notes to help the editor and then save a Batch List back to the CONTENTS Folder of the card in question.
At this point we would use Finder to Label the Folder Green for Go and all the editor had to do was open each Batch List in each Green Folder and do a quick reconnect to the Raylight QT Refs and away he went. Hundreds of Logged, HD Clips with meaningful names in FCP.

Say you transferred a Folder representing a complete P2 Card from one drive to another, the clips would appear as offline in FCP but all you have to do is reconnect to one Raylight QT ref file in the new location and FCP will connect all the files in that folder.
It’s just if you started moving the QT ref files in relation to the MXF files that they are referencing that you would have real problems.

It worked pretty damn well. Occassionally the Raylight clips would open in FCP sans audio. When this happened it was a simple matter of deleting the QT Refs for that card and on it’s next automatic scan Raylight would recreate them and second time round the audio came thru in FCP. ( I think this was due to the network traffic and activity on the drive rather than a Raylight flaw. )

At the end of the job everything was relocated to San Fran for a seperate edit and they did have trouble reconnecting all the QT Ref clips in FCP – In New Zealand we were doing Daily edits with no problem but in San Fran they were dealing with all the media from 7 days so i think it was just too much Quicktime Referencing going on!

I think the answer to my prayers might be just around the corner though…This looks like the business, superceding Raylight, especially if it integrates the camera metedata into FCP the way FCP should!!!

ttp://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/973195

Last post.

[Josh Wallace]

Nice one.
Thanks Tyler, looks like a very useful little box and the price is right.
I have a Sennheiser ME66/K6 shotgun mic, I figure I can run that into the Microtrack directly via a Female XLR to 1/4″ TRS Phone Jack. Would that still provide phantom power if required?

Thanks for your help.

[Josh Wallace]

I had the same problem with my MB Pro Dual 2.4Ghz, Duel Adaptor and P2CMS.
Seems the Duel Adaptor works best with Leopard but the P2CMS only works with Tiger and they don’t work together on a MB Pro at all. Awesome!!!
Using the Duel Adaptor by itself works fine and using P2CMS on a PowerBook G4 with built in PCMCIA slot works fine too.
P2CMS is worth using purely for the Verified copying function.

[Josh Wallace]

We’re using Raylight. It makes QT Reference clips ending with blahblah.MXF.mov
We are logging those clips on one machine with FCP 6.0.1 and when you bring them in FCP drops the .mov extension ( It doesn’t do this prior to FCP 6 ) Then we export a Batch List which the editor opens up on another machine with FCP 6.0.2. Problem is that unless we manually add the .mov extension to the clip names in FCP, when we open the Batch List the clips don’t reconnect.
Basically I just want FCP to bring the clips in and keep the same name as the file name.

[Josh Wallace]

It really seems like this is a Permissions / Sharing setup thing.
The card will copy over the network to a Drop Box on another machine fine. Whatever the Permissions or settings are for that location ( the Drop Box ), I’d like to be able to setup an external drive or location of my choice the same, and then copy to that location. Like making a ‘Drop Box’ called my P2 Rushes on my media drive that I can copy to over the network.

[Josh Wallace]

“As a test I tried copying the card to the Drop Box in the Public Folder on the MacBook and that works fine. I also tried copying a regular old Quicktime movie from the PowerBook to the CalDigit and that worked fine.”

Yeah, other stuff copies over fine, just not a P2 Card, and I could copy the P2 Card to my Drop Box but nowhere else – queer indeed.