[Paul Webster]

You make an excellent point, we could off load the files card by card and organize them say 20 at a time. That could work.

I’d also like to thank you for your input. This is helping us understand how the workflow actually happens. I now ask for a little patience, since I’m about to get into the ‘really stupid questions’ department.

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “Frankly I would be logging as I go but those that want to sort it out later can work that way.”

I don’t understand how any log we make before the P2 files are copied to a hard drive (HD Log or in FCP) would relate to the P2 footage in logging ‘as we go’. Can you get the P2 clip name, TC In and TC out information directly from the camera before it comes off the card, via serial or Firewire? If we want to log as we go, I don’t understand how that log will line up with the actual P2 files. Can you tell me how we can log as we go, and how that will ultimately connect with the P2 files?

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “you can name the file for each of the cards by the scene name.”

Can you name each file, or each card? We would want to name each file on the card, not the card itself. We might have 20 different scenes shot on each card. How is this accomplished? Do you need to do it through a menu option on the camera?

Can you write to the P2 cards if you are capturing TC information via Firewire at the same time for logging purposes?

[Jan Crittenden Livingston]: “While the universal clip name keeps things from being recorded over, you can name your clips during the shoot, via the SD card loading or as I said once you are in the ingest and transfer.”

For SD loading, do you mean a Secure Digital card with data loaded on that you can put into the camera to ‘transfer’ scene information to the files on the P2 card? Or are you referring to the P2 card itself?

non-linear since ’94

[Paul Webster]

We work in a scripted workflow. We connect our DVCAM via Firewire to a Powerbook. We then launch FCP, and open the Log and Capture window. As each shot is taken, we mark an in and an out, scene number, description and whether the shot is ‘good’. At the end of the day, we end up with 100-150 shots all logged, ready to digitize. We don’t commit a frame to tape without logging it.

With P2, we would copy the files to a hard drive, let HD Log create a log for us, hunt through each clip to figure out which scene it belongs to, then add in the description and whether or not the shot was ‘good’ to use. This sounds like having to review footage that we really don’t need to see again until we start to edit.

I’m not sure the time spent digitizing is sufficiently offset by the need to add in the information we have to have in the log.

We’ve been using variations on this work flow for about 10 years, generating text files using Pipeline Digital’s Autolog to import into an IMMIX VideoCube, right through logging directly into FCP.

It appears to me that with P2, you end up with a number of random clips with little direct organization until you have an opportunity after the fact to organize the material. Or am I missing something?

non-linear since ’94