Transcendent Man Gets Panasonic P2 Treatment

Great ideas all....what input/output & downconversion path do you use for working in SD for the rough cut?
Are you in FCP 6. I have an older doc with lots of P2 footage started in 5.1.2 and am a bit concerned about upgrading the fcp in the middle. But if we could go to SD offline it would speed things up. Thanks for any input

Posted by glenn on Thursday, August 16, 2007 @ 03:41 PM

How do you track your P2 card number? In other words, I had to create a "tape" bin for each card as I backed it up to DVD-DL, moved with media tool, then consolidated to a wokring drive, card by card to keep track of the source.
Although it doesn't actually matter, since we are using the full HD files, if something were to go wrong, HOW would you identify WHERE that .MXF came from?
I've requested a "modify source" feature for P2 .MXF media to this end. I've started created two custom columns: P2 Card, and Master Clip Name, so that I can then chage the MC name, but still have the original P2 named media.
Just a thought...would like to know more about your tracking of info.

Posted by Ryan R. Moos on Thursday, August 16, 2007 @ 04:54 PM

Hey Glenn...we are cutting in the avid...so its different for us. The cool thing about the avid is 1) it reads the actual MXF media that the camera generates, therefor not creating new QT files (we do place it in the avid media folder)...2) Although the avid is reading the actual HD MXF media, we view it in a SD 23.98 time line. The Avid does an on-the-fly downconvert, so we are working SD, and it plays out the video in SD @ 29.97. This allows up to view on SD monitors and allows us to cut much faster. In the end we can open all our work in an appropriate HD timeline, re-render our effects, and be ready for finishing.

Posted by Joe DiSanto on Friday, August 17, 2007 @ 03:37 PM

Glenn,

If you have done any editing already, I would stay in FCP 5. We've tried migrating a variety of projects into 6 and run into lots of headaches. Essentially a bunch of stuff has to be re-cut in. Or if you have the time to do that, then before upgrading, export a "god" copy from FCP 5 of the current state of the cut (just a File > Export > Quicktime Movie). Then you can do a cut by cut comparison in FCP 6 to see if anything has been altered.

As for going to SD, like the method described, I don't think you can too easily with FCP. Perhaps with a Kona 3 or the highest end BMD, but I've not done it so can't confirm there. Another method you could try is to use Compressor (but the one from FCS 2), and batch all your footage to ProRes codec. You can then stay HD but have way smaller file sizes, and so potentially cut easier on your given system. Just make sure you properly backup all the original MXF (P2) data in some fashion.

cheers.

Posted by Matt on Sunday, August 19, 2007 @ 11:38 AM

The article states:

After the data is transferred from the P2 cards at the end of each day’s shooting, the cards are reformatted immediately using a Panasonic P2 Mobile drive and two 1 TB Firewire drives.

I found the above text in the article a bit confusing. I believe there is an editing error. I assume that the author meant to say that after the cards are transferred to the drives at the end of the day, then the cards are re-formatted.

Like Ptolomey, I'm quite concerned about the work flow plus the security and stability of the picture and sound residing on hard drives.

As a freelance cinematographer, doing works for hire, I find my clients still want a tape at the end of the day.

Any thoughts on this?

Posted by Gregory Andracke on Friday, August 31, 2007 @ 10:41 AM