Long Import Times for P2 footage?

Hey,

I'm importing HDX P2 footage from an external HD into FCP and it seems to take like 45min-1hr for each 8 gig card to import, which seems a little long. Most people have told me that they import in real-time. I have a lot of footage to deal with, so if there is a glitch in my settings which are causing the long import times, I would appreciate it if someone pointed them out. What might be the problem?

Thanks,

-Lance.

That's not right Lance. No way should it take that long. That being said, at Wednesday's SF Cutters meeting we talked about P2 workflow and one of my members had the same problem. Hmmm.....tell us more about your system and the exact method you used to import from P2.



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It should take you 8-10 min.

Yes, let us know your workflow. And...have you seen this tutorial:

[forums.creativecow.net]

Thanks for writing back.

Yes, I have seen the tutorial. I am importing from an external firewire HD which has media that was copied from the P2 in the field. The external drive has a folder for each card with the "contents" folder and "Lastclip" file. I am importing them from this external HD just as I would from a P2 card. Its taking a really long time (30-45min). My capture scratch is an internal HD and I will eventually copy this converted QT media to an external terrabyte HD to work from.

What is the format of the drive you are importing them to? Why aren't you going right from the field drive to your media drive?

Try one clip at a time for a few...are they still taking forever?

Hey-

Not totally sure what the format of the drive i am importing from- but I'm assuming its mac formatted since we're all FCP. I can't import directly from the P2 since the shoot is on the west coast and I am in NYC (drive was FedEx'ed). One clip at a time seems to go the same speed. Still very slow.

-Lance.



Post Edited (07-28-06 13:53)

lanceedmands wrote:

> but I'm assuming its mac formatted since we're all FCP.

Hmmm....you know what happens when you "assume". ;-)

Could be that they picked it up from Fry's and in a hurry, did not initialize the drive before copying the media over.



Kevin Monahan
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No, it was formatted correctly. We have a P2 tech on site who manages all this media. I spoke with him on the phone and he was stumped. Thought someone here might have had a similar problem and figured it out.

Have you tried:

a) Copying the media to another disk location before importing?
b) Making a new project file to import into?
c) Running DiskWarrior on the external hard drive?
d) Checking to see if there are other FireWire devices connected to the computer, and disconnecting them?
e) Taking your editing station off network before attempting the import?