P2 workflow

I'm getting into a job that's shooting on the Panasonic HVX200.

The cool thing is that I'm going to be on-set with a mobile workstation going over the dailies while the shooting is going on. A first for me, and I'm pretty excited about that.

Question is: what's a good workflow for working with the P2 cards? Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of threads about using them.

My big question is saving footage and backing it up... Besides putting a primary copy of the footage on my trusty G-RAID, and a backup copy of the files on another drive, is there anything else recommended? Is there any advantage to building up reels of dailies and laying back to tape once I'm back in the studio?

And is there anything quirky about FCP and the P2 files to look out for?

Jeff

The backup issue is a common one with tapeless workflows. Most productions I work for would gawk at the time and expense of spitting the footage back out onto tape. If you can afford it, go ahead...but it's going to drive you up the wall!

Two backups on separate, reliable drives tends to be enough. Make sure they don't wipe the P2 cards until you have the files on two confirmed locations. Make a third if you're feeling uncomfortable. But usually, guarding against two drives dying simultaneously is too paranoid even for me, and too costly in terms of time and storage space. That said, you should do regular checks of the backup drive, because the danger to that system is that the backup could go bad while it's sitting on the shelf, and then your primary drive dies and you go to the backup only to find it's fizzled a while ago.


www.derekmok.com

Yup, with P2 and tapeless workflows, you need to back up the data. I usually have P2s on a RAID. But of course, u never have files sitting in 1 solitary location.

My word. Back up to tape. LTO tape.

[www.exabyte.com]



www.strypesinpost.com

I haven't played data wrangler with P2 footage myself. But I have lost about 400 GB of archived footage, graphics and project files when two separate shelved Firewires just decided not to work any more. I think it was just bad luck, because I'd stored them in a clean, climate-controlled, secure place just like you're supposed to.

If it were me, I'd find any way I could to get that P2 footage dubbed to DVCPRO HD tape as soon as possible. I understand from others that there are timecode challenges involved, and I don't have any good, constructive suggestions there, but I'd try really hard to figure it out if I were in your shoes.

The data-tape-archive idea sounds fine and all, but if you can figure out the timecode thing I think videotape would be better. After all, you can re-capture videotape anywhere, as long as there's a compatible deck in house or available to rent.

Jeff:

You might find this an interesting read [www.kenstone.net]

Dan

Hey Dan -

That Ken Stone article has pretty much every answer I was looking for! Thanks all!

Jeff

It is an outstanding article-- actually a small book. Extreme kudos to Dan for that item-- already 18 months old but highly relevant as more folks discover the HVX-200.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Toggle your Timeline Filters bar with Option T !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

I have a video tutorial, but I am sure that it was covered by that ken Stone article:

<a href=http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/p2fcp6.php target=_blank>P2 Workflow with FCP 6</a>

Laying back to tape pretty much defeats shooting with P2. That means buying o renting a deck, importing the footage, stringing it out, then outputting to tape. That tape will not have the same timecode as the footage you shot, so unless you then RECAPTURE that tape, it is useless. And if you shot 720p24 at 23.98, when recording it to tape you cannot flag the footage as 23.98. It will be 59.94 now, and there will be no way to remove the pulldown properly.

Forget that. If you shoot a LOT of P2, invest in an LTO tape drive. There are a few that are MXF aware, so you can search and pull specific shots if needed.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

>invest in an LTO tape drive.

It's actually a good solution and you can media manage and archive those projects when you're done. Depending on the tape/deck, you get up to 800 gigs of space per tape, so instead of only backing up to a digital beta or which ever HD deck you're using, you now also have an option where you can get media managed sequences with handles so you can trim, change text, etc... more versatility if you're going to rework from archival material years down the road.



www.strypesinpost.com