As everyone probably has read by now, I'm in Russia shooting with the HVX200. So far so good. Some hectic running back and forth to our two laptops downloading cards simultaneously but otherwise flowing smoothly.

My question is this however. With 2 1-TB drives and backing up media to both drives, do I keep the crazy p2 files that can't be viewed on my Mac or do I just keep the converted files that FCP makes and that are viewable and changeable? If I keep a copy of the raw P2 file on both drives AND the converted files, we really start eating up HD space. Also, FCP unceremoniously dumps all the converted files into the capture bin making it REALLY hard to keep track of them. I've got bins for each drive but in FCP and the FCP capture process, they all get mangled together.

Any suggestions?

Hi, Paul.

Sorry to drift a bit offtopic, but where in Russia are you and what is the purpose of the shoot? I've lived in Russia and Ukraine most of my life, so far, and I'm just curious about what there is possibly to film there :).

I'm in St.Petersburg filming the Russian Red Devil Fight Team and Fedor Emelianenko. It's for a Canadian based company. Sort of a test run on a documentary/reality TV sort of thing. I'm not really sure what they are trying to do but I'm St.Petes with a camera I got basically the day I left. There's been a few bumps and I'm not in love with the camera yet but we're getting on.

are you doing any editing on location?
What I would do is copy the WHOLE content of the card (mounted on you desktop) into a folder named with date/shots or location etc name. and save those folders.
FCP will still see them same as a P2 card. you can always import the footage into your scratch disk if you need to preview/ edit etc...
Hope that helps, good luck in Russia.
e.


As everyone probably has read by now, I'm in Russia shooting with the HVX200. So far so good. Some hectic running back and forth to our two laptops downloading cards simultaneously but otherwise flowing smoothly.

My question is this however. With 2 1-TB drives and backing up media to both drives, do I keep the crazy p2 files that can't be viewed on my Mac or do I just keep the converted files that FCP makes and that are viewable and changeable? If I keep a copy of the raw P2 file on both drives AND the converted files, we really start eating up HD space. Also, FCP unceremoniously dumps all the converted files into the capture bin making it REALLY hard to keep track of them. I've got bins for each drive but in FCP and the FCP capture process, they all get mangled together.

Any suggestions?

My understanding (admittedly limited), Paul, on this topic is this: the basic image information in an MXF file (referred to as "essence") remains unaffected when an MXF file is "rewrapped" as a Quicktime. There are two primary components of a modern-day video file: raw image data (essence) and the metadata that tells the playback software how to interpret the raw data (wrapper). Unless I've totally misunderstood what I've been reading, the essence is not degraded in a re-wrapping process. That said, it might be difficult to get back to a native MXF file once it's rewrapped as Quicktime by FCP; I don't know whether there's any file conversion software out there to do that yet. If your only edit interface is FCP, then I don't see the need to maintain the MXF file. However, Avid Adrenaline is now native MXF, so if you ever want to edit on a current-generation Avid, the MXF files appear instantly once your removable drive is connected to an Avid. The Quicktimes would probably require a fairly lengthy import process, since the Avid doesn't include a utility to rewrap Quicktime as MXF. At least, not in my experience (I edit on both systems, but haven't tried doing what you're talking about, since my 200 hasn't arrived yet...)
Hope this helps!

Well, so far my attempt at doing this and organizing quickly is:

1. Instead of any transfer of P2 data to a hard drive, I use FCP to import into MOV file clips.

2. Quickly look at clips to see if they're not obviously corrupted.

3. Rename the files on the drive (using the Finder, not FCP) with useful information (e.g., MyMovieScene3Take2.mov), and drag 'em to appropriate folders.

So far I've seen no point in saving the P2 data. Some of the metadata may be useful, but on the Mac we don't really have a nice way to take advantage of it, and it's too much hassle for now...

My take is a little different. I see a need for one copy of the work to remain as MXF as then you will not always be married to the FCP workflow. And I am not saying that the FCP workflow is bad but sometimes a producer says lets finish on an Avid system. The MXF files will import, the MOV files will not.

When I ask for footage, I ask for it in MXF files, that way it is always cross platform.

Hope that helps,

Jan