P2 on the road

Barry Green · May 14th, 2007, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

Tell the truth now - anyone have any data loss that wasn't pilot error? How trustworthy is this technology?

Never had a single corrupted frame. Near as I can tell, almost every story that you see boils down to either a) flagrant pilot error, or b) unintentional pilot error, and some are c) bugs in FCP.

By "flagrant", I mean either they just didn't copy all the files over on purpose (they just copied over the VIDEO directory, for example) or they changed the name of the CONTENTS directory.

By "unintentional", I am specifying that apparently (APPARENTLY) if you put a P2 card in a Mac, and you haven't write-protected the card, then there's a chance that the footage on that card will glitch when imported. Macs write files onto unprotected volumes when they're first mounted (like the "Trashes" directory) and apparently that's somehow messing up the ability to get clean transfers.

And by "bugs" I mean just that -- bugs in FCP. FCP is still sorting out its issues; it's had problems importing clips that were "repaired" in-camera, and it sometimes changes the frame rate of an imported clip (especially if you import a 720pN clip and have the "remove duplicate frames" checkbox checked). The footage on the cards (or drives) is perfectly good, but FCP fails to properly import it.

If you follow a few simple rules, you should have no problems whatsoever and it should be extraordinarily bulletproof.

1) Whenever you copy files to a hard disk, keep the CONTENTS directory intact and don't change its name!

2) Never put a P2 card anywhere near a Mac unless it's write-protected.

3) If using FCP, use the latest version. Don't run anything earlier than 5.1.4.

Steve Rosen · May 15th, 2007, 07:47 AM

Barry: I have printed out your warnings and will tape it to the lid of my PowerBook... It's strange that FCP should be quirky with P2 when at first, at the NAB when Panasonic was touting the technology, Apple seemed to be in bed with them... Guess they didn't get along..

I have another question or two for you about the 500, but I will start a new thread.

Steve Rosen · May 15th, 2007, 09:06 AM

Forgot to ask - whomever is using a Mac - given the above warnings, am I safer xferring directly from the camera via firewire than using the CardBus slot?

Barry Green · May 15th, 2007, 10:20 AM

I get yelled at a lot for saying it, but P2 just works better in the PC environment than it does in the Mac environment. There are numerous little quirks in the Mac implementation that I find annoying; quirks that we (few) on the WinXP side just don't have to put up with. Panasonic is a Windows company, they make Windows PCs, and near as I can tell they rely on Apple to do all the support for the P2 system on the Mac side.

And that being said, P2 works just fine on the Mac and something like 95% of HVX users are using the Mac. The quirks I'm talking about are really minor quibbles once you look at the whole system in context, and Mac users seem quite content with the way the P2 system works on the Mac.

Apple and Panasonic do have a healthy relationship, and DVCPRO-HD footage on the Mac platform absolutely flies.

The only real problem that I have is the glitching issue, and it seems like that's solved by using the write-protect tab.

I still think that the single simplest, easiest, and best way for a Mac user to get the most from the P2 workflow is to torch $500 for a Windows laptop. That way they get glitch-free importing, instant scrubbing and footage preview, metadata annotating, ability to execute all firmware downloads, more reliable and more-sensible P2 Store integration, and they can always just copy their footage to an external hard disk and import that footage right into their FCP desktop. That way you'd have the best of both worlds.

Barry Green · May 15th, 2007, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Rosen

Forgot to ask - whomever is using a Mac - given the above warnings, am I safer xferring directly from the camera via firewire than using the CardBus slot?

No, you're equally safe as long as you write-protect the card before ever exposing it to MacOS.

Steve Rosen · May 15th, 2007, 11:15 AM

Thanx for all your informative responses in this and other threads... entering into a whole new way of working is always more than slightly nerve-racking - especially when you're doing it on someone else's dime...

I'm sure I will be a happy P2 user, just as I eventually learned to like and trust HDV (I never had a dropout, by the way, and with a DeckLink card it was just like working with DV)..

It's all about storytelling after all...

Joe Lawry · May 15th, 2007, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barry Green

2) Never put a P2 card anywhere near a Mac unless it's write-protected.

Barry,

Does this APPARENT bug only seem to happen with DVCPROHD footage or does it apparently happen with any type of codec on a card?

Its just interesting to hear, i've never had a problem bringing in DVCPRO50 footage off my works spx800s onto our Macpro via the p2 card reader. Or is it apparently just an hvx issue?

joe

Barry Green · May 15th, 2007, 04:07 PM

The issue is extremely rare, as evidenced by there being maybe 50 reports of it happening on all the boards put together, yet there's something like 35,000 HVX200s out there (not counting all the SPX800s, SPC700s, and HPX2000s too).

So it's not a widely prevalent thing. I don't know that I've heard of it affecting DVCPRO50 or DV footage, but I'd guess that it's likely because there aren't that many shooters (proportionately) shooting in SD vs. shooting in HD.

The issue seems to come into play when transferring footage from a card to a Mac. I don't know that I've ever heard of it happening from an external drive into the Mac. And there's a tad of evidence to suggest that write-protecting the cards prevents the issue from ever occurring. But it's hard to know, because it's a very infrequent issue, so how do we know when it's truly definitely gone? It seems like the write-protect does make it go away though.

Steve Rosen · May 15th, 2007, 04:12 PM

I know this will probably be obvious once I have the tools in front of me, but just so I know -

How does one write-protect the P2 card? - and is it something you need to do and undo, like the tab on a tape cassette?

Kevin Railsback · May 15th, 2007, 04:29 PM

On the back of the P2 card there is a little switch that you can slide to Protect.

Mike Schrengohst · May 15th, 2007, 04:41 PM

Just finished a shoot with another HVX owner this weekend....
Dallas, TX - scattered showers - it was Hot & humid and
we were shooting outside all day with 4 - 4 gig cards and 2 - rented 8 gig cards...
I was shooting and lugging my G4 around - transferred 4 x 8 gig cards
and 6x 4 gig cards onto my 100 gig Firewire external. Not one glitch.
Just finished the first edit and I saw no problems. And I like the fact
that I can "digitize" what I need....and skip what I don't need.
This was an event and you might start recording and people would
come up and look in the camera and ask what TV station you were from....
or the tech guys who start asking 20 questions - Deja Vu from NAB.

Peter Richardson · May 15th, 2007, 06:11 PM

Francesco -- yep, guessing the discrepancy in ftg is because of the 24p vs. 25p. I too wish there was a larger P2Store (I've been griping for a while now) but, alas, it doesn't look likely.

Regarding your question Steve, I don't use any program for copying over P2 cards, but I probably should. There are two programs: P2Genie and HDLogPro (Robert Lane, P2 Guru, recommends HDLogPro, though it's considerably more expensive), that automate the copying and also can verify a copy, which is a really great feature. That being said, I've never had an error on a transferred file (knocking wood) even without using these programs. I would emphasize the importance of using quality hard drives, however (I only use G-Raid's). A friend copied to some off-the-shelf HDD's and had errors and I was once on a shoot where the production provided a low-end Maxtor and a number of cards were corrupted.

I am indeed excited about the Red, but it's always a little nervewracking being one of the first. We'll see how it goes :)

Peter

Steve Rosen · May 15th, 2007, 07:52 PM

A 300+g P2 Store would solve all of my worries... Why is that such a problem I wonder?

Peter Richardson · May 16th, 2007, 11:23 PM

Great question. Because panasonic wants to sell P2 cards, and not P2 stores, probably :)

Peter

Steve Rosen · May 17th, 2007, 09:04 AM

Well, if they want to sell more P2 cards, they need to make the process more appealing - to be honest I almost cancelled my HPX500 order with the idea of buying a used Varicam... good old tape happily rolling along - mechanical - something I can understand...

It looks like I'm going to be using a 1ghz G4 PowerBook and offloading cards (at lunch, at dinner, whenever) to a pair of 500g Seagate FW drives. My concern is -

is this process going to give me the ability to check my clips? I know Barry recommended a PC for ease in doing that, but I'm an old dog and this (P2) is enough new tricks for now...

Also - has anyone shot 720/24pn and added the pulldown (for broadcast) in the FCP timeline? I've done that successfully with Canon's 24f and wondered how it looks with DVCPRO HD because that would give me a lot more card space...

May 15th, 2007, 09:06 AM	#18
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	Forgot Forgot to ask - whomever is using a Mac - given the above warnings, am I safer xferring directly from the camera via firewire than using the CardBus slot?

May 15th, 2007, 04:29 PM	#25
Kevin Railsback Trustee Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa Posts: 1,544	On the back of the P2 card there is a little switch that you can slide to Protect. __________________ --==Kevin==-- http:naturephotostudios.com.com

May 15th, 2007, 04:41 PM	#26
Mike Schrengohst Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 355	Just finished a shoot with another HVX owner this weekend.... Dallas, TX - scattered showers - it was Hot & humid and we were shooting outside all day with 4 - 4 gig cards and 2 - rented 8 gig cards... I was shooting and lugging my G4 around - transferred 4 x 8 gig cards and 6x 4 gig cards onto my 100 gig Firewire external. Not one glitch. Just finished the first edit and I saw no problems. And I like the fact that I can "digitize" what I need....and skip what I don't need. This was an event and you might start recording and people would come up and look in the camera and ask what TV station you were from.... or the tech guys who start asking 20 questions - Deja Vu from NAB. __________________ Mike Schrengohst dvd.pro@verizon.net

May 15th, 2007, 07:47 AM	#17
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	Barry: I have printed out your warnings and will tape it to the lid of my PowerBook... It's strange that FCP should be quirky with P2 when at first, at the NAB when Panasonic was touting the technology, Apple seemed to be in bed with them... Guess they didn't get along.. I have another question or two for you about the 500, but I will start a new thread.

May 15th, 2007, 10:20 AM	#19
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	I get yelled at a lot for saying it, but P2 just works better in the PC environment than it does in the Mac environment. There are numerous little quirks in the Mac implementation that I find annoying; quirks that we (few) on the WinXP side just don't have to put up with. Panasonic is a Windows company, they make Windows PCs, and near as I can tell they rely on Apple to do all the support for the P2 system on the Mac side. And that being said, P2 works just fine on the Mac and something like 95% of HVX users are using the Mac. The quirks I'm talking about are really minor quibbles once you look at the whole system in context, and Mac users seem quite content with the way the P2 system works on the Mac. Apple and Panasonic do have a healthy relationship, and DVCPRO-HD footage on the Mac platform absolutely flies. The only real problem that I have is the glitching issue, and it seems like that's solved by using the write-protect tab. I still think that the single simplest, easiest, and best way for a Mac user to get the most from the P2 workflow is to torch $500 for a Windows laptop. That way they get glitch-free importing, instant scrubbing and footage preview, metadata annotating, ability to execute all firmware downloads, more reliable and more-sensible P2 Store integration, and they can always just copy their footage to an external hard disk and import that footage right into their FCP desktop. That way you'd have the best of both worlds.

May 15th, 2007, 11:15 AM	#21
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	Thanx for all your informative responses in this and other threads... entering into a whole new way of working is always more than slightly nerve-racking - especially when you're doing it on someone else's dime... I'm sure I will be a happy P2 user, just as I eventually learned to like and trust HDV (I never had a dropout, by the way, and with a DeckLink card it was just like working with DV).. It's all about storytelling after all...

May 15th, 2007, 04:07 PM	#23
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	The issue is extremely rare, as evidenced by there being maybe 50 reports of it happening on all the boards put together, yet there's something like 35,000 HVX200s out there (not counting all the SPX800s, SPC700s, and HPX2000s too). So it's not a widely prevalent thing. I don't know that I've heard of it affecting DVCPRO50 or DV footage, but I'd guess that it's likely because there aren't that many shooters (proportionately) shooting in SD vs. shooting in HD. The issue seems to come into play when transferring footage from a card to a Mac. I don't know that I've ever heard of it happening from an external drive into the Mac. And there's a tad of evidence to suggest that write-protecting the cards prevents the issue from ever occurring. But it's hard to know, because it's a very infrequent issue, so how do we know when it's truly definitely gone? It seems like the write-protect does make it go away though.

May 15th, 2007, 04:12 PM	#24
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	I know this will probably be obvious once I have the tools in front of me, but just so I know - How does one write-protect the P2 card? - and is it something you need to do and undo, like the tab on a tape cassette?

May 15th, 2007, 06:11 PM	#27
Peter Richardson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 608	Francesco -- yep, guessing the discrepancy in ftg is because of the 24p vs. 25p. I too wish there was a larger P2Store (I've been griping for a while now) but, alas, it doesn't look likely. Regarding your question Steve, I don't use any program for copying over P2 cards, but I probably should. There are two programs: P2Genie and HDLogPro (Robert Lane, P2 Guru, recommends HDLogPro, though it's considerably more expensive), that automate the copying and also can verify a copy, which is a really great feature. That being said, I've never had an error on a transferred file (knocking wood) even without using these programs. I would emphasize the importance of using quality hard drives, however (I only use G-Raid's). A friend copied to some off-the-shelf HDD's and had errors and I was once on a shoot where the production provided a low-end Maxtor and a number of cards were corrupted. I am indeed excited about the Red, but it's always a little nervewracking being one of the first. We'll see how it goes :) Peter

May 15th, 2007, 07:52 PM	#28
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	A 300+g P2 Store would solve all of my worries... Why is that such a problem I wonder?

May 16th, 2007, 11:23 PM	#29
Peter Richardson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 608	Great question. Because panasonic wants to sell P2 cards, and not P2 stores, probably :) Peter

May 17th, 2007, 09:04 AM	#30
Steve Rosen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Monterey, California Posts: 895	Well, if they want to sell more P2 cards, they need to make the process more appealing - to be honest I almost cancelled my HPX500 order with the idea of buying a used Varicam... good old tape happily rolling along - mechanical - something I can understand... It looks like I'm going to be using a 1ghz G4 PowerBook and offloading cards (at lunch, at dinner, whenever) to a pair of 500g Seagate FW drives. My concern is - is this process going to give me the ability to check my clips? I know Barry recommended a PC for ease in doing that, but I'm an old dog and this (P2) is enough new tricks for now... Also - has anyone shot 720/24pn and added the pulldown (for broadcast) in the FCP timeline? I've done that successfully with Canon's 24f and wondered how it looks with DVCPRO HD because that would give me a lot more card space...