P2 Editing

[detroitsprings]

We have P2, and we are still transfering to tape and editing on DVCPro Laptop in the field. Our station is getting a portable laptop editor (PC computer), but they are still working out all the bugs, which is taking a while.

Does Panasonic make portable P2 editor? The Panasonic AJ-HPM100 is the only thing I see that comes close.

1. Can it do straight cuts editing with full audio controls?
2. What do you use to edit with in the field?
3. What are some of the biggest things you had to overcome?
4. Is there a simple editing solution?

Thanks in advance.

[Tallinvegas]

It sounds like they are takeing the low budget approach. I have had to dump down to tape a few times and I can tell ya its the worst thing. Untill we get our new avids installed in the live trucks we have a laptop avid editor. They do make a card to card editor but it does much of what you can do tape to tape. No fancy stuff just stright cuts. I would tell your CP or news dept to install avids in all the live trucks and also have at least one or two laptops to take with you on out of town trips or places when you need to edit out side of a live truck. If you want to see what our laptop avid editor looks like let me know and I will show you. It was a custom job. Hope this helps

[SamG]

What are you using to edit in the station? Dumping to tape or NLE? If it's an NLE, find out if that vendor has a laptop version. Do NOT use panny's "field editor". I can't remember the model number, but it accepted 5 cards, and after a software upgrade we could do an audio only edit (couldn't before... you were stuck with whatever audio was part of the clip). Even after the upgrade, you couldn't fade the audio or carry the audio over from piece of video to another.

We use Leitch VelocityNX in house and are a beta site for VelocityXNG (laptop version). If you use Avid or Grass Valley in house, they both make laptop versions.

[Spot remover]

From the Panasonic "portable editor". They sold us about 10 of these things with the promise "Sure it will edit! You can use these in the live trucks and bureaus to cut packages every day...no problem!"

Big Problem.

We sat in a training room for hours while our Panasonic trainer (who kept saying over and over, "I've never edited a package before") tried to talk us through it. It took us 3 hours to edit HS football highlights and one of our anchors had to teach the trainer how to adjust his audio levels- not encouraging. And at $14,000/ea., it was a disaster of biblical proportions.

After two painful and confusing training sessions, management had a case of common sense and returned all but one to Panasonic and got their money back. Seems the "editor" was never meant to be one but was more of a viewing station for the P2 cards (for which it works just fine- that's why we kept one). Customers kept saying, "It looks like an editor, so it must be one!" Panasonic threw some primitive beta-level editing software in it and used us as test subjects. They also had us supply them with a written report of what was wrong with it and what we would like from the appliance as an editor.

Basically, we said to turn it into a simple computer editor with two video and three audio tracks, only 3 to 4 RT effects along with simple cuts plus a mouse and keyboard with slots for the P2 and at least 120G (or more) of memory. I have a $50 copy of Pinnacle Studio 11 at home that's nearly that powerful and it works great on a 5 year-old Dell. Surely, Panasonic could add RT effects in addition to cuts-only (dissolve, wipe and page peel- that's it) for comparative pennies and have a good, simple, stable editor that's both useful and rugged.

I think it would fill a nice niche between the full-zoot editors with 100's of options and this 14 grand doorstop.

Comments?

[Bismarck]

Panasonic does indeed make a portable laptop editor that on first glance seems superficially similar to the old LT-75 DVCPro editors.

But it's not really like that. Honestly, it's very bizarre to use, because it falls somewhere inbetween linear and non-linear editing. Also, it's much more expensive than just buying a laptop computer and using that.

We're starting to use Macbook Pros with Final Cut in the field.

[detroitsprings]

We use Leitch VelocityNX in house and are a beta site for VelocityXNG (laptop version).

We too are using the Leitch VelocityNX in house and are a beta site for VelocityXNG.

[PHX Shooter]

An easy solution would be to use a PC laptop and Premiere Pro CS3. CS3 now has native P2 support so you can just edit straight from the card or copy it in to a bus powered firewire drive (like a G drive) and go to town. Learn the keystrokes and you can edit very quickly. It also has a print to DVD from the timeline for archiving and the Adobe Media Encoder for Web video.

The project Manager allows you to consolidate your assets and create a new project with just your final shots. The color correction isn't bad either allowing you to quickly change the gamma for darker/overly bright shots and adjust your color if your white balance was a bit off. IF you know how to use an NLE, it's pretty basic with enough depth to fix/enhance for a more seasoned user. Audio editing is also pretty straightforward.

The problem with a Mac systme and FCP is that the latest MacBook Pro's don't have a slot sompatible with P2 cards. FCP is a better NLE (IMHO), but Premeire is a pretty good app.

[svp]

I would like to take the time to share a cool little work-around that I figured out on AVID. One of the biggest complaints I've had about P2 and AVID is the mass amount of clips you have to go through for large shoots. It has been suggested to put all those clips into a sequence and edit from the sequence. This is possible but has its limitations. I found a different workflow (time permitting). Open up the card using media tool and pull all the clips into a bin (but don't consolodate anything). Lay all the clips in a timeline and export the timeline to the desktop as a Quicktime Movie file. Now pull the movie file from the desktop into your AVID bin and let it convert to an XMF file. Now, instead of 80 clips to scroll though and rename, you have one single file just like if you would have digitized a tape. I do this nearly everyday now. No loss of quality and quicker to edit. Here's the best part, its actually quicker than if you renamed and consolidated all the clips from the card. This is how I've started archiving my broll too. I export everything as a movie file and systematically save the movie files on an external hard drive and just pull those files into AVID when I need them. Its amazing how much quicker I'm able to edit by doing this.

[ashilts]

I would like to take the time to share a cool little work-around that I figured out on AVID. One of the biggest complaints I've had about P2 and AVID is the mass amount of clips you have to go through for large shoots. It has been suggested to put all those clips into a sequence and edit from the sequence. This is possible but has its limitations. I found a different workflow (time permitting). Open up the card using media tool and pull all the clips into a bin (but don't consolodate anything). Lay all the clips in a timeline and export the timeline to the desktop as a Quicktime Movie file. Now pull the movie file from the desktop into your AVID bin and let it convert to an XMF file. Now, instead of 80 clips to scroll though and rename, you have one single file just like if you would have digitized a tape. I do this nearly everyday now. No loss of quality and quicker to edit. Here's the best part, its actually quicker than if you renamed and consolidated all the clips from the card. This is how I've started archiving my broll too. I export everything as a movie file and systematically save the movie files on an external hard drive and just pull those files into AVID when I need them. Its amazing how much quicker I'm able to edit by doing this.

can you please elaborate a bit more on exactly what format options you use when you export and then import. i've tried your little trick and maybe our avids are extremely slower than yours but, an export of about 30 minutes of video as a quicktime movie, and then a import back into the bin took forever, i quit after a halfhour. normally our clips consolidate at a 4times speed, which is pretty fast. i then tried a export as quick time reference (much faster) but then the import said it would take 1hour and a half.

couple other questions: what do you do about time code, because the export import changes all time code, not a problem if they are logging off media manager, but what if they started logging off the camera with real timecode. and you mentioned "convert to an XMF file" not sure what that is and where is that setting? any help to speed the process along is always helpful. thanks

reporter: where is my interview
camera monkey: oh ya search for clip 000458GH or was it 000457GH

ahh fun with p2

[shootist]

I would like to take the time to share a cool little work-around that I figured out on AVID. One of the biggest complaints I've had about P2 and AVID is the mass amount of clips you have to go through for large shoots. It has been suggested to put all those clips into a sequence and edit from the sequence. This is possible but has its limitations. I found a different workflow (time permitting). Open up the card using media tool and pull all the clips into a bin (but don't consolodate anything). Lay all the clips in a timeline and export the timeline to the desktop as a Quicktime Movie file. Now pull the movie file from the desktop into your AVID bin and let it convert to an XMF file. Now, instead of 80 clips to scroll though and rename, you have one single file just like if you would have digitized a tape. I do this nearly everyday now. No loss of quality and quicker to edit. Here's the best part, its actually quicker than if you renamed and consolidated all the clips from the card. This is how I've started archiving my broll too. I export everything as a movie file and systematically save the movie files on an external hard drive and just pull those files into AVID when I need them. Its amazing how much quicker I'm able to edit by doing this.


i've exported timelines as quicktime files for archive and e-mail purposes but i can't think of a reason to do it to edit. if i shoot 20 minutes of video, it takes about 10 minutes to consolidate...but about 30 minutes to export as a quicktime. 20 minutes lost with the QT method.

but the real comparison should be this: if you're exporting as a quicktime and not consolidating, then it must not be necessary to get the raw video into a server so........how about just creating a sequence from the clips and editing off the cards (no consolidating)? i'm now editing immediately and have saved 30 minutes export time and about 5 minutes re-importing.

only thing i can't do from the timeline edit method is motion control efx. so basically i just edit in a shot....match frame to call up the clip and then do my effect and re-edit.