Transferring P2 Clips To Avid

tarzan

Well-known member
My station just got some brand new P2 cameras and P2 drives for our Avids, and we're still working out some bugs. Specifically, I'm still trying to figure out a good fast way to transfer the clips from my P2 cards into the bin of my Avid project for editing. I'll attempt to describe the way I did it today, and you all let me know if I'm doing it right, and if that's the way it's supposed to be (I hope it's not!):

Currently, I have to close out of the Avid application first, THEN insert the P2 card(s) into the slot(s). (Otherwise the Avid's Media Tool won't even recognize that the P2 drives are even there. Then when I restart the Avid, it recognizes the P2 drive(s) and their contents. Once the application is started, I go into TOOLS>MEDIA TOOL, and see that drive(s) are recognized there, click on the ones I want to see and click OK. Then a window comes up showing the clips that are in the drive. I select them and drag them into my bin.
Now, this is where the frustrating part begins: Apparently when you drag and drop them, it's not really copying the files. They're highlighted in blue to show that they're not linked to the mainframe drive, and when you look at them under the text view tab, you see they're still linked to the P2 drive. I then have to select and right-click on the clips and go to "consolidate/transcode," and choose consolidate. This copies the files and links them to the hard drive in the Avid. Today I had 69 clips, which means that there were 345 media files to consolidate, since each clip has 1 video channel and 4 audio channels. Anyway, because of this, it seems like it takes an EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG TIME to process all that. I don't think I shot anything more than about 25 minutes of raw video for the whole package, and yet this whole transferring and consolidation process took about that long. Is that the way it's supposed to be? I certainly hope not, because otherwise what's the real advantage of having tapeless technology?


Oh, and here's another issue: Both my reporter and producer were frustrated today, because they couldn't log the interview on tape the way they normally would. They couldn't do any of that until I had the tedious transfer process done. Is there such a thin as a P2 card reader that a producer can have right there at his/her desk to look at video that's just come in from the field? How is it done at other stations?


The engineer at my station who might know the answer to my questions, or might be able to figure out the answers, was off today, so I haven't had the chance to talk to him about this. Any advice you guys can give would be helpful.
 

tarzan

Well-known member
An addendum to all this:
We also have Avid Media Manager, which we use to look for clips on the ISIS system that may have been created in another Avid, and click and drag them into our bin. However, I noticed that even after I've consolidated the P2 clips in one Avid, the Media Manager is still unable to see them.
 

shootist

PRO user
that would basically be the process...but there are a few things that may help.

if you insert a card into a P2 slot and it is not immediately recognized, you may not need to restart the application. go to the file pull-down menu and select "mount all"....you should then see the card being scanned. successful about 90% of the time.

you have the consolidation process down but my ingest time is generally about 2X speed. meaning 25 minutes of vid (i shoot 4 channels of audio) would take 12-13 minutes. one thing to remember....if you're jamming to edit...you can cut right off the cards immediately instead of consolidating to a drive. now, of course, that means your video isn't available on a server/network for others to work with....but i don't know your situation.

if you must consolidate...there is software ( i thought it was included with P2 purchases but perhaps not) called "P2 Viewer" which is a no-frills viewing program that allows someone to log WHILE ingesting. another thing we do at our place is shoot "proxy video" (low res duplicate of everything we shoot) that is recorded on an SD card that can be logged on Treos that the photogs carry.

it's a very different workflow...but now that we've been at it for a year+ now, it's become second nature and significantly faster in almost all situations.

any questions at all as you go through this....feel free to PM me.
 

amp

Well-known member
First, do you really need to shoot 4 channels of audio? If you can switch your camera to 2 channels, you speed up your ingestion process buy 40%. Shootist is right about the fact you don't need to reboot your Avid. We shoot P2 and edit Avid Newscutter with ISIS. Here is what we do:

-Plug in your camera or P2 Store (or in your case the 5 card read) via USB
-Open a new bin in today's project folder to eventually move your video into
-Click "Mount All" if the Avid doesn't automatically do it when you plug in
-Click "Load Media Database"
-Click "Media Tool" and find the drives you need to open (usually starting with E, F, G, H, etc.)
-A new window will open with all the clips that you shot
-Highlight the clips you want and drag-and-drop them into the bin you opened earlier
-Highlight all those clips and right click in the bin.
-Click "Consolidate" and pick the drive you are sending them to (most likely is the Y drive)
-Click yes and let it do it's work

Our station was one of the first stations in the nation to go P2 and Avid together, so we have had every bug ever, but we have got past them. It should take less than a 1/3 of the time to ingest versus how much tape time your are ingesting (i.e.-you shot 30 minutes of video, it should take 10 minutes to ingest) HOWEVER, if you are shooting 4 channels of audio, it will take longer.

I would only shoot 4 channels if you need to, for a series shoot for example.
 

amp

Well-known member
One other thing, does your station have P2 Stores? This is the most valuable piece of gear for me. I can take about 2 minutes to copy my cards on the store and go to ingest in the Avid, while my reporter can log straight out of the camera at his/her desk.
 

tarzan

Well-known member
Not yet, but that's also one of the PDFs my engineer gave me, so they may have gotten some, or plan on getting them.
 

jumpkutz

Well-known member
Yeah, you shouldn't have to close out Avid to get it to read the cards. We usually just do it through our cameras w/o touching the cards, or, less frequently, with our P2 stores (portable hard drives).

Either way, it shouldn't take as long as your's seems to be taking.
 

tarzan

Well-known member
First, do you really need to shoot 4 channels of audio? If you can switch your camera to 2 channels, you speed up your ingestion process buy 40%.
If you know how do switch the camera so it doesn't record channels 3 or 4, please let me know. I went into menu > audio setup, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it.

Also, it does appear that you can, in fact, edit directly from the P2 drive and transfer the sequence to the isis without consolidating the clips. I tried that once this afternoon and it worked, but then I tried the same thing in the evening and it wouldn't do it. Maybe it was just some glitch with either the Windows computer, or with the Avid computer, I'm not sure.
 

tarzan

Well-known member
Another feature of the P2s that I think I'm disappointed in, is the Pre-record function, where the camera is recording all the time, even before you hit the mcr button, so you don't miss a shot. It's great for those moments, however, what sucks about it, is that the thumbnail image of each clip, instead of showing what you saw thru the viewfinder at the moment you hit the mcr button, it shows the first frame of whatever it was recording 7 seconds before you started "rolling." This basically makes the thumbnails useless in terms of being able to quickly identify the clip you're looking for when editing in a hurry. I wish there was a way you could go into the menu and make the thumbnails display whatever the frame was when the photographer first started "rolling" when he/she hit the mcr button. Otherwise, I'm thinking of just turning off the pre-record feature altogether.
 
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