P2 Workflow with Avid Editors - Protecting P2 Assets

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Whatever your workflow, Avid strongly recommends protecting your original P2 assets prior to post production. You can copy media onto your local or Avid Unity™ storage system using the consolidate function inside Media Composer®. Or you can back it up manually.

First, lets look at consolidating within Media Composer. Consolidating footage within Media Composer is the safest and simplest method. It takes about the same amount of time as a manual operating system file transfer, but has the advantage of incorporating a failsafe checksum comparison between source and copy. This gives you the confidence to move on quickly with your project without having to worry about file count or the number of bytes transferred successfully.

Now having already accessed the P2 material, Ive brought those clips into a bin. Next, select the clips you want to work with and go to the main file menu. Select Import P2 and choose Media. The media will be automatically consolidated using the settings defined in the media creation tool within Media Composer.

Now, if you prefer more control over the consolidation process. For example, you may want to choose the location for the media for each time you perform the operation, then you can use the manual consolidate function. Again, having already accessed the P2 material Ive brought those clips into a bin. Next, select the clips you want to work with, go to the main clip menu. Select Consolidate/Transcode. At the Consolidate/Transcode dialog, choose Consolidate. Choose the drive, Unity or network location you wish to consolidate the media. Make sure the master clips are relinked to the media on the new drive. The media will now be consolidated as per the custom settings specified.

Once the consolidation process is complete, be sure to eject or disconnect the device or path to the original P2 media so that you can continue editing the consolidated copy of that media. Having both the original media and the consolidated copy of that media online at the same time can cause problems and confusion both for the operators and for the software.

Lets look at backing up the media manually. If youre in the field, you can use a Mac or PC laptop to copy the contents of P2 cards to USB or FireWire disk. Or even burn the material onto a data DVD so that you can reuse the P2 cards immediately. If youre back in an editing facility or a lab then you can use a Mac or a PC to copy the contents of the P2 cards to an archival device such as a DLT or a mirrored or RAID protected stripped set.

Whichever manual backup method you choose be sure to backup all the media exactly as it is presented on the P2 cards. The directory structure should remain intact with all files present and in the directories created by the camera. You should also make a comparison between each P2 card and its backup prior to erasing and reusing the card in the field. It is very important to ensure that the correct number of folders and files and bytes have been successfully duplicated.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Avid
• camera
• Composer
• editing
• HVX200
• Media
• P2
• Panasonic
• software