AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Quartz Extreme graphics card 512 megabytes (MB) of random-access memory (RAM); 1 gigabyte (GB) recommended

Transcription

1 Using P2 HD with

2 Computer / OS specs A Macintosh computer with a 500 megahertz (MHz) or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor (550 MHz for PowerBook G4) or any dual PowerPC G4 or G5 processors AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Quartz Extreme graphics card 512 megabytes (MB) of random-access memory (RAM); 1 gigabyte (GB) recommended For HD: A Macintosh computer with a 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and 1 GB of RAM; 2 GB recommended For AVC-Intra: Capturing HD resolution video using the ProRes 422 format requires a Mac Pro with an Intel Xeon processor or a G5 Quad computer. AVC-Intra Codec required (see below). Minimum NLE software version for P2 support Final Cut Pro Version 5.04, 5.14 Highly Recommended Minimum NLE software version for AVC-Intra Final Cut Pro Version 6.02 Note: The information presented is accurate at the time it was written, hardware and software changes may affect both workflow and procedures in the future. Overview The basic P2 workflow described here is available for use with all Panasonic P2 HD camcorders. Please contact Panasonic for further details, or, visit Organization is the key to managing your media in any situation, but it becomes critical when P2 cards will be re-used during the shoot.p2 cards and their contents should be treated in the same manner as an IT department would handle critical server data. Having a backup or two (preferable), will safeguard your data in case of hard drive or operator failure (accidental erasure). Recommended equipment for a P2 shoot should include the AG-PCS060G P2 Store portable drive, the AJ-PCD20 five-slot P2 card reader and, if time and space allow, a laptop running Final Cut Pro with external storage for ingest and secondary backup. In order to provide compatibility with Mac and Windows based systems, we suggest purchasing BUS powered disk drives that are already formatted FAT 32. The Mac will read and write Fat32 with a few considerations. As a general rule, always copy the entire Contents Folder (video, proxy, etc), as well as the Lastclip.txt. Please note: bus powered drives are generally intended as an intermediate storage device and will not necessarily provide enough throughput for editing. Shoot, Backup, Ingest and Archive are stages to think of on a P2-based shoot. Use a log sheet to help track your cards through this process, checking off each stage will be critical.

3 AVC-Intra or DVCPRO HD? The Advanced Video Codec-Intra frame from Panasonic combines high quality recording in the field with the solid state workflow of P2 media and MXF metadata. AVC / H.264 is a new generation state-of-the art codec family with both Intra and Inter frame compression implementation options (profiles). Developed to provide high image quality, including greater encoding efficiency, AVC-Intra provides production companies and broadcasters more choices without compromising HD quality. At its highest level, AVC-Intra 100 gives professionals access to mastering quality HD recording and does not utilize any video sub-sampling. With 4:2:2, 10-bit Intra-frame coding, in 1080 progressive or interlace systems, AVC-Intra 100 records the full 1920x1080 raster, representative of master-quality recording. In 720 progressive systems, AVC-Intra 100 records the full 1280 x 720 raster, again without any video subsampling. AVC-Intra 50, a fully compliant H.264 codec implementation, offers significantly better compression efficiency than older codec families. The storage and bandwidth savings, without the compromises of long GOP compression, allows AVC-Intra 50 to provide subjectively similar video quality to DVCPRO HD at one half the bit rate. This is a big benefit where bandwidth requirements are limited or longer recording times are needed, such as for ENG applications. Also, by utilizing intra-frame compression with its frame bound compression, AVC-Intra is unaffected by motion or rapid changes in scene content. More important, due to intra-frame compression, AVC-Intra stands up to rigorous editing, including compositing, multiple layers of video, etc., far better than long-gop compression schemes. All AVC-Intra 720p 23.98p / 25p / 29.97p and 1080p 23.98p / 25p / 29.97p frame rates are native providing high quality video with associated storage savings. This feature is only available on P2 camcorders, due to the flexibility of the camcorder s solid-state recording to the P2 card, thus, not relying on the consistent rate of a traditional camcorder s tape recording mechanism. AVC-Intra is standard in the Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 2/3 Native 1080p 2.2M P2 HD camcorder, and as an option in the ultra-versatile AJ-HPX2000 2/3 1.1M P2 HD camcorder and the AJ-HPM110 P2 Mobile Recorder / Player. All of these products support the DVCPRO formats too. Because the AVC-Intra format is P2 based, the workflow is similar to that of DVCPRO on P2. Shoot Prior to recording any data on the P2 cards, each card is erased in the camera. If I plan to use multiple storage volumes, a 3-digit code is assigned to each. Each time a card is placed in the camera, the card number is notated on the P2 log sheet. 3

4 Backup The first step after removing the card from the camera is to WRITE PROTECT THE P2 CARD. Each time a P2 card is removed from a camera, it is notated on the P2 log sheet. The card is then placed in the P2 Store for immediate backup. The P2 Store number is noted as well. The P2 Store creates a clone of the card and all MXF metadata is preserved. This is why the P2 Store should be the first stop. If no other field ingestion is taking place, the P2 card can be safely erased once the cloning process has been completed. An alternative method to archiving on a P2 Store can be done via Final Cut Pro (FCP). From the P2 import screen, control click on a P2 volume and choose archive. This will allow you to name the card appropriately and save it in a destination of your choosing. Suggestions for Field Workflow From a organizational standpoint, I prefer to archive my cards to a Raid 1 drive in the field using a Weibetech SilverSata II drive. This allows for 2 copies of my data to be created at the same time. I then separate the drives and use one to transfer to FCP and one to create offline archives. I will load P2 card clones from the field drive using Log and Transfer. This way I can stack as many cards as I have in the Queue and let that process continue in the background. Raylight An alternative to using this method (which requires enough storage for twice the media size) is to use Raylight For Mac from DV Film ( Raylight creates Quicktime aliases from the MFX files on your P2 volume. It can scan cards automatically or when you want. This eliminates the Log and Transfer step from FCP. You can go straight into FCP from the hard drive with your archived P2 cards, or from the P2 card itself. 4

5 Raylight version 2 adds support for writing Quicktime files back to a P2 card as an MXF file. Ingest It is very important to make sure the P2 card is write protected before placing card into any reading device. The only time that I keep the write protect off is when I need to modify the metadata on the P2 card. If time and space allow, a computer running FCP is placed on the set. After each card is backed up on the P2 Store, the card(s) is placed in a PCD20 to allow ingest into FCP. This serves as a secondary copy of the footage and provides a quick start for the edit. The Mac should be setup with an external hard drive as the designated scratch disc. One note about multiple firewire devices: on all Apple hardware, the built-in firewire ports share the same bus. This means that although you may have multiple FW400 and FW800 ports, internally they are all treated as one bus. For some applications, splitting your devices amongst USB and Firewire is recommended. For example, if a firewire drive were to be used for the main capture scratch disk, a USB 2.0 connection for a P2 card reader would work best. If an AG-HVX200 handheld P2 HD Camcorder is going to be used as a card reader, a USB 2.0 hard drive should be used for capture. The throughput for capture on USB and Firewire are both acceptable for capturing all DVCPRO codecs. If multiple firewire devices need to be used, such as a AJ-HD1400 DVCPRO HD VTR and a FW hard drive, I recommend a firewire adapter card. These can be PCI, Cardbus, or ExpressBus in form and provide a reliable way to use multiple devices on the same computer. Every time the card is ingested, a log note is added and the card can now be erased in the P2 Store prior to going back into a camera. FCP does not directly support the MXF data format. Using FCP to ingest P2 clips will create a copy of your footage that has been translated into a Quicktime movie. There is no loss of quality. FCP is just saving the MXF as a Quicktime file without the P2 metadata. 5

6 It is a recommended practice to mount your P2 devices on your Mac prior to attempting ingest. Using the File menu, choose Log and Transfer. FCP will locate the mounted P2 volumes and present the clips contained on those cards. The contents of the cards can be displayed as a list of clips, or segmented by card. Use the Show Items button to control the display. Each clip may be previewed before importing by simply clicking once on the clip on the left side of the screen. Use the standard FCP clip controls, such as JKL to play the clip, i for in and o for out, etc. Note on using Firestore FS-100 When using the Focus Enhancement FS-100 direct-to-edit hard drive, a couple of steps are needed to prepare the drive for ingest into FCP. The following steps apply when shooting in the MXF format. These steps are not required when shooting in the Quicktime format. 6

7 First, from the FS-100 Utilities menu, choose Organize P2. Then use the HDD Menu to choose DD Drive. Connect your Firewire cable from the Computer I/O port to your Mac. Choose Enable. The drive will mount on your desktop. From FCP, choose File>Log and Transfer. Choose Add Custom Path. Select the Firestore and appropriate folder. The footage will now appear in the window. 7

8 In FCP and later, you now have the option to create sub-clips prior to ingest. You may also add your own logging information such as reel, clip name, log notes, etc. Sub clipping is a powerful feature that FCP provides. It is a strategic part of the P2 workflow. By sub clipping your raw footage, one can reduce the amount of unwanted data that will be captured. This will save time in the editing and storage space on the editing system. This will also reduce the amount of space and time required for final archive. One example where sub clipping helped me occurred on a shoot at the Iditarod in Alaska. A shooter recorded 10 minutes of the crew walking to the plane after shooting an interview. With the sub clip feature, I just marked the interview section and eliminated the rest. 8

9 You can also decide to exclude audio and or video tracks from the ingest at this time by using the Import Settings tab. This is also a reference to my previous statement about only bringing in what is necessary. If the shot is MOS (Mute On Sound), there is no reason to capture the audio. Save disk space and editing time by eliminating it on import. To ingest a clip, simply drag the clip(s) to the Queue portion of the window, or select Add to Queue from the right side of the screen. At this time, you may decide to rename the clip with something more descriptive. This will save valuable time in the edit. I have found by reviewing each clip from the P2 card, I can eliminate the unwanted takes quickly, and save tremendous time in the edit. P2 needs a different thought process than digitize it all and sort it out later. If you heed this advice, your editing will go smoothly. The ingest process in FCP is a background process. This means that you can place the Import P2 window in the background and continue to edit as the clips are ingested. The clips will show up in the designated logging bin as soon as they are available. I recommend sending the import window to the dock to avoid confusion. 9

10 Using AVC-Intra with Final Cut Pro Using AVC-Intra with FCP is a two-step process. However, the advantage to using AVC-Intra on P2 is the beautiful high resolution, 10-bit quality produced, without the need for expensive video gear. First, the AVC-Intra files must be decoded and then encoded into ProRes. To produce this gorgeous image quality, strong processing is required. That is why a minimum system of an Intel-based Mac and FCP 6.02 are required. In addition, the AVC-Intra 100 codec must be downloaded from Panasonic and installed into FCP 6.02 prior to ingest. Download it at See Apple s publications, Final Cut Pro Working With High Definition and Broadcast Formats, and ProRes Whitepaper - Article L342568A for detailed information. View these documents at and As compared to DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra requires much greater disk systems for editing, both in capacity and throughput. Of course, the benefits of AVC-Intra video using ProRes is stunning full raster, 10-bit video quality. ProRes will require a 2 drive RAIDO setup for throughput. At 1080i60, that will provide for four streams in real time. One minute of AVC-Intra 100 shot at 60fps will consume 1GB on a P2 card, but at ProRes HQ that same clip will require 1.6GB of drive space. At regular ProRes, the clip will be close to native size, around 1.1GB. An hour of AVC-Intra 100 at 60fps will require 66GB of storage in ProRes. At ProRes HQ it will require 96GB per hour. Due to the processor intensive steps need to decode AVC-Intra and re-encode as ProRes, real time encoding is dependent on the Mac s processing power. Using a Mac Pro 8-core machine running at 3Ghz, AVC-Intra will transcode into ProRes near real time. ProRes HQ will require more processing time. On a Macbook Pro, with its limited processing power, it will be noticeably slower. 10

11 Importing AVC-I Material From P2 Cards It is important to set the ProRes quality prior to ingesting any clips. Do so by choosing the preferences in the Log and Transfer window. From here you will decide either ProRes or ProRes HQ. Reconnecting P2 Media After completion of a project, I will remove the media from the FCP system. Occasionally, jobs will need to be revised, and subsequently, the media will need to be ingested again. FCP will track the clips to the reel names that were assigned under the Log and Transfer step. To reconnect a timeline, select the timeline and choose batch-capture. 11

12 FCP will search your media drives for the clips. If the media is there, the Log and Transfer window will open and the clips will be ingested. Again, this is a background process. You may continue to work as normal. If the media is not found, FCP will present another dialog box asking for the missing content. From here, you may need to retrieve the reels from archived media such as optical disc, hard drive, or DLT, etc. Copy the requested volumes to your media disk. Open the Log and Transfer window, then add the volumes via the custom path. Now choose Batch Capture again, and the process will begin. Missing P2 Cards If FCP does not show your card(s), you may need to point FCP to the location manually. Do this by selecting Add Folder and navigating to the appropriate location. Occasionally, your P2 volumes may not mount on the desktop after insertion. If this occurs, a quick trip to the Disk Utility application (located in /Applications/Utilities) is needed to manually mount the volume. To do so, look for the volume that is orange in color and click on it, and choose mount from the tool bar. 12

13 Another useful tool for working with P2 on the Mac is the P2 Log Pro from Imagine Software ( com). P2 Log Pro will allow the user to view all metadata stored on the P2 cards and transfer some of that data into FCP. It also allows for the uploading of user data such as user clip name, shooter and project name. This is the only way to do this on a Mac. Archive Once the shoot is complete, the data ideally resides in two places; the P2 Store and a portable hard drive, or the P2 cards and a P2 Store. Since the P2 Store will be used on the next shoot, another method of storing the data for long-term protection needs to be considered. There are several options suitable for this purpose on the Mac, but this article will focus on two in particular. Blu-Ray Disc Blu-Ray Disc is a next generation disc format based on a standard 5.25 diameter disc. It uses a blue-violet laser to record about 50GB of data onto a dual layer disc. The discs are available in write-once or re-writable for less than $35. The media is considered archive quality, with a surface that is more resistant to scratches than a standard DVD-R. Blu-Ray discs require a Blu-Ray burner to read and record this data. For the Mac, look for a burner that is bundled with Roxio s Toast 8 software to allow your Mac to read and write these discs. It can take up to 90 minutes to burn a full 46GB disc. 13

14 MXF Aware DLT Digital Linear Tape (DLT) has been used to backup computer data since the early 1980s. Quantum offers a special DLT drive, Model 600A, that offers MXF data support and an easy to use Ethernet connectivity. Simply drag your files from your local drive to the DLT, just like an FTP upload. DLT tapes can currently hold up to 300GB of data on magnetic tape that costs around $100. The tape has an archive life of 30 years guaranteed. Transfer times will average about 16 cards per hour or about 4 minutes per 8GB P2 card. It is important to consider how you wish to handle the archive. If you archive only your FCP project and associated capture scratch locations, you will lose the original MXF metadata since FCP does not work with it natively. This may not be an issue for some, but if the work may be moved to another editing platform or to an asset management program, preserving the native MXF files will be important. The files archived on the P2 Store are in the native MXF format. You can mount the P2 Store to your desktop and copy the volumes to the media of your choice such as Blu-Ray or hard disc or DLT (see below). If you wish to archive P2 cards in their native format and you are not using a P2 Store, an extra step must be taken to preserve that data before the cards are erased. Optical Disc Backup To backup using an optical disc format, I recommend Toast 8 from Roxio ( First choose the Data category on the left to tell Toast what type of data will go on the disc. Next, decide whether the disc needs to be PC compatible. If so, choose ISO If you only need Mac compatibility, choose Mac Only. This will allow you to create a backup that can span multiple discs without you guessing how many discs are needed, Toast will figure it out automatically. 14

15 Simply drag your archived P2 Card folders into the main window. Tell Toast what type of media you are using. Toast 8 will tell you how many discs you will need. Just hit the burn button and insert discs as prompted. Quantum SDLT 600A Backup The Quantum SDLT-600a tape drive hooks up to your Mac via an Ethernet connection. The default IP address for the Quantum is Your Mac will need to be on the same subnet in order to communicate with the 600A. Use your Network Preference pane located in the System Preferences to set this up. First, choose Location>New. Then give the location a name, like DLT. 15

16 After naming the location, choose Ethernet 1 (or whatever port you have hooked your DLT up to) from the Network Status drop down. Now we must place the Mac on the same subnet by choosing Manual from the Configure IPv4 drop down menu. Use as your address and leave the rest of the settings as is. Click Apply Now. Now to transfer our files. Using Safari, type in the address and hit return. 16

17 You will now be connected to the DLT drive. Locate your files on the left window by finding the Volumes folder and doubleclicking. Locate the sub volume with your archived P2 Folders in it and drag them to the right window. You will see a status in the lower portion of the window. It will take about 4 minutes per 8GB P2 card you wish to transfer. You can drag multiple files from the left side to the right, but do not drag any files until after your first set finishes. Remember: if you changed your Network Location, change it back for normal network connectivity. Additional information about P2 workflows and Final Cut Pro can be found at About the Author: Arthur Aldrich is a 25+ year veteran of television production. Starting with cuts-only industrial VHS, graduating to 1 A-B roll, and then into the cutting edge world of non-linear editing. Art is an Apple Certified Instructor in Final Cut Pro and runs a video production facility using the P2 workflow for broadcast and corporate clients. The New Jersey Final Cut Pro Users Group was founded by Art in He can be reached via aldrich@odysseytek.net 17