P2 Footage workflow
by JR
on
Aug 1, 2007 at 1:57:26 pm
Hi folks, we just got about a dozen P2 Cameras here at the station and we are running Final Cut with a Kona3 Card. Right now footage is downloaded from the camera onto the P2 store Hard drive then Imported into Final Cut as P2. Obviously that is not a native Kona3 format so everything takes forever to import then render on timeline to view it. This is so PAINFUL. What does anyone recommend as a workflow to make this easy. Is there a way to convert the footage to Kona3 as we import to avoid rendering and have it play realtime. We are HD here 1920x1080. Before we grabbed everything from our Sony HDCAM using "HD AJA Kona3: 1080i 10 bit...this had no problems. We would capture, throw on timeline with no rendering...real time. Now we have these P2's and its about 5 extra steps and 30 mintues later.
Any help or direction would be awesome !!
Thanks
JR
Re: P2 Footage workflow by JeremyG on Aug 1, 2007 at 4:37:40 pm
Ian has it. YOu need to match the setup of your DVCPRo HD footage. If you shot 1080i, then choose a dvcpro hd 1080i setup, if you shot 720, then do the same. The Kona 3 can do the cross conversion on the way to 1080i if you need to make an HDCam master.
Re: P2 Footage workflow by RonnyRon on Aug 2, 2007 at 10:07:41 pm
The real flag on the post is you are capturing P2 and playing P2 (MXF) in FCP???
I didn't know FCP was capable of this, number 1...so I'll assume you didn't mean that.
Number 2: Whatever format you shoot in (1080i, 720, SD) FCP will import in that native format, and yes, do as the other described, setup your timeline and EVERYTHING should be realtime.
I'm running this workflow now for both SD and HD and I've had no problems.
From the field, if needed, I offload to a P2 Store (if I'm not shooting a mountain of footage, I'll wait and use my laptop to transfer clips which is 10X faster than USB and P2 Store)...from there I open FCP Import window and navigate to my folder...highlight the clips...import (convert)...and all is well when I start cutting.
You shouldn't have any issues or extra steps if your sequence is correct, as suggested.
