How to correctly copy from hard drive back to P2 card for playback?
 

I recently copied footage from a few P2 cards (shot in DVCPRO 50) to a hard drive. I have not been able to get the footage to work right in Avid Xpress 5.1.3. Since I've had no luck with that, I would like to send the footage back to P2 so I can just do a live capture and then edit the video in Vegas.

How do I correctly send the footage back to the P2 card so it will play back on the camera? The footage is unedited and unchanged since all I did was copy it to the hard drive from P2..
I'm running out of time with my deadlines so any help is greatly appreciated!!! :)

Paul

Try adobe premier, latest version that does it. you have to export or save to Panasonic P2 from memory. there are some other methods/software but this is the first that comes to mind.
it has to be in the same structure as the MXF's.

Good luck
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au

Paul,

How did you do the original copy (from P2 to your HDD)? You mentioned "several" P2 cards. Did you preserve the original file structure for each of your P2 card? Or you just merge everything from your P2 card into one folder.

If you did the later, I don't think you can reverse it - the LASTFILE.TXT is over-written by the latest P2 card you used.

If it is the former, then it should be relatively easy to copy back the P2 directories onto each individual P2 card.

Thanks for the help, guys. Ting, to answer your question, I did keep the files separate. I basically, made three folders titled 1, 2, and 3 and I copied the footage from each card to it's own folder. When I tried copying one back to a P2 card, it copied okay, but when I turned on the camera to play back, the error "dir entry ng card" comes up flashing in red.

When I go to look at the clips on the camera, I can see the thumbnails, but it won't play the clips. I'm guessing there must be an easy way to transfer it back to P2 so that it plays back, right?

Did you copy the LASTFILE.TXT in the root folder? That's the critical pointer. If you forgot to copy / corrupt that file - there is no way to get it back.

Basically, it looks something like this...AVDS\weddings\newwedding\ and then the folders after that are named 1,2,3. I basically just copied the whole "contents" folder and the "lastclip.txt" from one of the P2 cards to the #1 folder and then repeated the same thing for the other two. So basically, when I open the folder on the computer, it looks the same as when I view a P2 card... it shows the "contents" and "lastclip.txt"...

Just guessing right now, but, is your camera mode set correctly? I assume you are not using the latest HPX170 - but the older ones (HVX200, HPX500, etc). Your P2 clips were shot in SD (DVCPRO 50), but, if your camera is right now set to HD (1080i, or 720p) - the camera won't be able to play it back.

If that is not the right guess - you could try asking the camera to attempt to "repair" the clips on your P2 card - no harm giving that a try.

Well, it was shot in DVCPRO50 with the same HPX500 that I am now trying to play back on. One things I found out though is that the camera is currently in the regular DV mode. After I saw this last message you sent, I just changed it back to DVCPRO50.

Could that really make a difference with playback though?

I did some tests here ...

a) Filmed some scenes using HVX202 (into P2 card).
b) Eject P2 card from camera, plug into AG-PCS060 (60GB HDD with P2 card reader), connect into USB into PC.
c) Copy the contents from P2 card to computer HDD - no problems.
d) Start up EDIUS - play from HDD the video - no problems.
e) Format P2 card using AG-PCS060.
f) Plug P2 card into camera - confirm no video inside P2 card.
g) Plug P2 card back into AG-PCS060.

That's where things got real interesting now ....
h) I can't copy back the video from PC HDD into P2 card using AG-PCS060. I got "Media is write protected error message from Windows". Note - the write tab on P2 card is NOT engaged.
i) Next - I tried using my notebook (Lenono T60 - equipped with PCMCIA slot). Plug the P2 card into the notebook, and tried writing to P2 card. I have the same message "Media is write protected".

Paul,
How did you managed to write data into the P2 card in that case?

I can read data from P2 card using either the AG-PCS060 or Notebook's PCMCIA slot. But, I failed to write data back.

Hi, sorry I'm only responding to this now! Somehow I missed that you had responded since my last post. I wanted to thank you for the advice! I did actually have the HPX500 camera set on regular DV mode and I switched it back to DVCPRO50 and suddenly the clips I copied back to the P2 card began to work! I still got an error every time I started the camera though..it flashed red and said "dir entry ng card", but it still seemed to work to play back.

As far as the problems you are having with writing back to P2...did you make sure that the cards are formatted before trying to copy to them? I just go to the playback mode on the camera and hit menu> operations> format and then format all the slots. Maybe that would do something?

Hi Paul,

Pleased that you got your problem licked.

I think I tried to copy the P2 data back to the card outside the camera. (Definitely, the cards are formatted - see steps [e - f] above). Apparently, the camera must have some logics to handshake with the card in order to write data on it. I will try to write back with the HVX202 hooked up to USB ... so far, I have never done that to date.

TingSern - Long time no talk ! I must disagree with the copying of the LastTxt (or whatever the name is) file. When I create virtual P2 cards on the computer (PC), and write back to P2 cards in the camera via USB, I never copy that file and everything works great. My exact flow is : connect camera with P2 cards to computer via USB, open the camera P2 cards on the computer and delete all files (usually just the Contents folder), then open the virtual P2 card on the computer, then copy the Virtual P2 Contents file to the camera P2 card. No LastTxt file is needed - when the camera plays back the P2 card it creates a new LastTxt file. Try it - you'll like it.

Hi Mark,

I have never found the need to write a video back to P2 card to playback on the camera so far. But, what I have found about this matter is - the LASTFILE.TXT is required for my video editor (Canopus EDIUS) to work properly. If you use Mac's FCP - then, of course, that requirement might not be needed.

Cheers,
TS