P2 Questions
 

I read on the Panasonic website that the maximum number of clips on a P2 card is 100. Is this the same despite whether you are using a 4 GB or 8 GB card ? Do you set clip length before you begin recording, or can the card be divided up after recording ?

I don't know where you read that, but it's not true. I've recorded well over 100 clips on a single 4gb card. In fact, while browsing the forums I decided to just intermittently push "record/pause" on the HVX to see how many clips I could fit on a 4gb card. The final tally? 798. Might have gotten a few more if I'd pushed the button faster.

You pushed the button a total of 1,596 times while browsing the forums? ...Methinks you're a poster boy for OCD or you're smokin' crack. LOL.

Thanks, Barry. So new clips are generated whenever the recording is paused. If you recorded the 4 GB card as one clip, I infere that you could not retrospectively divide that one clip into many smaller clips after the fact. Is that correct ?

Correct. The good news/bad news about clip-based recording is that your clips are automatically generated in-camera every time you press the record button. The bad news is that you have to load the entire clip when you edit. If you're doing long interviews, it's worthwhile to train your reporter/producer to pause after each response, let you make a new clip, then ask the next question. Otherwise you could end up having to load a 10-minute clip for a :10 bite.

Got it. One more question - after you have transferred your clips to a computer and edited them, can you write the edited file back to the P2 card and then play it elsewhere using the camera as a playback device ?

Well now, when you spell it out like that it does sound pretty bad. But yes, it was at least 1596 times. Actually I just kept tapping it at regular intervals so I probably pressed it a lot more than that! :)

Yes, this is extremely easy with EDIUS as you can render out a camera-playable MXF straight from the timeline. With Avid or FCP you can "print to video" and have the camera record the incoming firewire stream and record that.