View Full Version : P2 Import hanging at 4.7GB on FCP


Peter Richardson
August 6th, 2009, 03:30 PM
Hi guys,

I am attempting to import some P2 footage into Final Cut (6.0.6) and the import keeps hanging at 4.7GB. I have tried different clips, different cards, transferred the card data to the drive and attempted to import, and used the P2CMS utility, still no luck.

The drive is aa G-Raid that is formatted as Mac OS Extended, but is not journalled. I have a couple drives that are not journalled and haven't had this problem.

Any guesses as to what is going on?

Thanks!

Peter

Gary Nattrass
August 8th, 2009, 03:51 PM
Hi Peter I had this occur on one clip last night and found that my drive was formatted as MS-dos. I reformatted in mac extended and it was OK but as you say this is what you already have done.

Have you tried re-formatting the drive or is this impactical it may be that the directory is corrupted and needs initialising.

Peter Richardson
August 12th, 2009, 11:32 AM
Hi Gary,

Yes, it would probably not be practical for me to reformat the drive.

What's really strange is I just shot some new footage onto a different card and was able to import it no problem, so perhaps something is wrong with these two cards? But I was able to import the footage from them using a different computer, so that doesn't hold true, either. Very strange.

Peter

Daniel Epstein
August 12th, 2009, 07:44 PM
Peter,
Just saw this on a report about Apple upgrading Leopard

"Resolves an issue that could prevent importing of large photo and movie files from digital cameras"

Wonder if P2 got caught in the crossfire. If you are using Leopard on Mac Try installing the latest upgrade to system software. Maybe this will help

Peter Richardson
August 13th, 2009, 01:13 PM
Thanks Daniel. I just upgraded, so we'll see if that helps.

I had the problem again (before upgrading) with some stuff I just shot, so I tried moving the P2 card reader from FW over to USB and it worked fine. I had it hooked up in a FW daisy-chain (it was 6th in line) so I'm wondering if that was part of the problem.

Peter

TingSern Wong
August 14th, 2009, 08:57 AM
Peter, what P2 card reader are you using then?

Robert Lane
August 14th, 2009, 11:01 AM
Hi guys,

I am attempting to import some P2 footage into Final Cut (6.0.6) and the import keeps hanging at 4.7GB. I have tried different clips, different cards, transferred the card data to the drive and attempted to import, and used the P2CMS utility, still no luck.

The drive is aa G-Raid that is formatted as Mac OS Extended, but is not journalled. I have a couple drives that are not journalled and haven't had this problem.

Any guesses as to what is going on?

Thanks!

Peter

If you've tried different cards to the same drive and different import methods then there might be a directory issue with that drive. The simplest thing to do would be to copy-off all the data onto another drive, wipe the G-Raid, reformat (with Journaling on) and attempt a new transfer.

Also, if the G-Raid is near-full this could also be the problem as the transfer process requires a certain amount of free-space to "pre-allocate" during the transfer. If the read-ahead information tells the system that it's lacking free space to continue the transfer it will stop in it's tracks.

Lastly, the G-Raid series has been hit-and-miss with communication reliability; you might want to see if there is any firmware updates from G-Tech that address communication for the chipset.

If none of that helps let us know.

Peter Richardson
August 14th, 2009, 12:33 PM
Thanks Robert. By switching from FW800 to USB I was able to import no problem, so this would seem to rule out a problem with a directory on the drive. The drive has about 1.3TB's of space, so that is not an issue, either. My only guess is that by having the P2 card reader (AJ-PCD20) at the end of a 5-drive FW daisy-chain, this somehow created an issue for importing. But that is just a guess.

Peter

Robert Lane
August 14th, 2009, 04:16 PM
That could very well be; the P2 card reader on the PC is often installed inside the tower case and gets it's own dedicated FW channel (on certain mainboards) however on the Mac all the FW ports share the same channel which is why it would be a good idea to get a PCI-e FW card and create your own channel separation for the HDD's and the P2 reader.

If you're on a laptop that's a different topology but there's still other methods for getting discrete FW channels for input.