Can P2 files become corrupted?
 

I know that there are chances of file corruption while you shoot, but can a P2 card and/or individual P2 files become corrupted after they've been shot? If so, what are the causes?

I would guess -

a) Hardware problems ...
b) Software coding errors ....
c) User removing battery while camera is still writing to P2 card

I have never seen it happened to mine so far. Thank goodness ...

With P2, the camera has to "close" the file properly after one stops recording. Meaning if anything interrupts that process, then the file will most likely be corrupt and must be repaired prior to off-loading (see TinSern's outline above).

One rule of thumb I follow closely, is to ALWAYS write protect the card prior to off-loading from anything other than the camera. Simply sticking your card into a PCMCIA slot on your laptop in an unprotected state opens the door to a multitude of corruption opportunities, as often the computer will write unwanted files to the card.

-Brad

I would add that - write protecting the P2 card - is especially vital for those Mac users - since the Mac OS will always attempt to put its device forks, its THRASH folder, etc ... onto ANY unprotected media.

.... devious Macs.... lol

???

There is practically NO chance of file corruption while you shoot. None.

There have been cases of P2 files getting corrupted in the transfer to Macs, and it appears to be due to how MacOS journals/indexes any newly-mounted volume. If you take two simple steps you should prevent *any* corruption from ever happening:
1) write-protect the cards before the Mac ever gets a chance to see 'em (and hey, do it for Windows too while you're at it)
2) use P2CMS to do the file offloading/copying, and set it to "verify". Then you'll have 1,000% accuracy.

So the "repair clip" function in the P2 menu is really for when a clip has become corrupted after the shot has been recorded?

A side topic here ...
 

For those machines using CompactFlash type media, how do we write protect the media then? Unlike SD (and P2) media, the CF media don't have a write protect switch.

Repair Clip is for when you eject a card that's currently being written to, or the power goes out or the battery dies or something like that, while the card is being written to. The system "closes" the file every two seconds, securing the contents on the card, but if the power dies or the card gets ejected while writing to it then you'll have an incomplete file on your hands. The "repair clip" function truncates the unfinished second or two and creates a fully-functional clip from everything that had been previously saved on the card.