“How to Import P2 Media into an Avid NLE”
by Mark A. Stuart
While HD is becoming the TV/video norm, so is a tapeless workflow in video production. In the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Panasonic’s P2 technology. It’s been a rather slow transition for me, not because of shooting on cards instead of tape, but learning how to import the clips into the NLE.
The NLE I work with is an Avid Adrenaline Media Composer. We use version 2.7.5 which is much more P2 friendly than previous versions, and the workflow a bit more straightforward. However, as I quickly discovered when going tapeless, things are a bit more detailed than the straightforwardness of capturing from tape, especially when you digitize on the fly and don’t batch capture. If you miss just one small step in the tapeless workflow, your P2 media will simply not import into your Avid. After discovering the process and now being used to it, I now offer this workflow that is simple and effective when you know how to do it.
You’ve come back to your “ranch” (or studio, edit suite, etc.) with a P2 card of beautiful footage you shot. To get this footage into your Media Composer, first of all, have your Media Composer application off. Next, be sure your system sees the cards. We use the Panasonic AJ-PCS060 card reader via a usb cable, which is an earlier version of their current card readers. You can also use your camera as your card reader. To be sure your system can read the media files, click on the drive letter and see if your clips are there. There should be two files: a folder named “contents” and a .txt file named “last clip”. [figure 1]
You never want to delete the last clip file, and you always want to copy that along with any P2 media from the other file folder. Deleting this file could destroy the entire process, or make later archiving a rat’s nest of stray files. If you want to see the actual clip files, open the contents folder, the video folder, [figure 2]
and there should be an .mfx (Material Exchange Format) “container” file for every clip 
you shot inside of this folder. [figure 3]
What I do next is not necessary, but I believe wise. I’ll immediately back up the entire contents of the card to a back up hard drive, and I stress immediately as well as entire. Before you ever import anything into your NLE, I think it’s a good safety measure to make a straight “ghost” for safe keeping and protection from any future or very near future errors. If you’ve read this article this far, I think it’s safe to assume you are computer savvy enough to know how easy it is to drag a file somewhere you didn’t want to, or delete something you didn’t want to lose. Remember, this is not only the contents folder, but the last clip file as well.
Now that you know your system can read the P2 media, and you’ve made your safety back up to prevent human (and machine) error, you’re now ready to actually import the files. Launch your Avid and create or open a project and have a bin open where you want to import the files.
Next, choose File/Import P2/Clips to Bin [figure 4] 
and select the root drive of your P2 card. [figure 5]
It is vitally important that this is the root drive letter, not the contents folder, another folder, or any clips. If you miss this detail, the entire process will not work! All your clips will now import into your bin.
When that process is complete, and it doesn’t take long, you’ll see the clips in your Avid bin, but you are actually looking at the media that is on the cards. At this stage, I usually like to name and sort my clips to help my edit be more efficient, but this is another option that is not required for this process to work. You can actually edit at this point as your NLE is looking at your card reader as being another media drive. If you unplug your usb connection now, you’ll get the dreaded “media offline” in your Avid monitors. This scenario is convenient for on site field editing and for quick rough cuts anywhere.
However, back at “the ranch”, once the Avid sees the clips in the bin from the cards, I consolidate this media into the Avid media drives. I do this by either selecting the P2 clips I want to use and keep (of course, you can sort your clips in the field right on the camera with P2 technology), right clicking, or choosing clip from the toolbar, and then choosing Consolidate –Transcode. There I select the Avid Media Drive with the most space available (the bold letter), select Consolidate and Video and Audio on the same drive(s), deselect everything else and hit the Consolidate button toward the bottom. [figure 6]
A window will then pop up where I’ll choose Relink Master Clips to media on the Target Drive and hit OK. [figure 7]
This consolidates the clips into the media drive, but the clips on the cards also remain. Consolidating the clips to the media could take some time, depending upon how much media you have, but this is much quicker than a real time analog capture.
In the bin, the card clips will now have an .old extension after the title (or number if you didn’t rename them) and will be offline, while the clips that are in the Avid media drive(s) will be online and will show up in the bin.
Next, unplug the P2 card reader. This is another important step as having two drives with the same clip names is an invitation of confusion for the Avid. Now all that’s left is for you to enjoy your edit with a tapeless workflow!
