Problems Mounting P2 Volumes

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One commonly reported problem when working with P2 cards with people new to working with P2 cards is a problem properly moving the data from P2 cards into the Mac for transfer into Final Cut Pro.

Although there are a lot of different workflows, one common approach is to copy the contents of the P2 card on to a hard drive for later import into Final Cut. This way, once the card has been copied to a hard drive, the P2 card can be erased and re-used. (We highly recommend making two identical computer copies of the P2 card before erasing the card for re-use.)

The problem arises when users copy the P2 card in a way that Final Cut Pro can't recognize. The key to doing this properly is making sure that you create a computer copy of a P2 card that is a mirror of the structure of the original card.

When you connect a device to your Mac to mount a P2 card, whether you are using a camera, P2 Store or Edit Controller- the card will appear on the Desktop as a virtual disk with the words "NO NAME".

If you open the mounted P2 card, you will see the following items.

The entire contents of the P2 card needs to be copied to a folder you create on your Mac, and it needs to have the exact same structure as the P2 card.

1. Create a folder.

2. Open the mounted P2 card.

3. Copy both items in the card to the folder you created. Copy the CONTENTS folder and the file called LASTCLIP.TXT.

4. To mount the folder in FCP for ingest, mount the Enclosing folder you created, in the case above, you would mount the folder called P2 Volume 1-Reel 1. Do not attempt to mount the Contents folder itself.

Things to keep in mind:

• Each P2 card needs to be copied into its own computer folder.

• Copying over just the CONTENTS folder on to your hard drive is an invalid structure and will not be recognized by FCP.

• Copying the contents of multiple P2 cards into a single folder will also not be properly recognized by FCP.