When you import "clips to bin" from a hard disk with many virtual P2 cards in MC 3.1.2 and you close Avid. After reopening MC all media is offline. Even if the hard disk is still on an connected to the computer.

I can see the right file path in the bins - but avid won't recognise it. "Media Offline" - all the time. It is not possible to relink the media. Tried that many times - avid won't find the files.

All you can do is go through the "clips to bin" process again. That can be a huge amount of work if you have more than 30 P2 cards to import. What a mess!

The P2 workflow in Avid is absolutely nonsense!

Sorry about that - but I have to finish a project `til monday and I get nothing but bugs over bugs over bugs!

If you have so many cards, you would be better off completing the Avid P2 workflow, so not only importing clips-to-bin but also importing the media.

I would not say the workflow is absolute nonsense. It may be inadequate you are actually planning to edit immediately off the P2 media. As soon as you have imported the media in the system, it will work.

The fact that Relink doesn't work is because the P2 files have no TapeID, I think.

Sorry about being so harsh - but you are so "on love" with your aplication, that you cannot see that this is a huge bug. I have to earn money with this machine. Time is money - and I don't have enough time to solve the bug problems.

As I imported the clips into avid yesterday - all media was there. I could scrub through ervery piece of it without problems. My only fault was to shut down avid and relaunch it - as it loses all the clip info about the file path and it cannot be relinked. THAT IS A BUG - nothing else.

Why should I consolidate media, that I already have on my RAID5 system? It's about 1,5TB data. I don't have the time to copy this whole media without any need. It is already on my Hard drive and I want to edit.

As I have found more than 3 bugs relating the P2 workflow I can really say that this is nonsense in Avid.

By the way - I had to use Premiere to capture aditional HDV media. Avid does not see my HDV camera anymore. Another bug.

pro---studio:

you are so "on love" with your aplication

You don't know me at all, so there's no need for personal remarks or assumptions, even if you are being agitated.

pro---studio:

Why should I consolidate media, that I already have on my RAID5 system?

Because that is the recommended workflow for P2 media, as pointed out in the P2 step-by-step guide.

Avid does not see my HDV camera anymore

Have you checked the Knowledge Base on that?

pro---studio:

I have found more than 3 bugs relating the P2 workflow

Which ones?

Job,

 

please be honest - the P2 advantage IS THAT YOU CAN EDIT STRAIGHT FROM THE CARD!

 

And if you would not be in love with your aplication, you would ask "yeah - thats a good point. Why does avid lose all the media paths if it is shut down? Maybe I will run into the same problem" and not "you did not complete the workflow".

I don't see it anywhere in the manuals that it is essential to copy the files into the avid database. Also there is nowhere a hint that avid loses all media paths of the imported P2 cards and that the files cannot be relinked at all if you shut down avid.

The workflow is:

Import "clips to bin".

Edit if you want

Maybe - if you want "Consolidate the clips"

 

I'll stay there it's a bug - I don't wanted to be personal at you - sorry about that.

But your answer is not helpful or written in a professional view of the case.

 

As for the bugs: Do a search of my nickname and you will find all of them here in the forum.

 

Hi,

pro---studio:

Sorry about being so harsh - but you are so "on love" with your aplication, that you cannot see that this is a huge bug.

pro---studio:

I don't wanted to be personal at you - sorry about that.  But your answer is not helpful or written in a professional view of the case.

I know you're frustrated with all of the problems you're having, but there's no need for personal remarks.  Please keep the discussion civil.

That was me speaking as a moderator.  Speaking as a fellow editor, you ought to be nicer to the only person who is helping you.  Job is one of the most experienced editors on this forum, and he's using his personal time on a Sunday evening to try and solve your problem so you can work.

good luck,
Carl

pro---studio:

After reopening MC all media is offline.

This is not a bug, it is the way it works: when You "import clips" from a P2 You can start editing but upon MC restart the clips will be offline, to have the clips online after MC restart You also have to "import media" as outlined here. Clips and mediafiles are two different things, a clip is a pointer to the Avid mediafiles, if You just import P2 clips You estabilish a temporary link to the P2 media but do not create permanent Avid mediafiles.

Camoscato,

I know that Job an experienced editor on this forum and I mostly like his answers, but his reply that I had to consolidate media is not helpful. He did not try to help me, as he didn't give me a hint to solve my problem. I don't see at all how he is helping me with my problem. All he does is throw words at me like "you had to consolidate first - you didn't complete the P2 workflow". That is not helpful. I could see his answer also as a personal remark. So there is no need to talk "as a moderator".

I spend a lot of money on that piece of software and on the hardware. If I ever change my system to another vendor (I really think of doing this) I must sell the hardware as Avid doesn't work with 3rd party hardware.

With so much money spent I do not see why I should be patient and accept all the bugs that avid comes with. I have to work with this software - I don't want to play around with it.

If Avid would be a car vendor and my bought car would not have any lights (even if the vendor would advertise it) that would be a case for a lawyer. Only in the software busines teh companys can do what they want to.

Carl, talking to the moderator: wouldn't it be appropriate to modify the thread title removing the misleading/alarming reference to a so called "MC P2 bug"?

Hi Luca,

luca.mg:

Carl, talking to the moderator: wouldn't it be appropriate to modify the thread title removing the misleading/alarming reference to a so called "MC P2 bug"?

Although I agree that the thread title isn't that helpful to pro---studio getting help, and that - as you and Job have pointed out - what he/she's complaining about isn't actually a bug, I'm reluctant to edit the thread title under the "Criticism of Avid is OK" doctrine.  I hope that makes sense.

My suggestion to pro---studio, assuming he/she wants to get help for the problem rather than just take shots at Avid, would be to edit the thread title to something like P2 Media Offline After MC Restart.

good luck,
Carl

pro---studio:

I don't wanted to be personal at you - sorry about that.

But your answer is not helpful or written in a professional view of the case.

So first you apologize and then you call me unprofessional? Do you really think you'll get much help that way?

He did not try to help me

You didn't like my answer. Not the same thing.

 

Luca,

 

there is no declaration in yor provided links that say that the media is offline after shutting down avid. I still say THAT IS A BUG.

Think of the following:

 

A editor comes to your editing suite with a P2 card and wants to have an immediately edited version of the content of this card as this should be on air in a few minutes. You insert the card and start to edit right of the card. Then the OS has a problem and the PC crashes. You are thinking: No problem - just restart the system and you're back on - wrong: All your media is offline and cannot be relinked. The only way to solve this is to consolidate the media to the avid database. If this is a 64GB Card you don't have any chance to do this in the amount of time you have.

camoscato:

what he/she's complaining about isn't actually a bug,

That is ridiculous. Is that your opinion, that you have to start from scratch - eacht time you shut down MC or have a system crash? What if you have to import 50 P2 cards and your system hangs at card number 49?

 

My question is: Why does avid forgets the media path to the imported P2 media after a shutdown of the system? Nobody has answered this. But this is the essential question and in my opinion a huge bug as it is described nowhere and is absurd.

 

@Job:

It's really that simple:

Help = helping someone to SOLVE his problem

No Help = telling him something that he could have done in ADVANCE and not helping to solve his problem

What I think it may be doing is if you have all these virtual drives (F: G: H: I: and so on) you can access them off of the cards, yes.  When you shut down and re-launch, the virtual drives may not map to the same drive letters and because there's no TapeID (as Job mentioned) there is no way to tell a clip to Relink to any of the media available. 

Consider this also, if you have a shot that spans more than one P2 card the cards must be placed into the Reader in the order they were written onto so that the media/master clip can be read properly.

Master Clips contain metadata that is directly linked to Media Files.  Master Clips link based on TapeID and TimeCode.  If there is no TapeID there is nothing for the Relink to be based on. 

Copy the media off of the cards onto a hard drive and follow the P2 Workflow, doing this would eliminate your need for virtual drives and put all of your P2 media in one place.

I agree that it would be great for time pressured short form. I have no idea why the Avid forgets those links, other than that the Avid uses its own databases (msm.db) in its own MediaFiles folders to keep track of everything. I guess that makes the links to (virtual) PC cards more complicated.

Now, you were talking about 30 P2 cards. I personally would not try to cut that much footage straight from those (virtual) cards, especially not after reading the Avid documentation (which specifically presents importing P2 as a two-step process) as well as the user stories here on the Forums and on the L2.

I empathize with you for experiencing so many issues. That said, I cut and finished 6 versions of a 70min documentary last year that had been shot on P2, without any issues. I had everything transcoded into DNxHD, since I was advised that this would cause fewest issues.

I understand that my answer is not of much help now, but perhaps if you intend to use your Avid to cut P2 media in the future, you might take my word for the fact that the 2-step process as described in the earlier linked documents did in effect work fine for me.

After that, it's up to you.

 

Either way:

Am I correct in assuming that at this point in time, you have all the media on your virtual drives, and a bunch of bins with offline clips that once referred to the actual P2 media?

If so, I cannot speak from experience as how to solve this, but I could from theory. What happens if you modify your offline clips (Clip-Modify-SetSource) and you set a source tape for them, then import the clips-to-bin from the virtual P2 card, select those clips, modify them as well so that they reflect the same source tape, then try to relink the originally imported clips?

Perhaps you can try this with just a small bunch of clips rather than the entire project. If it works, you could apply it to the rest of the footage.

If it works, I would still try to Import the media for those clips into the Avid system, perhaps over night (in batches)?

pro---studio, a bug is a software error, this is not the case, as things are working as they should; there's no NLE that can actually edit without somehow acquire the footage first, of course it could just be me not being that much on the cutting edge. 

Carl, talking to the Man, take care.