When a shot is recorded requiring more than the 4 GB file size limit, a P2 camcorder starts another file and continues recording the shot to it without interruption. This is referred to as clip spanning as the shot spans more than one file or clip. Similarly, a camcorder may span a shot across clips on different P2 cards, if it has more than one P2 card loaded. It will record the shot until it runs out of room on the first P2 card, then start a new file on the next P2 card with available space, and continue recording the shot to it. Although a single shot can be recorded to a group of multiple spanned clips, it is designed to be treated as a single clip.

Adobe Premiere Pro imports each file of a spanned clip as a separate clip, but it can nevertheless import all the spanned clips within a shot as a group. That is, it will import all the clips within a shot when you select any one of them, provided they are all from the first card, none of the spanned clips is missing, and the relevant XML is present. When one or more spanned clips are missing from a shot, Adobe Premiere Pro will import one or more of them depending on where the missing clips fall within the shot.

If all the spanned clips of a shot are from a single card, or from the card on which the shot was begun, select one of them to import all of them. If you select more than one, you will import duplicates of the same clip. To import spanned clips from the second, or later card for a shot that started on the first card, select each of them. Once they’re imported, use the Creation Date column to place them into their correct order.

The Creation Date column in the Project panel shows when each clip was acquired. After you import spanned clips, you can use the Creation Date value to determine their correct chronological order within the shot.