When a shot is recorded requiring more than the 4 GB file size limit, a P2 camcorder or XDCAM HD 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 P2 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 all of the spanned clips within a single shot as a single clip. It will import all the clips within a shot on a card when you select any one of them, provided none of the spanned clips is missing and the relevant XML is present. When one or more spanned clips is missing from a shot, Adobe Premiere Pro will import one or more of them depending on where the missing clips fall within the shot.

To import a group of spanned clips, select one of them to import all of them. If you select more than one spanned clip, you will import duplicates of the whole group of spanned clips as duplicate clips in the Project panel.

If the group of spanned clips itself spans two P2 or XDCAM EX cards, copy the full directory trees from them both to same-level folders on the hard disk before importing. For P2 media only, you can alternatively import clips spanning two P2 cards if both cards are simultaneously mounted to your computer.