Can a Panasonic HVX 200 Record HD & capture to FCP Simultainously?

[Noah Kadner]

Just rent P2’s- Abel rents 8Gb for $35/day. Sure you can always run out to FW but lengths are limited and it’s really best for studio shoots only.

Noah

[Russell Scott]

It basically is a studio shoot… We’re running the camera on a jib with Film Prime Lenses & the bulky lens adaptor. Even if we rent some extra cards then we still have to have also rent a card reader, transfer files around, etc. We want to streamline the process.

Another thing about running it straight out of the camera and capturing it is we have instant playback between several different shots & takes organized in FCP while we shoot. That we can make sure that we’re not having consistency issues with our actors between different takes & camera positions.

So back to one of my original questions… How far can I run a firewire cable out of this camera and get reliable results? 25ft? 50ft? more?

Thanks for your time.

[Arthur Aldrich]

[Russell Scott] “So back to one of my original questions… How far can I run a firewire cable out of this camera and get reliable results? 25ft? 50ft? more?”

Firewire 400 has a distance limit of 4.5 meters or about 12′.

There are companies that make repeaters, but I have not used them.
Markertek has some

–
Art Aldrich
Leader, NJ FCP UG
http://www.njfcpug.org

[Noah Kadner]

Not sure if sending DVCPROHD over those repeaters is good as I haven’t tried. I guess my point was- yes you need to figure out media management.

IMHO- streamlining the process means you hire someone specifically to handle your P2 cards- a digital imaging tech. Someone who’s job is to sit on a Powerbook and carefully backup P2s as you shoot. On my last shoot we had two HVX200’s with 5 8 GB P2’s shared between them. The a camera operator would offload P2’s during breaks. At first I thought it would slow us down but as it was a studio shoot with lighting that changed very little from shot to shot it actually worked like a charm. Just a suggestion.

The thing is you can certainly run a Firewire cable off your camera into FCP- but then you’ll still need to have someone always sitting at FCP running it. It cannot just run all day long by itself automatically. Someone will have to be hitting Capture now for every take and then carefully saving each take as you shoot.

Noah

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Noah Kadner] “Someone will have to be hitting Capture now for every take and then carefully saving each take as you shoot.”

And allah forbid the computer chokes. Renting a P2 store will not cost you that much more, or get yourself a firewire drive and you have the powerbook so you don’t need to ‘rent a card reader’. Install the P2 card drivers, shove the card into a g4 powerbook, transfer and be done. Can’t wait for FCP 5.1.2 that has more P2 options. if you need to look at takes right away (no transferring) look at P2 Log. you can watch p2/mxf media right there, no transferring to quicktime, nothing. Not to be holier than thou, but Noah is absolutely right, you have to embrace the p2 workflow as it’s the way it was designed. I have a DP friend who REFUSES to buy cards and media and a P2 Store, he records directly into FCP. For the most part, it works great, but when he has to shoot broll, he’s screwed, when the computer chokes, he has to start over and wait for it to restart etc etc etc. If anything gets longer than 12 feet, he’s boned… not to mention the fact that if anyone is editing on anything other than FCP, they have to do a massive file transcode to whatever codec they are working in (AVID, M100, etc.). i always thought that the P2 workflow would create jobs, and noah you have just made up the name, Digital Imaging Tech. Anyone out there looking to get into the biz, get yourself a Powerbook, learn the entire P2 Workflow up and down, and print a business card with Digital Imaging Tech as the title.

[Noah Kadner]

Well I wish I could take credit but DIT’s have been around for years(coined for use with Sony Cinealta-lol). I would coin P2 Loader(even though unloader would be apt.)

Noah

[Alex Viarnes]

Actually DIT was coined even before that for high end digital photography. I’ve been using one for years and it has really come in handy with P2 workflow.
Aloha
-A

[Jeremy Garchow]

Shows ya what I know. I’ve been around for a bit and never ran into a DIT. Then, I guess, we’ve never needed one.

Seems like DITs will now have new responsibility then.

Jeremy

[Adam Fischer]

I must first say that I think the advice in here is spot on with suggesting a good P2 workflow. Now…does anyone else find this conversation ironic?

We are just starting to get great productivity from this P2 card technology and it’s arguably much more efficient than tape, but yet, some people are already complaining about offloading cards, etc. and trying to find an even faster work flow. The next step is to build editing laptops with lenses built right into them so we can set focus and hit record from inside the editing program!

I’m not trying to pick on the original poster for his questions, I’m only making an observation about how we’ve ALL become pretty used to an on-demand life these days:)

[Russell Scott]

Capturing directly to an NLE really isn’t anything new nor should it be that outlandish of a concept to grasp… High end productions have been doing this for some time with the Thomson Grass Valley Viper camera… and doing it in part for some of the same reasons I have below.

Responding to some previous posts… yes obviously we had a dedicated person (whatever title you want to give them) too off load the cards and yes I know that you can view your shot scenes via the camera. Making smart-ass comments about laptops with cameras coming out of them and that P2 is a faster workflow than the last, so what more could someone possibly want, is an utterly weak way of thinking.

My comments as a whole on my straight to NLE workflow are… we are cranking away our shots / scenes so quickly that we are filling up the cards just as about as fast as we can off load them. (I know what your next response is… “buy more cards” well… that’s not always the answer) And going through the camera and trying to make sure that you do not have any inconsistencies with actors between several different camera positions and takes is a shot in the dark. To wait until post to find out that in your main actor’s best delivery his head is turned the wrong direction in the middle of his dialog keeping you from using your other camera positions & takes… sucks! This could easily be corrected on the spot if you are sucking these scenes in at real-time and roughing the different positions together inbetween takes as you shoot them. If you are off loading cards, and trying to rough the scenes together on set you are running 30 minutes behind the shoot. Thereby holding up the entire shoot if you want this real-time feedback before you can go do retakes to correct inconsistencies and move camera positions lighting etc for the next shot / position. This is a very tight little $100K independent film budget that can’t afford mistakes found later in post, longer than planned shoot days waiting for scenes to be offload and be roughed together or pickup days to fix problems.

So yes, even though you personally may have not had the call for it and can’t possibly imagine doing things any faster or any other way… there is a legitimate need for this type of real-time to NLE acquisition on set.

Unfortunately for the first time posting a question on Creative Cow no one has come forthright and directly answered my original question. Instead of saying “hey I don’t no we’ve never tried it, or yes / no to if it will work”, almost everyone has side stepped the question and made the assumption that off loading P2 cards has worked for their workflow so it must be the way to go for everyone else’s applications. Not always the case gentlemen but you may have a bright future in politics…

We are renting the camera so unfortunately until our next shoot day I will not be able to test and see if I can go directly to FCP, and then at a particular cable distance while recording effectively or not… Thereby ultimately answering my own question.

Another application where direct to NLE capture would be ideal… I have a large client that loves to change things on the spot and try different pitches / deliveries as we shoot in the studio. These are short spots in the $50K+ range and I know damn well if I could rough together cuts as we were shooting them and show instantly if we should continue down a particular treatment or not… they would go nuts. They left their mega million dollar add agency and came to me in the first place because I did things differently and gave them excellent quality results in a fraction of the time as everyone else. Also because I wasn’t afraid to take a step back look at everything and try a different approach.

So in short everyone thank you for your time, but don’t asume that your approach is the only answer for everyone’s application and don’t be afraid to tell someone “hey I don’t know I’ve never had the need so I’ve never tried it… if you do try it let us know how it turns out” There is nothing wrong with it.

Best regards,

Russell