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p2 and FCP
To any of you who shoot what you cut: Do your self a favor and go buy the Panny HVX-200. I had one for the weekend to shoot and cut 3 spots. This is the most beautiful work flow I have ever incountered. HD onto p2 cards, eject and inject into powerbook, in fcp import Pan p2, CUT!!!! I will be a happy person if I never see another tape again! Now that I have seen the other side I don’t know how I will go back.
JP -
17 Replies
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I was curious about your setup.
Are you on Mac OS X 10.3.8 at least with FCP 4.5 or are you running Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) with FCP 5.0 and QuickTime 7?
Were there any P2 drivers required for your PowerBook?
Did FCP 4.5 or 5.0 recognize the media immediately without drivers?
Did you use the Media Manager to copy the project media to a harddrive or were you able to simply drag the clip over to a harddrive using Finder?
I’m glad your shoot went so effortlessly because some posts I have read are critical about the expense and limited capacity of P2 workflow.
Thanks for your report and input,
Bryce WhitesideDon’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…
PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion -
So I was under the immpression that P2 didn’t work with FCP … or at least it didn’t import the full meta data of the MXF file? Is this right?
Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com -
You do have to download and install P2 drivers. After that the p2 card inserted into the pcmcia slot on the G4 powerbook pops up like any external drive. Using the file, Import panasonic p2 function in FCP converts the .MXF files to QT and deposits them into your capture folder. EFFORTLESSLY! People have been complaining about price and size of p2. $600 for the 4 G card, $1000 for the upcoming 100g firestore. THERE IS NO TAPE TO BUY EVER. HD with no tape cost. And no edit time to Digitize. I shot 720 p 24 and got 10 min on a 4g card. Transfere time to FWdrive via powerbook was 3MIN. Also the variable frame rate in 720pN mode comes in to FCP with out haveing to use a frame rate converter to id flaged frames. It just works effortlessly.
The powerbook is a 1.5G w/ FCP5.04 on tiger.
This is the begining of the end of tape formats for aquisition-(In my opinion)
JP -
I have been importing P2 footage for a week now. Converting the MXF files with FCP to Quicktime files.
You just need minimally OS 10.4.3, QT 7.0.3 and FCP 5.0.4…and a couple files that you download from the Panasonic site that allows you to read the P2 cards directly, either with a card reader, P2 Store or from the camera itself.
It is VERY possible.
Shane Ross
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Just out of curiosity… What’s your archiving workflow. We are having quite the discussion on archiving and start to finish workflow in the P2 forum. How are you overcoming the need to archive the media you’ve shot after your project? And are you backing up the data from your hard drives after you import from P2 card and erase the p2 card? If not… aren’t you woried about your original source data disappearing with a failed drive as you edit even before you go to archive at the end of the project?
Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com -
On the intial shoot, we had a PC laptop with a PCMCIA slot, and slipped the P2 card into that and connected several 80GB Porsche hard drives to offload the RAW P2 data…CONTENTS and LAST CLIP.txt. Then we took those, copied them to a large 1TB G-Raid to give to me to import and convert…putting the converted files onto two 500GB G-Raids. After importing the footage and making sure it all worked, we kept the 1TB G-Raid as our archiving master…reformatting the Porche Drives.
On the second shoot, we acquired a 60GB P2 Store and downloaded to that with the push of a button. Then when it was full, we used the laptop to transfer from the P2 store to the Porsche drives (a Mac will work for this, but requires a few steps NOT in the manual). Again, they were put on the 1TB G-Raid and imported.
The 1TB G-Raid will most likely be put on a shelf with the RAW files as the method of archiving.
Shane Ross
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
I was also concerned about archival and data loss. I also made sure to have the data transfered to two differnt drives just incase one failed. The process takes a little time to get used to. Everyones comfortable with tape formats but p2 is less prone to damage from cold, moisture and shock. Optical would be a nice archival option. We’ll see what other options gain in popularity as the technology grows.
JP -
So I’m trying to figure in price then to this workflow. How much di this all cost you to get set up? Is there anything you’d change?
Also as to archiving on a 1 gig G Raid and putting the raid on the shelf…what’s the shelf life of this methid of archiving? I know this will sound stupid but do mean you are actually unplugging the drive and placing it on a shelf. Are you still not worried the drive will fail one day?
I suppose this is a good enough workflow though that gets you up and running using P2. And as future Archiving solutions arrise and fall in price you could always cross your fingers that the G Raid hasn’t failed yet and archive to DLT, Blue-Ray, or Holographic …
Chris Baldwin
Shoulder High Productions
Media of the World; For the World!
https://www.shoulderhigh.com
newsletters@shoulderhigh.com -
Is the Japanese site Panasonic.co.jp soft_e page the only download site for the drivers?
These drivers seem pretty obscure to find.
Inquiring minds…
Bryce WhitesideDon’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…
PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion -
Yes…I was trying to find that link for you.
Very difficult.
Good job.
Shane Ross
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net
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