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Panasonic HVX-170 P2 .MVX Conversion – Final Cut Express Problem
Last week, I purchased a brand new HVX-170. I really invested in this purchase buying a Letus, an HD external Monitor and all the trimmings.
This weekend I trotted out the camera and filled up the P2 Card with footage transferring it over to one of my drives as per the Panasonic Manual and Barry Green’s instructions in his book.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that you needed Final Cut Pro to import .MVX files via the Log and Transfer utility. I am currently running Final Cut Express (which really takes care of a great deal of my needs) and I also have Adobe CS3 Master Collection which includes Premiere Pro and After Effects.
I really prefer editing in Final Cut and would like to know if anyone has come across a reasonably priced program for Mac that costs less than Final Cut Pro ($1,300) and can convert the Panasonic P2 .MVX files to any format that is Quicktime supported. Specifically, I am interested in shooting in 720/24p
I tried importing the footage into Premiere Pro which worked, but imported the Video and Audio Files separately. I couldn’t figure out how to get everything to import as properly linked.
I would appreciate if anyone would be willing to help me out with an answer or workaround. I will be purchasing Final Cut Pro shortly but I would like to let my credit card cool down for a month or two before firing it up again!
Hardware: Mac Pro 2 X 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Current NLE Software: Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, Final Cut Express 4 -
2 Replies
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Not sure if FCE supports DVCPro HD. I think you need the full version of FCP to rewrap MXF files to Quicktime via log and transfer.
Jeremy
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Hi,
PPro CS3 should be able to auto-join the P2 MXF Files on import. If the P2 MXF files are still in the proper P2 folder structure, you should be able to just import the Video Folder and then PPro will auto-link all of the Video MXF Files with their matching Audio MXF Files. From there, you could export QuickTime Movies out of PPro using the Apple Intermediate Codec and edit those MOV’s in FCE.
We also offer a couple of QuickTime plugins that could help you edit the P2 clips natively in FCE:
Calibrated{Q} MXF Import for OSX
https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/MXFImport_Mac.aspCalibrated{Q} DVCProHD Decode for OSX
https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/QDVCProHD.aspBasically, these two plugins will let you import the P2 DVCProHD MXF files into FCE – but you’ll still have to use the Apple Intermediate Codec as the renderer. We haven’t formally tested a FCE workflow with our plugins, but we have quite a few customers that use our plugins in that scenario. Demo’s can be downloaded for free at our website so you can try out if you want.
But if you are eventually going to buy FCP then I would suggest just saving up your money and converting P2 MXF Files with PPro – and if you need any help getting PPro working with P2 MXF Files, feel free to email me at info@calibratedsoftware.com
Cheers,
GregCalibrated Software
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