Question for other cameramen

[Matt Gerard]

Couple of options for you,

1. Client brings own laptop/offload station

2. You provide laptop/offload station with hard drives that the client “borrows”

3. Same as above, but charge them for the HDD and they keep it. (think tape stock)

4. Not sure if you can do this on all the P2 cameras, but our HPX2000 can act as a USB (2.0) host, and I can plug a HDD directly to the camera and offload from the cards to the HDD while packing up gear. Then let them borrow the HDD or sell it to them. Or they bring their own. It actually is fast, and easy to do from the camera.

Either way, it depends on the camera, what the client can handle as far as ingesting footage (can they use the mxf files, or do they need quicktimes?) and what you want for liability. If they get to the office, and the HDD doesn’t work, who’s fault is it, and lets hope you haven’t erased your cards yet. With out 2000, we have 7 16GB cards, and we haven’t filled up 5 of them on a full days shoot yet. At the end of the day, i take the camera and dump the cards to a mini g-drive, 160GB and it powers right off the camera, to floor wart to plug in. And I copy everything off while breaking down the equipment. they can keep the drive (add it to the bill) or they can “borrow” it out of the kindness of our hearts. Either way, I go back to the office and dump the stuff off onto my own drive, and keep it there for a while, just in case.

Good luck!

MAtt

Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…

[D. scott Dobbie]

In my situation, I have them bring a hard drive (or I can pick one up for them – I like the LaCie D2 Quad 500 GB for under $200). I then bring my PowerBook G4 with the PCMCIA slot that accepts the P2 cards (though you can get a card reader if you’re using a different computer). I then copy the files to their hard drive and I make a copy for myself. That way I’ve got them covered if they screw up the files, which has happened once or twice.

Be sure you’ve got FW800 as a transfer method. Otherwise the transfer takes twice as long.

[Peter Mackay]

Both of the solutions posted above work just fine. What we do is something similar, except we download to 2 HD’s simultaneously. Using P2 Genie which has a 2 download setting. The client then takes HD #1 and we keep HD #2 until the client lets us know that he has downloaded the files successfully, then we reformat the drive for the next job. We have the client supply the HD that is going away with him at the end of the job.

[D. scott Dobbie]

Great idea – didn’t know about the dual DL feature of P2 Genie. Would save me some extra time. Thanks!

-S.

[Marc Rolph]

I was curious to find out how quickly that “off-load content while packing up” went. Are you talking about dumping 5 P2 cards off in a matter of 15 minutes?

Marc Rolph
Producer/Director
Mississippi State University

“If you chase two rabbits, both will get away.”

[Matt Gerard]

Oh nooo. 15 min? I wish. more like 10-15 per card. Our teardowns can usually take anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours, depending on the shoots. Clients just need to be explained to that transferring the footage might take a while. Goes with the technology. Couple of times break down went quick, boss took the client to happy hour while guess who gets to guard the gear while the transfer is going on. I’m not looking for pity, really. 😉

Also, if the client really doesn’t/cant’ wait for it, we will take it back to the office and ship them the drive. I like that, because then i can go through the footage, check it out against the shot logs, make sure everything is transferring properly.

Matt

Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…

[Marc Rolph]

Oh, okay…that’s more like I imagined. THanks.

Marc Rolph
Producer/Director
Mississippi State University

“If you chase two rabbits, both will get away.”

[Nick Griffin]

I’ve just started looking into P2, so excuse my complete ignorance.

Does P2 create files based on individual takes or one big file that can’t be broken into smaller parts? I assume the previous but fear the later.

Also, at full HD on a 2000, what’s the shoot time per 32Gig card?

(Yea,I know I could easily find this stuff out with minimal research, but I’m overworked these days and the COW is sooo easy.)

[Matt Gerard]

[Nick Griffin] “I’ve just started looking into P2, so excuse my complete ignorance.
“

‘Tis excused!

[Nick Griffin] “Does P2 create files based on individual takes or one big file that can’t be broken into smaller parts? I assume the previous but fear the later. “

Each clip is separate. Everytime you start recording it starts a new file (actually a number of files, more on that later).

[Nick Griffin] “Also, at full HD on a 2000, what’s the shoot time per 32Gig card?
“

I have the 2000, and it really depends on what codec you are shooting. see this website-

https://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=196664&surfModel=AJ-P2C032RG

gives a small comparison.

There ya go… Found it on Google, took me 5 seconds. Way quicker than waiting for someone to respond to this post.

Matt

Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…

[Jose Alvarez]

What is the best way to go when a client wants HDV tapes
and I am shooting HVX200?

I bought the sony GV-HD700 walkman thinking I would be able
to record realtime, without going through P2 cards or Hard Drives.

I can’t get it to work….

any ideas ?

Thank you