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Very frustrating experience with P2 and FCP
We had a rented Panasonic HVX200 P2 for a shoot yesterday. Nice camera, overall I like it fine. Shot test footage in 720P30 and tried to import to FCP, and it was hours of frustration. In five hours of trying this and that, I got the camera on firewire to be seen on the desktop only twice, and the second time it appeared on the desktop and in the Import>p2 dialog in FCP, all the folders were there but empty. Yet I knew the footage was good because I could play it out of the camera and could see and hear it. The manuals are not very detailed on all the nuances of importing the footage, and the cameras menus are a little cryptic. I blew all may camera familiarization time just trying to test out the ability to manage and import the clips. My blood pressure was sky high, I’ll tell you.
I am sure a lot of the problem was me, and part of it, goofiness in the editing system setups, but I feel the P2 import process is not yet nearly as idiot-proof and simple as it should be.
I was wondering if any of you guys were having similar problems. If the clip browser comes up in FCP, (it only did once for me) you can select a clip and drag in a MOV file, but there is no audio to be found, for one thing.
Do you prefer dragging files into the media hard drive or using the import dialogs from within FCP? Any other tips or suggestions?
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1 Reply
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I have used p2 card stuff twice, both pretty flawless. are you on a mac? I simply plugged the camera in firewire, dragged the p2data off the cards to a folder (both the txt file and the folder) then used the p2import plugin in FCP to get the data into FCP.
i’ve currently transfered over 30 full p2 cards on set, and havent lost (knock on wood) a shot yet.
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