[David Schumacher]

Were you using AVC-G 25? I just tried importing some AVC-G25 footage with FCPX and when I did, the program crashed. I didn’t even get to selcet the clip I wanted to import. As soon as I pressed command-I the program crashed and a crash report came up. This is new. Crappy, but new. Way to go FCPX!

[David Schumacher]

Unfortunately I tried dropping a couple of AVC-G files into Compressor but as soon as I try dropping the output setting on them Compressor crashes. I have MXFImporter.component installed too.

Which version of Compressor are you running and which OS?

[David Schumacher]

This is amazing to learn! Which version of Compressor are you using? How do you bring the footage into compressor (ie all the different folders, etc)?

[David Schumacher]

Thanks for the heads up. After searching around for longer than something like this should take, I finally found the firmware update download link:

https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/content/download/EN/ep2main/soft/upgpx270_e.htm

Although I couldn’t find any release notes on this update, I’m hopeful it will add some more line & frequency options to the AVC I 50 codec.

The main reason I bought this camera was to shoot 720p24 in AVC G 25 which I’m not sure is even possible yet with the existing firmware. It’s still a moot point though as far as I know since there’s still no NLE that can read AVC G nor conversion software that can convert it to something usable in an NLE.

Anyway, fingers crossed for a breakthrough with firmware v10.00…

[David Schumacher]

According to its brochure, the camera will be able to record 1080-24pn, -25pn and -30pn in avcg25 and will also do 720p -24pn, 25pn and 30pn in DvcPro and these formats/codecs will be “available in the near future.” From their lips to God’s ears! I’d assume that would be facilitated by a firmware update, but I’m not available of any such thing being available as yet.

Yes, hopefully fcpx has an update to acommodate long g soon!

best,
Dave

[David Schumacher]

First, to answer your question, no, I’ve not been able to bring any Long G footage into post with FCPX, Premiere or any conversion/re-wrapping app.

Your question triggered the following rant — please forgive my indulgence…

Someone said in one of these online forums that he was able to use LongG in Premiere, so I downloaded a demo but alas, it wasn’t compatible.

Someone else said Edius could handle the format, but that’s a Windows-only format and seems like an extreme solution to this problem that will sureley be resolved in future updates from FCP and the other NLEs.

I bought the px270 with the intention to use it as a replacement for my old hpx170 for shooting events of 1-2hrs in duration. So I’ve been shooting them using avci50 720p50 or 59.94 instead of LongG25 as I had intended to when I bought it. What a shame! Not only am I forced to use 50Mbps as opposed to 25Mbps, but the default frame rates are overcranks (ie: >= 50fps). I don’t know of anyone who uses 50 or 60fps except for slo-mo effects. That’s why it’s called overcranking! Yet Panasonic decided to make these the default frame rates for this camera.

So I end up shooting and editing with this footage then output edited files for streaming at 1/2 the shooting frame rate (ie shoot 50fps, output video @ 25fps). The resulting transcoded files look fine and could pass for native 25p, but what a rigamarole just to get an event video on the web with a manageable file size.

What’s really frustrating is that with an old HPX170, you could get 85min of 720p24pn DVCProHD footage onto a single 32MB sd card, but this is simply impossible using this new cam without any support from the prevailing NLE programs. The closest thing to that data rate would be 720p50P in AVCI50 which would record only around 70min of footage onto a 32GB card.

It really makes me wonder why in the world Panasonic would release a camera that only shoots 720p24 at 100Mbps (AVCI-100) after the huge popularity of the HPX170’s 720p24PN DVCProHD codec which offered the same 422 quality but at only 40Mbps. They’ve completely abandoned the idea of data-efficient 720p24 and 720p30 recording formats which are still the ideal ones to use for event videos.

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts. Would love to hear your impression of the px270 so far.