Ethan Sigman
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p2 viewer is part of p2cms. be warned, the panasonic website is completely unintuitive and will send you in circles. it seems they’ve never reviewed completely, but it a patchwork quilt of efforts. Look carefully to find what you need, but it IS there. You’ll need the P2 driver for mac installed before p2cms. You’ll also need the avc-intra driver (which says is for fcp) to see intra.
Im about to upgrade to the i7 mbp so i can’t speak to whats possible, but only LIMITED PREVIEW is available for intra on any older mbp. it is reduced frame rate and without audio. Not helpful. You can see dvcpro and if you have a proxy encode card installed in the cam you can set the p2cms system to play the proxy files, which will play audio, but are useless for resolution as they are 240×320. You can use VLC player to play the mxfs but because it is a parsed file format, audio and video are separate. check out mxf4mac.com for some expensive but viable solutions that will also help you workflow to fcp. You can use mxf for mac to import ALL metadata from p2. hope it helps.
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Just had mine replaced on my Varicam2700 in New Jersey. It was an interesting experience. They didn’t want to replace mine, they claimed the camera must have been abused, but it hasn’t. They did it begrudgingly but to be honest I was unyielding. I am super careful with my camera and all my gear. I spend tons of money on protective covers, hard cases, custom padding, etc. I think every insurance/warranty on earth is perpetual negotiation and many people just accept what they are told. I told them that there was absolutely no way in hell the camera had been dropped or abused, that it was clearly a problem that had been recognized by many people besides me, that i almost resent the fact that they were about to replace the problem under warranty with the same poorly engineered parts and when these ones fail it will probably be too soon again but out of the 5 year warranty so there is was no question how this was going to go. Ive dealt with way too many insurance companies in my time. I try to communicate in no uncertain terms that i am about to be way more hassle than its worth and that their negotiation time is better invested in another customer who has spent less money on their equipment. It worked, but Im not that hopeful i could do it again if i did have the same problem. I don’t know why the wheel is not recessed or have a protective cover of some sort. They do it with the shutter switch on the 2700. It doesn’t feel like a robust mechanism in general. It falls into place but you can feel subtle vibrations through it and the noise sounds like weak spring. in any case, good luck. I picked mine up two days ago and it took about a week. The place is almost impossible to find, its in an unmarked warehouse. call 2013487975 and ask for details.
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thanks ernie, good thought. no dice. i strapped a 416 up there crudely and got by a couple days of doc shooting with it. next week ill have to take the mic to another cam to confirm it is the problem.
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not affiliated or sponsored…yet….id love to be…Zylights are my favorite. they are built like tanks, don’t need gels, and give you every color temp or color in rainbow. fully dimmable, and you can hook several together and wirelessly control them. they have a remote controller, and everything. i have a z50, id like to get a z90 soon. i spoke with charlie collias at NAB couple years ago…. here’s a clip with a demonstration if you care:
https://www.productionmeeting.com/video/2039668:Video:1802http://www.EZSproductions.com
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Im with noah. roll them both. i have a 2700, 200a, and 5dmkii. they are all good at different things. i want them all and keep them all because they are all good at different times. quite simply, for doc, audio IS the story. you need to be heavily resourced in audio. you might consider separate audio with 500 anyway because there is so much opportunity for audio over scenics and b-roll but you would need a dedicated audio guy with an extra 2-4kish piece of gear to record all your audio separately if you worked with the 5d only. plus you create sync logistics to manage, which isn’t too bad, but is more work. you could get away with less labor if you pushed as much audio to the 500 as possible. you need a pretty nice piece of audio gear if you want 4 channels with timecode, so the 5d is deceptively cheap to shoot on in that sense. pushing your audio workload to the 500 and using the 5d as a second/special circumstance cam makes most sense.
the simple answer is the 3700/5d but since this is really a 2 cam question, it seems the answer is to carry a flyweight tripod to drop the 5d on and shoot two cam as often as sensible, sending audio to the 500. shoot time lapse, low light, tabletop, occasional sideways dolly moves (no focus changes needed) on the 5d… which will allow the 5d to come in at a reasonable % of program if you shoot the rest on the 500.
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Mark,
will the 900 push gps meta out the HD-SDI? can you hook an hpg20/”gear” to the hd-sdi, record to .mxf with meta for gps? you would also get the added advantage of recording avc-intra if you used a hpg20, but you could use an hpg10 and record dvcpro if you need to match other footage shot with 900….. still not sure the gps works the way you need it but that might get you the data…..
Ethanhttp://www.EZSproductions.com
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i’d say THOSE two bits, and YOUR two cents, are both very worthwhile, though i too thank chris for trying, and for the friday morning belly laugh on the soccer hooliganism.
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which part of the gps on the 900 “doesn’t really work?” i have a 2700 with the gps module and i get gps data in my meta. not sure how often or if it updates in the middle of a shot, but there is a readout, it may not be precision enough for what your doing, but it is there.
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Varicam shoots every frame rate between 1-60p and has ccd chips so won’t show any cmos “jellovision” when you move the camera quickly. also, if you keep the cars centered in a panning shot, you won’t suffer any motion blur.
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