[Holycowseattle]

Quickly stated:

XDCam is MPEG compressed.

Media100 does not support that mode of operation NATIVELY. You will have to transcode your footage to another codec ON IMPORT or externally using another application FIRST.

That stated howver, you will need a 3-rd party utility to access the footage via quicktime for it to import or to be transcoded.

You will need FLIP-4-MAC for XDCAM (www.flip4mac.com) and FCP 5 or higher.

==========
My understanding is that the next release of FCP and Adobe Premiere (win users) natively supports XDCAM workflow, but I can’t remember where I heard those items.
===========

So, to answer your question. YES, you can use the footage. Currently you have to bounce the footage through another application first (like those of us using P2 cards/HVX-200 awaiting the next release of Media100HD), to get clips that you can then edit with.

That is the darkside of MPEG shooting, most high-end systems don’t all the MPEG formats yet (if ever.) The low end ones do (FCP/Premiere/Vegas), but those often aren’t our first choice for production.

My suggestion: Import & Transcode.

[Holycowseattle]

From my gut feelsings and past experiences…..

It sounds like drive or file corruption. When running Media 100 under OS9, we used to get this message regularly after running speed disk to defragment our raids. We learned later that it is often better to simply delete (clear all its data to a low cost firewire drive FIRST!) and rebuild a raid. That was causing file corruption in the media 100 media.

Also, we experienced this type of message shortly before a drive hardware failure. It was so so very confusing because the clip would often play fine in quicktime player or import into After effects with no issues, but would NOT play from within the media100application. Sometimes opening the clip in quicktime player and “save as self-contained” would allow us to create a second copy of the clip that WOULD play. More often than not however, attempting this procedure would result in an error from within Quicktime player as well stating the file is damaged.

1) Check your drives with a good drive software program. (something better than Apple disk utility.)
2) Try copying the clip in question to another physical drive (ie. startup drive, or different RAID) and see if it plays.
3) Back up your data and reformat your RAID.
4) QUICKEST SOLUTION: just go ahead and redigitize the clip in question. If you continue to have problems after redigitizing this clip or if this problem emerges with other clips, I would suspect hard drive issues.

Good Luck.
Punit

[Holycowseattle]

Yes thank you I am aware of their website posting regarding compatibility.

I perhaps should have nbeen more clear in my posting.

ISSUE:
The current (downloadable) installers do not show the option to install into AE7, nor do they give you the ability to install into AE7 (by changing install directory location) .

—-

So yes, I agree with you that they list it on the website as compatible (thank you).

My frustration stems from my current inability to install said compatible software.
Therefore, I am seeking anyone who is currently using (FEC & AE7) and I would appreciate knowing the version number of the installer that they have used……..because 4.0.3 (which is currently posted as the most recent update on their site) DOES NOT WORK WITH AE7.

No negativity here, just frustration at being limited to using AE6.5 for all progrmas using FEC. I was hoping for feedback from BORIS as their support/sales have yet to reply to my direct inquiries via their (understandably busy) office lines/e-mail.

-P

[Holycowseattle]

Yes, it was a long awaited update. The whole “crash” once a batch is done issue is so yesterday.

Help needed.

We have had serious problems applying the update. The current (as of this date) installer seems to be corrupted in some manner. We have contacted autodesk/discreet to let them know, but you know how much they love to reply. (“thank you you feedback has been submitted.”)

We had to unzip the installer on a PC to get into it, and even then it crashes halfway through the install.

If anyone has a working .zip of the update, please e-mail it, as we would greatly appreciate the update.

Thanks,
Punit

[Holycowseattle]

Steve,

We use FCP in a scenario very similar to what you just described.
We use FCP with a Blackmagic Decklink Pro Card. (This gives us component, composite and SDI outputs.)
We typically shoot 720-30pn to P2 cards. (2 8Gb cards, shot in this mode–gives us 30 minutes of shooting time for talking heads, etc.)

Import the P2 footage into FCP. There is a timecode READER video filter that extracts the embedded timecode and displays it over the footage. This allows you to do your window Burns. We create an SD sequence and render it out, then dump it to VHS or DVD for the client.

To answer your other question: when you shoot 60fps footage on the HVX-200 (intended for slowdown, etc.), in FILM CAM Mode, WATCH THE TIMECODE on the LCD camera display while you are recording. The end result of what you see is—the timecode appears to record/sequence “twice as fast” as normal. The camera “knows” you are recording at 200% realtime for slowdown on playback, and adjusts the timecode during recording. Timecode is recorded appropriate to the intended playback effect.

-Punit

[Holycowseattle]

To answer one of the original questions:

For all of the new macbook pro owners, some manufacturers are working on an EXPRESSCARD to CARBUS adapter.

This will be a card that goes into your Expresscard slot on the new machine and will have a short cable to a PCMCIA reciver that is CARDBBUS capable. The P2 cards should work just fine with the newer laptops using the EXPRESSCARD to CARDBUS adapter.

-P

[Holycowseattle]

All,

I believe that the marketing gods have over-simplified the P2 concept and have created a great–fundamental misunderstanding that exists regarding the P2 cards.

I want everyone to read this closely and understand it please.

P2 CARDS ARE NOT PCMCIA CARDS.

THE TRUTH REVEALED:

P2 cards FIT into a PCMCIA slot and work with CARDBUS compatible computers.

CARDBUS is a modification/expansion of the PCI bus that works through the PCMCIA slot on properly equipped computers. It allows for the use of expansion devices that require PCI-bus type data rates—but implemented through the PCMCIA form-factor/interface. They created this because laptops are too small to put full-size PCI cards into. CARDBUS capable PCMCIA slots were the answer.

This fact seems to have beem lost over the years because the PCMCIA slot/form-factor (AND CARDBUS!) have been largely underutilized.

((So based on that you should all realize that PCMCIA “readers” will not work with P2 under ANY circumstances. You need full CARDBUS (PCI) capabilities.)) So stop trying to be cheap…they don’t exist except for the Panasonic one.

AGAIN FOR CLARITY:

P2 is NOT a PCMCIA based RAM card.
That is a markting oversimplification.
There is a lot more to the P2 card than a few SD chips crammed into a PCMCIA shell. The P2 has very little in common with the old PCMCIA SRAM cards we used to use for sound modules/samplers and our PSION organizers.

You should think of the Panasonic P2 card as a PCI RAID-0 controller with attached high speed RAM. The onboard RAID controller splits the data stream into 4 parts to get the 80MB/sec throughput the cards are capable of. (Each SD card has a 20MB/sec performance….combined as a 4channel raid, that gives us 80MB/sec of throughput….or 640Mb/sec.) DVCPROHD is a 100Mb codec, so you see we have plenty of headroom here.

Perhaps some will understand this best.
USB PCMCIA readers do not have the CARDBUS functionality.

Hope that helps.

Punit.

[Holycowseattle]

If it worked before and now it doesn’t…..you have answered your own question. Perhaps the best thing to do is to reload your machine. Obviously something is corrupted.

We are (still) using FCP 5.0.4 for ingest of P2 cards and it works great. 8GB cards with clips that span multiple cards. No issues.

Again it sound slike corruption of one or more apps/codecs, etc. We recetly lost a primary HDD on a workstation. The few bugs we were having with AE7 and a few other apps disappeared with a “fresh” load of OSX and all the apps/updates.

Just a suggestion.

[Holycowseattle]

Yes, we have experienced this issue as well. Annoying. Annoying. Annoying.

Our current workaround is to click to the finder, HIDE OTHERS then click back into the Media100 application.
We select an action other than click/drag once we go back into the application (dont try to immediately do the same thing). If it doesn’t crash..it usually works for us. If not, at that point we save/quit/restart the application and all is fine.

-Punit

[Holycowseattle]

Yes many thanks. It was a Shine-related tutorial. You pointed me in the desired direction.

Regards,
Punit