[Jesse Rosen]

I posted a reply in the other thread pointing out that it is indeed possible to import the footage from the hard drive instead of the P2 cards. For the project I’ve been helping with, we wanted a downloading solution with less user intervention, so we really didn’t want to have to use FCP for backing up the cards. Fortunately this is possible: there is a button on the top of the import window that lets you manually select a different location for the P2 files: just click it and navigate to the folder containing the “CONTENTS” directory and the files with show up ready for import.

I highly recommend (again!) the rsync method of backing up the cards: not only does it eliminate the hassle of having lots of “CONTENTS” folders to keep straight (and that need to be imported separately), but rsync does a checksum on each packet as it’s copied and compares the copied version to the original. You can be sure that there are no errors in the copied footage if none are reported.

The version I’m using is available here:

https://archive.macosxlabs.org/rsyncx/rsyncx.html

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

Actually you don’t need the P2 drive. By default FCP only looks for the actual cards, but there is a button (forgot what it’s labeled — I’m not in front of that machine now) that lets you manually specify a source location. If you navigate to the enclosing folder (the one that has the “CONTENTS” folder in it) the clips will show up in the window ready for importing.

It really works, I’ve tested it extensively!

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

You need FCP5 to import the footage. It comes in with all 4 channels of sound attached. You can batch import a whole card at a time, or if you use the rsync method of copying the footage to a drive, a whole day’s worth of footage at a time.

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

I used Tiger for the actual tests, but I did test that the cards mount on a machine running 10.3.9 as well. Of course you need FCP5 to import the footage.

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

Yes, that will work. Just make sure that you have some methodology for copying the footage to your computer. Either put each card’s files into its own directory (just copy over the “CONTENTS” folder), or use something like rsync (check out RsyncX for a version with an OS-X GUI).

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

No third party software is necessary to use P2 in FCP5.

For some reason Apple doesn’t support the MXF files from the XDCAM and requires a third party plug in for that, but not P2.

BTW — see my post in the P2 forum about my experiences so far with P2 in FCP.

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.

[Jesse Rosen]

I’ve been testing this camera and the P2 workflow for a documentary project that will be posted on Final Cut 5. What I’ve found is this:

Until we have new drivers, the cards can only be mounted on the Mac (either through the P2 drive — what we’re using for this project — or through the camera) if the write-protect tab is flipped. Then the cards mount and Final Cut can import the files (it converts the MXF files to quicktime).

For field use, I have set up rsync to automate the process of downloading the cards onto a hard drive (hopefully for real production I’ll have a RAID-1 setup). This way all of the footage ends up in one place and can all be imported into final cut in one go, and there is no risk of accidentally over-writing footage in the field (It merges the directory structure from all the cards).

Because we have no write-access from the Mac, the cards must be formatted in the camera before being reused. All 5 cards can be formatted in about 20 seconds.

The one issue I’ve had importing footage into Final Cut is that all the clips have been coming in with DF timecode. I’m following this one up with Apple.

Hope this helps.

–Jesse

—
Jesse Rosen
Director of Technical Development
Abel Cine Tech, Inc.