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shooting tape or p2


sebastianL

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The camera only records standard def to tape; if you want HD, you have to use the P2 card. So are you shooting in HD?

 

 

The camera only records standard def to tape; if you want HD, you have to use the P2 card. So are you shooting in HD?

 

no but I plan to in the future

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  • 3 weeks later...

You an only record at DVCPro50 to tape. To extract the full potential of the camera, you have to record to the P2 cards. David is correct about only recording HD to the P2 cards. The whole system is wrapped around those cards. All you need to down load them is a laptop (Mac or PC) with a PCI slot and you can save the data to the machine in very little time. It is super easy. Same with your G5...you need a reader that accepts the P2 card via a PCI slot. You will also need to install the driver that allows the card to be "seen" by the camera.

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You an only record at DVCPro50 to tape.

I wish! The camera only records the DV format to tape. In order to record anything else (DVCPRO, PRO50, HD) you have to use the p2 cards or a DTE unit like Cineporter or Firestore. When you record on tape, the camera effectively becomes a beefed-up DVX100B (same tape transport).

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When you record on tape, the camera effectively becomes a beefed-up DVX100B (same tape transport).

 

When you say "beefed up", could you also apply that to the quality of the footage? Is it any better looking than the stuff you getting shooting 24p on a DVX? Or is it exactly the same? I nervously wonder because for whatever reason I can't import the footage I got off the p2 cards from a rental house's firewire drive into FCP 5.0.4. So I'm stuck with the tapes we recorded onto for backup. Could I have just captured the same quality with a friend's dvx? :(

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When you say "beefed up", could you also apply that to the quality of the footage? Is it any better looking than the stuff you getting shooting 24p on a DVX? Or is it exactly the same? I nervously wonder because for whatever reason I can't import the footage I got off the p2 cards from a rental house's firewire drive into FCP 5.0.4. So I'm stuck with the tapes we recorded onto for backup. Could I have just captured the same quality with a friend's dvx? :(

 

Having not seen a side-by-side of the HVX200 shooting DV 24p to tape and the DVX doing the same, it's hard to say. Obviously, the footage will be technically the same, but the HD lens on the HVX will probably improve the image somewhat.

 

As for your import problems, are you trying to import the MXF files directly into Final Cut? Apple hasn't yet updated Final Cut with full MXF support yet, so you have to use an intermediate program to "unwrap" the MXF files into an FCP-native format before importing. Also, as I understand it, when you copy the card contents to your HDD, you have to copy EVERYTHING. There are supplemental files that go with each clip which contain all of the metadata. If you don't copy those files, the clips will be corrupted permanantly.

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Hi,

 

The MXF audio and video is complete and usable in itself; Snell and Wilcox's MXF Desktop application will unwrap them to raw PCM audio and DIF streams. Avid Newscutter requires only the audio and video.

 

Of course, reading a DV50 or DV100 DIF is another issue entirely.

 

The data that makes it usable (which is basically limited to timecode and sequence number) is in the XML - if your application reads it. If your application doesn't read it, and most don't, you get gibberish filenames with no contextual information at all, which is a nightmare - P2 restarts the numbering system every time you change cards, so if you record over several days or weeks with dozens of card changes, you get dozens of number 1s, dozens of number 2s, etc, etc.

 

Slate clearly and be prepared to manually rename all your files!

 

Phil

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Thanks for the info, Matt and Phil...

 

I'm going to try some of the stuff you had mentioned. You've given me some hope. Anyone else who wants to chime in, please continue with the suggestions. I've been trying to figure out how to import this footage for a few days now! :blink:

 

Thanks again

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Hey Guys

 

So, I attempted to use the program from wilcox and snell. After going through a whole process of getting the footage onto pc (snell's program is not compatible with Mac), unwrapping the mxf files only turned them into text files. So, can anyone else suggest another solution? I'm going to try out a program from a company called mog solutions www.mog-solutions.com which has mxf players, mxf explorers, etc. If anyone has had experience using these please let me know how it went for you.

 

Geez, a week since we shot and I haven't been able to touch the footage. If I could afford film, oh how things would have been different :blink: .

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Hi,

 

Okay, which MXF files are you unwrapping, and which mode did you shoot in? It sounds like you're unwrapping metadata files.

 

If you find the MXF from the "video" directory and unwrap that, you should get raw DIF which any competent video edit app can turn into Quicktime or AVI. I used Canopus' file converter software to do that. The "audio" folder will unwrap to WAV audio.

 

I did have the idea of writing an application to automate some of the file management aspects of this (because Panasonic clearly can't be bothered), but I don't have any original card data anymore. What's the chances you could send me a complete P2 card image on a DVD, or make it available on a web server that'll stay up long enough for me to grab four gigs?

 

Phil

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When you say "beefed up", could you also apply that to the quality of the footage? Is it any better looking than the stuff you getting shooting 24p on a DVX? Or is it exactly the same? I nervously wonder because for whatever reason I can't import the footage I got off the p2 cards from a rental house's firewire drive into FCP 5.0.4. So I'm stuck with the tapes we recorded onto for backup. Could I have just captured the same quality with a friend's dvx? :(

 

The HVX has 16:9 chips and so if you want to shoot that aspect, you don't have to use an anamorphic adapter or use the DVX letterbox scheme which loses 1/4 of your vertical picture info (360 vertical lines vs. 480).

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Not sure why your having problems, I shot a short film with the HVX200 2 weeks ago. I had an old 867mhz G4 power pook with FCP 5 and a small lacie external firewire drive. Just conected the camera to via firewire, did file, import, panasonic P2. Everything imported and I was editing on the set 20 min later. FCP takes the MXF files and writes new quicktimes so you do need double the hard drive space it took to shoot the project but it worked fine.

 

 

Joseph Farris

Director of Photography

Visions of Light, Inc.

Office: 312-829-8244

Pager: 800.808.8244

Mobile: 630.306.8244

Fax: 630.690.7678

www.visionsoflightinc.com

joe@visionsoflightinc.com

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I had some problems with our new P2 stuff. I fugured out that the you need to copy the whole directory off the P2. It is a folder called "contents."

 

The folder can then be imported in FCP 5.2 (or something new 4.5 will not work) using the import Panasonic P2 tab in the file menu.

 

The folder must be called "contents" and nothing else. This obviously causes problems when you are copying off a P2 store and have 10 different contents folders.

 

The first time we shot I was copying straight to a hard drive and calling them contents1 etc. I found one workaround where I copied the numbered contents folder back to a P2 card, renamed it "contents" then imported it. Then I realized if I just renamed stuff right on the computer it worked too.

 

Sorry this is so long, but hopefully you can learn something from my "research."

 

I sure hope we get NATIVE mxf viewing in the next FCP cause right now the situation kinda sucks.

 

david

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