Help! P2 Emergency

[kgb]

Hey guys, I shot an interview last weekend. I hadn't off-loaded the clips from the laptop until today. The cards wouldn't detect in my Powerbook's PCMCIA slot like they had so many times before. I installed the newest drivers and it worked momentarily, but then when I tried to offload the card, it stopped working again.

I really need to offload this footage for a shot tomorrow. I have my camera hooked up to my computer via firewire, but have never offloaded cards in that manner before. How do I offload these cards to my desktop MacPro via my camera? Is there any other solution?

Thanks...

[mainstreetprod]

Push the MCR/VCR button next to the battery so you see the clip icons. Then,
hold it down for a few seconds until you see a blue screen and "1394 disconnect".
It should then change to "1394 connect" and you will see the "noname" icon in Finder for the p2 card. Open a window for your desired HD and drag the icon into it to copy.

Also, if you have FCP 5.1 or better you can import the footage through it.

Software from the Panasonic CD that came with the camera might have to be installed first - definitely has to
on the PC.

[kgb]

Thank you so much. You just made another man's blood pressure drop to healthy levels.

[eagleye]

The USB cable supplied with the camera hooked into my MacBookPro transfers in half the time of firewire out of the HVX. It seems like firewire should be faster, but tested a few different cards with the exact same size of card/amount of footage and it is definitely faster.

The camera has to be switched from firewire device to USB device first. Then hit the same MCR/VCR button to switch into USB device connected.

[David Jimerson]

USB from the HVX is not recommended for use with the Mac -- it may work, but it may not. Keep that in mind.

[David Saraceno]

Surprisingly David, USB works without drivers on my MacPro running 10.5.4.

Go figure.

[David Jimerson]

As I said, it may work, but it's not recommended because it's not guaranteed. Just heading off future complaints that it doesn't work. :)

[Barry_Green]

I'm not surprised it doesn't need drivers, as the USB port is Mass Storage Class compliant. If it's working for you, that's excellent, especially if it's working faster. Perhaps the latest OS on the latest Mac Pros fix any concerns that Panasonic had with USB on the Mac (USB has historically not been the best on the Mac)? Again, if it's working, and it's faster, that's good news, but as David said, please keep in mind that Panasonic doesn't "guarantee" that it will work on MacOS. They do guarantee that 1394 Device Mode will always work on MacOS.

[eagleye]

10-4... thanks for the heads up on the no-guarantee by Panny. Will double check files before deleting cards.

I didn't have to install any drivers for P2 onto the MBPro (10.5.4) and the camera shows up on the desktop.

Still don't understand why USB is twice as fast.

[mpalmer12345]

USB from the HVX is not recommended for use with the Mac -- it may work, but it may not. Keep that in mind.

When you say USB on a Mac may not work, do you mean simply that it may not always establish a connection with the computer, or do you mean that it will connect and the footage seem to download okay, but the footage might turn out to be corrupted in some way during the download because of the connection mode?

My firewire connection on the HVX went south on me recently, and I have a few projects to finish before I can mail it in (under warranty, fortunately), so I've been using USB for downloading for about a month and I haven't had time to check if any of the files are bad. Should I worry, or not?

[Barry_Green]

We don't know what may happen. All we know is that the user manual specifically says "USB Device mode is not guaranteed to work on MacOS." Macs have historically been iffier with USB than with firewire, and the firewire transfer is "guaranteed" to work on MacOS. It has been explained to me that Apple considers USB to be for things like mice and keyboards, and firewire was for anything "serious" -- but that wasn't a quote from Apple themselves, just some users, so take that for what it's worth.

I can tell you that the reverse applies to Windows, the USB mode is "guaranteed" and firewire is "not guaranteed". I've tried transferring firewire on Windows, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it locks up. Usually it works. I haven't noticed any garbling of files or anything like that, it's like it either connects or it doesn't.

We've had reports from others about using USB on the Mac and it working fine. I may be mistaken but I thought the BareFeats tested USB performance on the newest Mac Pros and found it greatly improved over prior Mac implementations -- does that sound familiar to anyone? It's entirely possible that with the newest hardware and OS they've just fully embraced USB and, if so, maybe it's totally fine to use USB Device mode on the newest gear?

[David Saraceno]

It sounds familiar to me.

I've mounted our 200 on my MacPro via USB2 several times without any hitches in 10.5.4.

[eagleye]

mpalmer - compare the total size and the details of the contents folder (and last clip obviously) being transferred to see they are the same size and bytes before considering the transfer a success. Maybe do that for your temporary peace of mind... don't just assume the file transfer is complete because the window disappears.

[Barry_Green]

If you use something like P2CMS to do the transfer, it will go back and do a byte-by-byte verification to ensure that the transfer was completed successfully.