Help getting started please!!!

[spratrbo]

Several problems here... I threw this thread out before and I got a lame response so hopefully someone will chime in with a better solution.

1st problem... I cannot get FCP to recognize the camera when I connect with the firewire. I have followed the directions every way possible. At least when the FCP is booted initially. However when I go to do a P2 capture it sees the "no name" disk (camera) and I sees the clips I shot. However when I click to capture it says I get an error message that the clips are corrupt. I have also taken the P2 card and dumped the clips into my laptop and then burned a DVD with the information. It is the same exact thing... I can see the clips but get same error message when I try to import.

2nd problem... now the camera will not play the clips even when I ask it to repair all clips. Are the P2 cards that sensitive?

As far as computer details: G5 dual 2.5 gig running OSX 10.3 and FCP 5.0.1

Last tmie I posted this I got a response that I need FCP 5.0.4 but if this is the case then why is there a P2 option under the "log and capture" menu. I can get a copy of FCP 5.1 which I guess would be the best way to go but I also need the latest OSX to run that. Mo money, Mo money, Mo money!

Any help is greatly appreciated...

[cinemakinoeye]

[...] Last tmie I posted this I got a response that I need FCP 5.0.4 but if this is the case then why is there a P2 option under the "log and capture" menu [...]
My approach to troubleshooting is as a first step make sure I'm running the recommended versions of software, which avoids a lot of aggravation in the long run. I'm under the impression that a minimum of Final Cut Pro 5.0.4 and QuickTime 7.0.3 is required for trouble free P2 card ingest. I've captured from P2 cards about a 100 times by now without any problems, except when I intentionally tried it on a friends laptop that had an older version of Final Cut, so I don't think it's a bad idea to run Software Update and make sure you have the latest version of Pro Apps Support, Final Cut Pro, and QuickTime. This is simply good troubleshooting practice.

BTW, since you say you're mounting the card from the camera, I'm going to assume this is not related to missing files like when you don't copy the LASTCLIP.TXT file to the hard drive.

[spratrbo]

I think software is part of the issue and ofcourse to add to my frustration this evening the brand new OSX tiger disk I bought is a dud. (comp cannot even read it) So that is the first step.

But the camera not reading the card is completely odd. All I did was remove the card from the camera and dump it into my laptop. Then I took the same exact card and put it back into the P2 slot in the cam and it sees the files but will not play the media. I see no reason for this.

[David Trenkle]

Check the copy protect/record inhibit switch to be sure it is in the proper position to record. I think we ran into that before that the files won't even play with that switch in the unable to record position.

[spratrbo]

Nope... that didn't do it. In fact I think this is the 2nd time this has done this to me. When I first got the camera I shot a small amount of stuff and the clip numbers were in red instead of black and would not play. I hope this is not a common occurance and can figure out what is going on. Losing a shoot would really suck.

[andy_starbuck]

One of the things that is very confusing about the clip playback is that the clips will sometimes go from black numbers to red numbers, and the camera refuses to play these clips back.

I went out one day and recorded a bunch of 60p clips and then I wanted to try VFR, so I recorded another bunch at 24pN. Well, I went to play them back and only half of them were black.

Now intuitively, I thought the camera should just play back all the clips no matter how they were recorded. I wasn't thinking about the complexity of play back. You know, even in Final Cut, the setup of the timeline has to be the same as the settings of the clip for it to play back without rendering. Well, I realize now that the recording format of the camera is more like the FCP "setup". You have to have the camera in a compatible mode in order to play back a clip. So if you recorded a clip in 60p, the camera has to be in 60p in order to play that clip back. And a 24p clip will be red. Or if the camera is in 24p mode, then the 24p clip will be black and can be played, but the 60p clip will be in red. And of course it can't play back a clip that was recorded in a different format from the current mode -- there is no space or CPU to perform the rendering.

So don't think of it as just "the recording mode", but think of it instead as "the camera mode". Is it currently a "24p camera" or a "30i camera" or a "60p camera"? If you follow this reasoning, I think it will help sort out the black and red numbers and make sense of it. Without that information its just plain frustrating.

Hope that helps with the playback on the LCD.

Now I didn't quite understand what happened with the clips you were trying to get into Final Cut.

Here is a procedure that I use. You might compare it to what you are doing to see if you can find any obvious problems. Sometimes I've noticed that the Final Cut documentation tells its half of the story, and the HVX200 documentation tells its half of the story, and putting them together into a sensible procedure can be confusing.

1) With the camera off and not attached to the computer, start Final Cut.
2) Tell it to continue when it reports that it did not find a compatible camera. Make sure as you are doing this that it is looking for the right format -- 720x1280 and so forth. If it is looking for a 480x720 camera, then Final Cut is not in the right setup.
3) Select an "easy setup" in Final Cut ... a DVCPROHD compatible setup.
4) Tell it to continue when it reports that it didn't find the camera. This time it should be expecting the DVCPROHD encoding over the firewire.
5) Now plug the firewire into the computer and into the camera.
6) Check the switch and make sure the camera is in P2 mode and not Tape mode.
Turn on your camera and wait a few moments while it finds the cards.
7) Once the lights indicate the cards are ready, press the button once to go from record mode to playback mode.
8) After playback mode is entered and you can see the clips on the LCD, press and hold the button for about 2 seconds. The camera should now enter 1394 Device Mode and should say "connecting". If this doesn't work, it may be that the 1394 mode has been set in the menus to "host" mode instead of "device" mode, or that it has been turned off entirely in the menus.
9) Assuming that it is now connected, the camera will automount the card or cards onto the MAC desktop, each card having the name "NONAME".
10) Now select the "Import -> Panasonic P2" to launch the "ingesting" function.
11) The importer window should show the clips from the first P2 card it finds. Note that FCP will not find two cards -- it only finds one. You have to import the clips from one card and then find the other card and import them separately.
12) Select clips and press the "Import" button, or "Import All".

13) Very important: When you have finished importing the clips, minimize FCP and drag each NONAME disk to the trash to eject it. You have to do both of them if there are two cards. When the last one is dragged to the trash, FCP and the camera will go through their shutdown sequence. After that the LCD on the camera will say "Disconnected". ONLY THEN is it safe to shut off the camera. And after the camera is off, remove the firewire cable.

If you do not follow this procedure of ejecting all the NONAME cards from the MAC, then the camera will still be connected to the MAC, and the cards can indeed become corrupted if you just pull out the firewire or turn off the camera.

Also, it is important to remember that you can't get out of "1394 device" mode. There is no menu to go back. You have to turn the camera power off and back on to reload its "camera" software instead of the "1394 device" software.


My guess is that the original problem you faced was that you had changed camera modes and could not play back some of the clips to the camera's LCD.

Then when you went to Final Cut, perhaps you used an incompatible setup that did not recognize the DVCPROHD codec; perhaps HDV or something like that. I haven't tried that, but it would explain getting corrupted clips.

Finally, if you did not follow the eject procedures, and if the camera and MAC were both running, or worse, transferring data from the card, and if you pulled out the firewire, then perhaps the data on the P2 cards became corrupted as a result.

I don't know if this matches your experience or makes sense given what you've experienced. But this is my best guess at what might have occurred given the information provided.

Best of luck,

Andy