I have a brand new HVX200 + two 8GB P2 cards sitting on my couch. Now what?

Ralph Oshiro

Ralph Oshiro

Veteran
You all know me, I now just have a different username (long story). Anyway, my friend just bought three HVX200s that he imported directly from Japan. I walked into his office yesterday, saw the three unopened boxes and said, "Hey! You know how hard these cameras are to get? And . . . oh, by the way, can I take one home to play with for a few days?" So, I have a brand new HVX200 and two 8GB cards just sitting on my couch. I tried using the search tool here, but . . .

1. Unless someone wants to post a link here, I guess I'll just read through the manual (yeah, yeah, yeah, "RTFM!!!") and find out where to download that P2 Viewer software wherever it is (I'm on a PC with only PremierePro 1.5 on it). I searched "P2 Viewer" here and came up with nothing.

2. Uhhh . . . how do I get the data into my PC? Does the 720P stuff come down the Firewire? Does the 1080P stuff also come down the Firewire? Sorry, I know these questions have been asked like 87 million times here somewhere.

3. I would really prefer to use a card reader to ingest. Do I just buy any old PCMCIA card reader? Which one? Does someone make a Firewire PCMCIA card reader or are they only USB 2.0? And am I going to need some sort of Panasonic driver to "mount" the P2 card somehow on my PC?

Well, I can't wait to open the box and start playing with the darned thing, but I'm wondering if I should just run out to Fry's right now and buy some sort of PCMCIA card reader before they close tonight. And if I do actually figure out how to get the datastreams into my PC, is anyone here willing to host any sample files for viewing by other members here? What file format/compression do I send? Sorry for the dumb questions. Thanks for your help.
 
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1) Download the P2 Viewer here: http://panasonic.biz/sav/p2/

2) 720p or 1080i will come down through firewire, but unless you are using Edius Broadcast, you won't be able to view or capture it... The easiest way to get the data off of the P2 cards to your PC is by putting the camera into USB device mode, and hooking it into your PC. It will be seen as a removable hard drive, and you simply drag over the files.

3) Only a Cardbus PCMCIA card reader will work. Currently, the only ones available for the PC are PCI cards, which require you to insert the cards into the back of your PC. Not very user friendly. Your best bet to offload from the camera is either through USB, or by hooking up a firewire hard drive, and offloading from the camera direcctly to the drive (using IEEE Host mode).
 
Cam-Ra said:
Only a Cardbus PCMCIA card reader will work. Currently, the only ones available for the PC are PCI cards, which require you to insert the cards into the back of your PC.
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Wow! THANKS! That's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for! I don't mind intalling a PCI card at all! So, there's no such thing as a Firewire Cardbus PCMCIA reader, huh? Well, if I don't need any Panasonic drivers to make that work, I'm gonna give that PCI Cardbus idea a try (I just hate hooking up cables to my camera to ingest stuff into PCs). Thanks a lot for your help, Cam-Ra! Much appreiacted!
 
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i was gonna order an hvx from japan, i ended up going for the jvc, but out of curiousity, the price i got was 4700 usd for camera and no p2. what did your pal pay?
 
Can't say because he plans to sell them for profit (that's what he does--he sells gear). But if you could get it for that price, well . . . get it?
 
Rezfactor said:
Can't say because he plans to sell them for profit (that's what he does--he sells gear). But if you could get it for that price, well . . . get it?
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that seemed to be the common price in japan, i was hours away from ordering when the p2 workflow ultimately scared me off. i'm not a tech type and could not really get my head around p2--so the jvc's old school tape drive won me over. the hvx's dvcpro50 sure tempted me though...

also, the japanese dealers always seemed to have plenty of stock...
 
Yeah... now what?
Sell me those 8 giggos for about 100 bucks each.

Serious question, though: I've read about drives being only able to handle the P2 cards 15 times if you use the camera as a "host". Is this still true if you use the PCMummmmCIA card slot on my Powerbook and just stick those bad boys right in? Will I get more than 15 transfers?
 
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You can transfer as many times as you have disk space for when using the Cardbus slot in notebook (mac or pc, doesn't matter). The 15 copy limitation has to do with how the HVX treats a firewire drive -- it creates a new partition for every transfer, and there is a 15 partition limit on all hard drives. When you copy using the Cardbus slot, you just create a folder on your hard drive for each card, and then drag the card's contents over. So you can do it as many times as you like (space provided).
 
Rezfactor said:
. . . yeah, yeah, yeah, "RTFM!!!"
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Hmmm . . . well, I thought this would be the case. I CAN'T read the manual! It's in Japanese! So now I have a perfectly legitimate reason to ask more stupid questions here.
 
unfiltered said:
Just from here, but we're fellow NBC employees. I'm an Avid tech upstairs with Net News.
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Really? Cool! I think you're the first person I've met here that works at NBC Burbank! It's not that often that I wonder all the way over to Midway, but we should have lunch more often or something! I'm always in the field, but I'll stop by and say hello as soon as I can (we're all the way in Trailer E).
 
Ralph,
If you want to screw with footage from the HVX, I would recommend downloading the trial version of EDIUS Broadcast. That'll give you 30 days of screwing around.

And get a cheap pcmcia card slot if you can.

Jason
 
brianluce said:
i was gonna order an hvx from japan, i ended up going for the jvc, but out of curiousity, the price i got was 4700 usd for camera and no p2. what did your pal pay?
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Why would you pay $4700 for a grey market camera when you can call studio exchange in burbank and get a camera from a usa authorized dealer for a few hundred dollars more? Also up until a month ago, you would have got a free 8 gb card with it as well and a manual in english!

Ralph Oshiro said:
is anyone here willing to host any sample files for viewing by other members here?
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Why do you need someone else's footage? You have a camera and two 8gb cards sitting on your couch. Open the box and go and shoot some footage!
 
Ralph, don't listen to anyone here. In order for the HVX to operate correctly, the first thing you have to do is soak it in water for two hours.
 
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