Help. P2 viewer won't view files on laptop

benhuddleston

benhuddleston

Well-known member
I offloaded a p2 card to my laptop's HDD, and I can't for the life of me get it to play. I've searched the forum through, and I guess no one else has this problem.

The furthest I gotten is to see a thumbnail of it in the P2 Viewer, but if I double-click it or click "play" nothing seems to happen. I have the drivers installed any everything....

Anyone solved this before?

Also, anyone have experience using Panasonic's P2 Drive (PCD20) and want to share a good workflow? I have five P2 cards, the drive, a PC laptop, and an external HDD. Any pointers (including links to other threads I've missed in my searches) will be tremendously helpful.

Thanks
Ben
 
Is it possible that your laptop is configured to display the Hardware Video Overlay contents on an external display or TV?
 
What exactly does that mean? And how would I go about checking and changing it so I can just view it on my laptop screen?

I do have Adobe Premiere Pro if there is any way to use that with MXF files, but I am under the impression that APP won't work with MXFs. True? I don't actually plan on editing the footage on my computer, but the option would be nice.
 
Is this your first attempt at using P2 cards, or does it usually work and this is the first time the problem occurred?
How are you offloading? Via the laptop's PCMCIA card slot or the PCD20?

If you're not using the PCMCIA slot, I'd try putting the card in there and seeing if you can look at it directly with the P2 Viewer. You can check the file structure after copying...make sure you see a CONTENTS folder and the LASTCLIP file, with the folder containg the six others: CLIP, AUDIO, VOICE, VIDEO, PROXY, and ICON. Then look in the video folder and make sure you see big MXF files in there.
Your workflow on a PC will greatly depend on which editing application you use.
 
This is actually my first time trying to figure out this side of it (I've shot with HVX's a fair bit, but the AC's and editors dealt with the footage).

So now I am trying to learn P2 management. I won't be editing, but I will be shooting and moving the footage to a HDD to send to the editor. I don't know what he'll be cutting on: either Avid or Final Cut.

Basically I am trying to learn how I can be as kind to the editor as possible. What would you want me to do if you were going to be editing? I think organizing the files on the HDD at least? Anyone have a good system for that?

Anyway, I tried putting in a P2 card in the PCMCIA, and Windows can see it, but I still can't figure out how to preview the MXF. I'm very grateful for any help.

Ben
 
Have you installed the p2 driver? (link below)

As for making things easy for your editors, I'd leave the P2 file structure alone, and carefully label a folder containing each card's contents. The Avid editor will at least find it in a predictable structure, and the FCP editor can import it without any hassle. If you can avoid running a file across from one p2 card to another, that's helpful too. You can do this by having only one in the camera at a time and switching before it runs out completely out of room. If you have to split a file across p2 cards, it's still manageable as long as everything is well-labeled and in proper order.

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/cs/csregistp2m/soft/pcdriver_win.zip
 
Hmmm.:( Think this might be the culprit? (for why I can't use the P2 Viewer)

Panasonic says,
"DVCPROHD format clips cannot be played back on personal computers that do not have a CPU that supports SSE2 instructions such as Pentium M, Pentium 4, Pentium D or Celeron D."


My laptop has a Pentium M processor. Does that mean it will or won't work? Is there any other method for previewing footage to spot-check the external HDD's MXF files?
 
I believe Pentium M should work. The only other way I know of for reviewing footage is to play it back in the camera. You can watch it on the LCD, our use the video output (composite or component) or send the 1394/Firewire port to a video capture tool or editor.
 
Well, I reviewed what Panny says I need on my computer, and I seem good to go. But, I still can't figure out how to view MXF's.

I have a folder on my desktop with the test HVX footage that I want to preview. I open P2 Viewer. I click Tool, Setting Virtual P2 Cards, the little weird Search icon, and highlight the footage folder that says Contents. Everything right so far?

Then I'm stumped.
 
You need to browse to the folder that contains the CONTENTS folder, not the CONTENTS folder itself.
 
Go to the view menu and tell it to show virtual cards. Your bins are probably set to show actual cards; set the secondary bin to show virtual cards.

And everyone should read the P2 Viewer manual. It gets installed as a PDF in the directory where you installed P2 Viewer.
 
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