Capturing to Apple Laptop w/ PCMCIA

Chris Messineo

Chris Messineo

Veteran
I have been capturing from my HVX usiing firewire from the camera to my Apple G5.

However, we now need to learn how to capture to an Apple laptop. It will not be feasable to firewire from the camera to the laptop, we will need to take the P2 cards to the laptop.

We are going to test this tonight, but I wanted to know if there are any tricks? Is there anything I need to install so that the Apple laptop can read the P2 card? Once the card is in, do I get the data into FCP the same way I do when I pull it off camera using the import function?

Thanks,

Chris
 
Hey chris. The P2 cards mount right away on the powerbook. I had to install the P2 drivers to get them to show up on the PC laptop, but mounted fine on the Mac. I also don't have FCP 5.0.4 and am waiting for the universal bundle so I've been archiving mine to disk and drive for that faitful day...

I remember Barry saying that since FCP converts the files to quicktime, copying to the drives is a redundant and backup process... which I don't mind, but some might want to save on the drive space. I believe you can import the clips directly off the card that's in the PC slot... and then FCP will convert the files to quicktime and save them on the scratch disk.... I believe.

I also noticed too that if you drag the P2 cards to the harddrive.. the files are locked so you have to force erase the files from the disk...

Post back on your findings as I'll be doing this soon, but I think you and I will greatly benefit from the 3rd party database and viewing options. This will enable more of an IT workflow.. and media management that we've been greatly lacking and unable to pull off because of a linear tape workflow... I can't wait to be able to have my footage all logged into a database.. where I can change names... group clips... delete and just manage and view all in one program... That will rock.

Hope you have success and I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the quirks and help us who are still waiting and hoping to edit. I've got 50 P2 cards worth of footage sitting on my system and I"m unable to view it.. edit it.. and love it... DARN.
 
Turns out we did have to install a driver from the included cd for the powerbook to recognize the P2 card. But, once we did that, everything worked perfectly and we could capture directly into FCP without issue.

Chris
 
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