Dumping footage to an external hard drive?

J

Johnny Bueno

Active member
Hey all,

I have a Macbook Pro. I have always dumped the footage off my P2 card straight on to my Macbook using the HVX and a Firewire cable . I do a log and transfer into FCP. But that process really takes a lot of space on my computer. So what's the proper procedure with an HVX to dump footage to an external Hard Drive first? I assume I Attach the Hard drive to my Macbook, then attach the HVX to the Macbook, and then what? How do I log and transfer onto an external Hard Drive? Thank you for any help. Its really appreciated.

Johnny.

EDIT: Or do I not even need the Macbook pro for the process? Do I just attach the Hard Drive to the camera? And even then, what do I do? I would prefer the fastest process as I need to dump footage at events. Thanks again.
 
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I would have recommended a Firestore hard drive to record your footage directly to,
but they seem to have been discontinued.

There is most likely a new on-camera hard drive solution, you just have to search on
this site for it (although the search function was down when I tried just now). The only
issue will be the price. Recording to a 1 TB HD through your computer will cost maybe
$150 (CDN), but a stand-alone HD without your computer will be $1000 +

This is of course because of the portability, and the fact you can mount to it the camera
if your going hand held. I myself never needed it, as I just record to cards when I'm
hand-held, and record directly to the HD when I'm on a tripod.

Good luck with your search.

P.
 
Depending on the situation, I worked one of two ways with P2 footage…

1) If I had access to the laptop on-site, I would use Panasonic's P2CMS software to copy and verify the card contents to an external drive connected to my Mac. The P2 card was inserted in my Duel Adapter, and everything worked a treat. P2CMS simply copies the "CONTENTS" folder from the card to the external drive. You could also (IIRC) connect the HVX/HPX to the laptop via USB or Firewire and use P2CMS.

2) When I didn't have access to the laptop, or if I was somewhere that just wasn't conducive to laptop offloading (like the mountains or the jungle), I used the Nexto NVS-2500. There isn't a P2 slot, but there is an ExpressCard slot, and it comes with a P2 card adapter. Plug in the card, hit a button and the card is copied and verified.

I'm sure there are other options, but these are the two that worked best for me, in my shooting situations.
 
Thanks for the info guys but unfortunately you missed what my question was. I need to know what i do to dump footage from my camera to a basic 500gb external hard drive that i own. I have my camera attached to my macbook pro right now with a firewire cable. I have the external hard drive attached to the computer as well. My question is, how do I put the footage onto the external hard drive? Do I simply log and transfer into FCP first then move the project/footage from FCP to the external HD or can I skip the process of dumping it into FCP first and dumb it straight through the macbook from the camera to the external HD. Sorry if I was unclear above. Hopefully this helps. Thanks again for any help.
 
If you're doing it through FCP, you can set up your external hard drive as your "Capture Scratch" disk. This way, when you import into FCP, the files are captured to that external hard drive.
 
Now, if you just want to "offload" the footage from the cards without using FCP, I'd look into P2CMS from Panasonic. That way you can create a folder for each P2 card offloaded, then Log & Transfer into FCP later.
 
Yes thats exactly what I need to know. Both options. I do have the P2CMS but I have never tried using it. But for right now as I really need to dump this footage asap, I would like to just dump it using FCP. How do I set up the external hard drive as my "Capture Scratch" disk for FCP? Also if you do have a moment can you please explain the steps/procedure (step by step) into dumping footage using P2CMS. I also have updated all the firmware on my camera if that matters at all. Thanks for any help. It is greatly appreciated.

Johnny
 
In FCP, under the top "Final Cut Pro" menu, you'll see "System Settings." With your external hard drive attached, you can select that as your disk for Video and Audio Capture. Once that's done and selected, anything you capture will be saved to that drive, in a folder labeled "Capture Scratch" under the title of your project.

I haven't used P2CMS in a while, and I don't have it on my laptop, so you'll have to do a search for P2CMS here.
 
ok by what I can tell, it worked flawlessly. Thanks again Stephen Mick. One last question for anyone. Once I started dumping the footage FCP kept asking me to save the project or it will no be able to auto save. I kept saying no. But now the footage finished dumping to the external HD and it asked that again. Do I just say no? OR am i suppose to save it so that FCP is linked to the footage in any way?
 
Save. Your. Project.

Otherwise your clips will end up in a folder labeled "Untitled Project" and this is not kosher.
 
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