formatting P2 cards on a mac

wgzn

wgzn

Veteran
considering that ive been using P2 for about 5 years now. its kind of embarrassing to have to ask this question. but the way i shoot, ive just never had the need before...

is there a snow leopard friendly mac utility to format P2 cards?

ive searched around and tried the panasonic site, but all i can gather from their "engrish" page is that the formatter software must be used with the P2 drive hardware...

help? in-camera cant be the ONLY option...
 
I don't have a solution but I do have a question. Why? The only reason I know of to format the card is to use it in camera. As I typed I thought of a possible reason. Are you dumping footage during a continuous record?
 
Are you dumping footage during a continuous record?
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YEP! my work is usually tv spots, corporate or multi-camera events, so we fill a card, assistant hands the shooter a new card then offloads the full one. and then we reformat each card in camera. the 17 or so seconds to reformat in these cases isnt a big deal. production is stopped or there is always another camera rolling...

but i recently shot a one-camera situation where i wasnt told that id be continually rolling for nearly 4 hours. so i was hoping the assistant could simply stick a formatted card back in the second slot.
 
doesn't panasonics program "P2CMS" support formatting p2 cards?
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i'm not aware that p2cms has a format feature... i looked and didnt see anything. but that program is a UI clusterphoque, so maybe it does and i just didnt find it : (
 
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And, if its a one time thing, you can download a demo of SPP. I love the program and would recommend it, but you've been happy without it for 5 yrs, so you probably don't need it. ;-)
 
at $100, if it works - then its a steal. kinda sad though, i already own their p2 log pro and cant format a damned card : (
 
Sounds to me like a "budget driven" shoot/s, by that i mean why can't you get enough cards to use during the shoot, or record to a medium that will take all your expected vision run.
you could sack the assistant and use their pay to hire some cards, or use a Bigger P2 and have more slots in the camera.
EG, Who goes hiking with one shoe on ?. or half filling the tank in a race car ?. no doubt this point of view will offend someone.

you only have to buy P2 cards once, and the new E series are not expensive,
if your shooting TV, corporates, etc you may need to wack on some dollars to cover more cards for future shoots.

Cheers
Tom4
 
wgzn said:
at $100, if it works - then its a steal. kinda sad though, i already own their p2 log pro and cant format a damned card : (
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wgzn, Panasonic have a P2 Format program. I used it to format my P2 cards. I have sold my HVX202 some time ago. Check out Panasonic's software drivers web site. If no luck send me a message and I will see if I still have a copy on disc somewhere.
 
I use the P2 formatter app on Snow Leopard with the Panasonic PCD2 card reader and it works great. I'm doing pretty much the same stuff, very long format recording (ingesting an 8 hour recording as we speak!) spanning multiple cards. My workflow is to have at least 3-4 P2 cards and as soon as one is full, offload it onto a Macbook Pro with an external drive. Once the card is offloaded via P2CMS, I tab over to P2Format and format the card. Read speed from the card reader is a steady 33MB/s and takes less time to offload than the camera does filling up a new card. By cycling through them, unlimited length HD recording is possible.

Instead of buying a ton of P2 cards, I highly recommend the card reader. The only possible problems are that after ingestion I only have one copy of the file. This can easily be remedied by going to the internal drive and instantly duplicating it to an external, or using a FireWire/Thunderbolt RAID drive. Also, if you aren't paying attention to when the card fills up, you can fall behind.

Another possible solution is to directly capture to the MacBook over FireWire. This is very low maintenance, but has the disadvantage of not being mobile and also could be less reliable than recording to P2.
 
C Lehmann said:
Another possible solution is to directly capture to the MacBook over FireWire. This is very low maintenance, but has the disadvantage of not being mobile and also could be less reliable than recording to P2.
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You also can not shoot in native mode with this option.
 
kgimedia said:
You also can not shoot in native mode with this option.
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What do you mean native mode? I'm capturing Quicktime DVCPROHD 720p/60 with 4 channels of audio and as far as I know it will capture any mode the camera is set to. Are you referring to the PN modes because I've never tried those with FireWire capture.
 
Are you referring to the PN modes because I've never tried those with FireWire capture.
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yes. thats what hes referring to. and as far as i recall, you can record video in PN over firewire but not audio.
 
I'm on a Mac w/ SL and there is a free Panasonic P2 Formatter App.
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yeah, i know it exists. my problem is that it doesnt seem to work on my SL machine+pcd2... its not seeing the card. even though the card shows up on the desktop...

I use the P2 formatter app on Snow Leopard with the Panasonic PCD2 card reader and it works great.
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same setup im using. maybe im having some 3rd party software conflict or something...

Another possible solution is to directly capture to the MacBook over FireWire. This is very low maintenance, but has the disadvantage of not being mobile
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yeah, ive been using P2 cams for + or- 5 years now. i know all the workflows. and have the offload process well worked out. seems you and i use about the same procedure. my problem is that i cant get the formatter to work with my pcd2 and SL install.
 
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wgzn said:
my problem is that it doesnt seem to work on my SL machine+pcd2... its not seeing the card. even though the card shows up on the desktop...
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Card isn't listed in the P2 format app but you can see the card in P2CMS and in finder? I'll assume you checked the write lock tab on the card. Did you install the Panasonic drivers? Don't know if this effects it but it might. Don't really know what else to suggest.

TBT, the P2Format app is pretty rough. For example on my Mac Pro crashes immediately or as soon as you insert a card. The only way to fix this was to right click on the app and select "get info" and check the "32 bit" and "run with rosetta" checkboxes. On my Macbook Pro it works just fine in any mode, as long as the app launches off the desktop and not in the applications folder.
 
Card isn't listed in the P2 format app but you can see the card in P2CMS and in finder?
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yup

I'll assume you checked the write lock tab on the card.
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i dont ever mess with the write protect. never have had a reason.

Did you install the Panasonic drivers? Don't know if this effects it but it might. Don't really know what else to suggest.
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yup. ages ago. and re-installed recently with the formatter just in case it was a newer v


the P2Format app is pretty rough
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agreed. i think it and p2cm2 are about the poorest designed tools ive ever used. - aside from ANYTHING that google makes ; )
 
any solution to this? ihave the same problem

MBP using the Panasonic aj-pcd2 single slot USB card reader. the P2Formatter Software says it works only with Card Bus so wondering how to format on the Mac using this card reader.
 
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