Help with P2 MacbookPro Workflow

N

Nick Rothwell

New member
Ok, I can probably assume everything I'm asking has been covered before however I just learned I was using the HVX200 for a shoot tomorrow and I know nothing about the P2 workflow, after reading some other threads I am still very confused.

Basically this is what I will have, a Macbookpro 2.4ghz, a HVX200 and 1 or 2 8GB P2 cards. I have a very limited time to shoot tomorrow (approx 5pm - 9pm) and so I can't spend too much time figuring out how to get this footage into Final Cut Pro.

What I would like to know is any possible options I have to import this footage, and what other things I might need in order to do this.

Once again I'm sorry because this has probably been covered numerous times but I am running out of time.
 
Hi Nick,

Since the Macbook Pro doesn't have a PCMIA slot, and since you don't
have time to organize another solution, you'll have to log and transfer
from the HVX to FCP via firewire.

Format the P2 cards using the HVX, then decide what video format you
want to shoot. 1080 looks the best, 720 looks pretty darn good,
and gives you more record time. Furthermore, if you shoot 720pn,
you can get even more recording time, since there are no duplicate frames
recorded.

Shoot.

When you've filled the cards and/or can to take a little break,
press and hold the "camera/vcr" button to make it go into pc dub mode.
The camera display should show something like "1394 disconnect".

Connect the camera to the MacBook via a Firewire cable. Check to see
that both cards ( helpfully named "NO NAME" ) appear on your Finder
Browser as mounted volumes. If only one shows up, unmount it,
unplug the cable and try again.

When you see both, launch FCP (6, I assume) and choose "Log and
Transfer" from the file window. You should see all your clips. Select
them all (or all you want to save), then go to the Import Settings tab,
where you can decide if you want to take all 4 audio channels. If
you only want certain ones, you can disable the others and "Apply to
Selection". If you don't want take any chances, then just select
all clips and proceed.

Click on the "Add Selection to Queue" button, and watch as the
clips slowly transfer. When they are done, you can look at them
in the Viewer, open up the Quicktime files in the project's
capture scratch folder, backup, do whatever ritual you need to do
to make sure you really really really have the clips on your disk(s).
It's never failed me yet.

Then unmount and disconnect the firewire cable, go to VCR mode,
format the P2 cards (Yikes!), go back to camera mode, and resume shooting.

Good luck!
<
 
Last edited:
Ah! Thank you so much, you've really put me at ease, I think I can sleep now. Just one more question I have, do you think I should try to scout out a portable firewire drive of some sort to log the clips. My internal harddrive is very slow, only 5400rpm and I don't want to drop any frames.
 
External? Dunno. It seems to me that the internal SATA bus is much faster
than the firewire bus, so I always capture to my internal, then immediately
backup to an external. I don't think you can drop frames since it's a
bit-for-bit ingest rather than a capture stream.

By the way, do look at the captured clips. If you see obvious glitches,
repeat capturing from the P2s before erasing them.

BTW, how do you like Max 5?

Les
 
For what it's worth and I don't recommend it, but I've edited DVCProHD footage 720/24pn from a USB2 bus powered drive (7200rpm) in a MBP.

In a pinch, but it worked.
 
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