I'm a PC guy, but I'm going to have to switch over to a Mac within the next year to be able to use FCP with the camera. In the meantime, my friend brought over his Powerbook so we could do some testing, and it didn't recognize the P2 card (after being inserted) at all. I was under the impression that a P2 icon would appear on the desktop automatically, but apparently regardless of the OS, a Mac needs drivers for the P2 system. The camera only came with PC software. I looked over the Panasonic HVX site and couldn't find anything. Does anyone know where the necessary drivers are to be able to load a P2 card to a Mac? After those drivers have been installed, does one need anything else beside FCP to work with the content? I know there's a difference between just copying the files from the card to the Mac and actually "converting" them to Quicktime Format (I'm not sure how to even do that, but I'm sure I can figure it out), but any information that anyone who has used the HVX/Mac combo can give as a very brief primer on using the combination would be very nice.
HVX Mac Drivers
- Thread starter Haakon
- Start date
bgundu
Veteran
Here is the link to drivers. BTW, don't use Safari web browser... use firefox or something.
https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/cs/csregistp2m/p2indexe.html
https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/cs/csregistp2m/p2indexe.html
Paul Farmer
Active member
it didn't recognize the P2 card
Just out of curiosity, does your friend have version 5.0.4 of FCP?
Just out of curiosity, does your friend have version 5.0.4 of FCP?
Haakon said:
If the Mac is not mounting the cards on the desktop, you may need to go to the Disk Utility to mount them manually.
You can find it on the Mac by by going to: Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
Once you launch Disk Utility with the card inserted, it should show up in the list of drives. Select the P2 card from the list and click Mount
Also, to import the cards, Final Cut Pro does need to be up to date. (Version 5.0.4 I think)
Paul Farmer
Active member
There is driver software for the Mac Powerbook on the disc that comes with the camera.
Go to page E-13 of the install manual.
Go to page E-13 of the install manual.
mochouinard
Well-known member
My recomendation would be to stick with PC and use Avid Xpress. No drivers to access P2 content. No need to convert to Quicktime and have 2 time the content to storage. Alot more configurations options. More field robust laptop available... More software available.
Barry, any news about the PC Monitor software with support of DVCPRO HD ? I know you have put up a pool, did you send it to them ?
Barry, any news about the PC Monitor software with support of DVCPRO HD ? I know you have put up a pool, did you send it to them ?
mochouinard said:
I would have rather stuck with PC, after canvassing most of my clients and potential ones....The conclusion was MAC. Many people who I have sent reels to in the past are now interested in using me as a DP if I can deliver HD footage for them ready to edit on their MAC's. I was a little shocked to see the amount of agencies & companies fully equipped with Mac edit suites!!!
Justyn
Veteran
I'm usually more suprised when I see a place that doesn't use a Mac. I'd say that the ratio is well above the overall market share. I've been in the biz for a while and there is a Mac brotherhood in this biz. I'd also say that 90% of the production companies and people that I know use a Mac... especially in the graphics and music/audio departments.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Hi all:
I work in a mixed environment. I run FCP 5.04 on a new dual 2.3 G5 but all of the other bays at the production company are running Xpress DV on G4s and G5s. But the new on-line system we bought is an AVID Nitris Symphony that runs on a PC.
In the professional world, at least in LA and NY, if it's not an AVID on PC, it's a Mac running FCP. I have three friends who had Media Composers on Macs, sold them and bought new Macs to run FCP HD systems. Don't know of anyone who has sold their Mac to go to a PC editing system in my circle of colleagues, unless they were going all of the way to Symphony.
Best,
Dan
I work in a mixed environment. I run FCP 5.04 on a new dual 2.3 G5 but all of the other bays at the production company are running Xpress DV on G4s and G5s. But the new on-line system we bought is an AVID Nitris Symphony that runs on a PC.
In the professional world, at least in LA and NY, if it's not an AVID on PC, it's a Mac running FCP. I have three friends who had Media Composers on Macs, sold them and bought new Macs to run FCP HD systems. Don't know of anyone who has sold their Mac to go to a PC editing system in my circle of colleagues, unless they were going all of the way to Symphony.
Best,
Dan
Barry_Green
Moderator
I am a constant source of nagging in their ears.mochouinard said:
Nothing to report yet though.
Thanks for the information on the drivers. Once we installed those, the card mounted instantly on the desktop and worked flawlessly.
Copying the files over from the P2 card was fast, but the extra step of having to rewrap them in FCP to Quicktime files is annoying as hell. I've submitted a feature request per one of Barry's posts to encourage them to get rid of that step. We were also told at the Moviola event that rewrapping the files on a G4 actually recompresses them, thus inducing one generation of quality loss. Apparently this isn't the case when running the conversion on a G5. I have no idea what the chipset would have to do with anything (we were clearly informed that it had nothing to do with the OS version or the version of FCP), but I'm always paranoid now during that "rewrapping" process that my files are being degraded somehow. Whether there's validity to that claim or not, it's a step that shouldn't even be there in the first place.
The 720 footage worked flawlessly; I shot everything in 24pN and made a native 24p timeline and the footage looked perfect. It played smoothly and looked great, even on my friend's G4 laptop.
We never got the 1080 footage to work properly, however. We were shooting 24pA mode in that case, and we tried several combinations of properties for the respective sequences in FCP, but no matter what we did, the footage needed to be rendered to be played properly. There's no checkbox for "Advanced Pulldown" in a sequence's settings; usually that step is applied during capture (a step we're skipping). I'm sure there's some way to get it to work, but none of us could figure it out.
My only other concern is how to store the footage on-set until we're ready to ingest later. I would like to be able to make one folder for our shoot and just dump P2 cards to it as we fill them up, but there is a text file on each card that seeming serves as the identifier for the information on that card. Per Jim Jannard's post on DVInfo (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=57378), that file cannot be removed or deleted. That means that I can't just copy all of the files from one P2 card into the same folder of another as the text file will be rewritten and the contents from the first card will be inaccessible. The only thing I can figure out given all of that is that each P2 card actually needs its own folder on the hard drive - I can't mix any clips from different cards into the same folder. Is this the case? In my opinion, that's a huge drawback of the P2 file system, but perhaps there's something I'm missing. If anyone could shed some light on that aspect of storing, I'd really appreciate it.
Copying the files over from the P2 card was fast, but the extra step of having to rewrap them in FCP to Quicktime files is annoying as hell. I've submitted a feature request per one of Barry's posts to encourage them to get rid of that step. We were also told at the Moviola event that rewrapping the files on a G4 actually recompresses them, thus inducing one generation of quality loss. Apparently this isn't the case when running the conversion on a G5. I have no idea what the chipset would have to do with anything (we were clearly informed that it had nothing to do with the OS version or the version of FCP), but I'm always paranoid now during that "rewrapping" process that my files are being degraded somehow. Whether there's validity to that claim or not, it's a step that shouldn't even be there in the first place.
The 720 footage worked flawlessly; I shot everything in 24pN and made a native 24p timeline and the footage looked perfect. It played smoothly and looked great, even on my friend's G4 laptop.
We never got the 1080 footage to work properly, however. We were shooting 24pA mode in that case, and we tried several combinations of properties for the respective sequences in FCP, but no matter what we did, the footage needed to be rendered to be played properly. There's no checkbox for "Advanced Pulldown" in a sequence's settings; usually that step is applied during capture (a step we're skipping). I'm sure there's some way to get it to work, but none of us could figure it out.
My only other concern is how to store the footage on-set until we're ready to ingest later. I would like to be able to make one folder for our shoot and just dump P2 cards to it as we fill them up, but there is a text file on each card that seeming serves as the identifier for the information on that card. Per Jim Jannard's post on DVInfo (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=57378), that file cannot be removed or deleted. That means that I can't just copy all of the files from one P2 card into the same folder of another as the text file will be rewritten and the contents from the first card will be inaccessible. The only thing I can figure out given all of that is that each P2 card actually needs its own folder on the hard drive - I can't mix any clips from different cards into the same folder. Is this the case? In my opinion, that's a huge drawback of the P2 file system, but perhaps there's something I'm missing. If anyone could shed some light on that aspect of storing, I'd really appreciate it.
Barry_Green
Moderator
That text file appears to be necessary only to FCP; Avid and Raylight don't give a hoot about it. So again it's the Apple unwrap/rewrap process that's causing the need for it.
Yes, just make a different directory ("Card 1", "Card 2") for each card and you won't have a problem.
Yes, just make a different directory ("Card 1", "Card 2") for each card and you won't have a problem.
Another update for those who care; apparently my problem with the 1080 24pA footage wasn't just me being stupid after all. According to Gary Adcock, FCP doesn't even support 1080 24pA yet. (http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=193&postid=857698)
Between the unwrapping/wrapping problems, the fact that I can't put all of my clips in one central folder, and the fact that 1080 24pA isn't even usable on a FCP system, it looks like the Apple/HVX solution still has a handful of bugs to work out.
Between the unwrapping/wrapping problems, the fact that I can't put all of my clips in one central folder, and the fact that 1080 24pA isn't even usable on a FCP system, it looks like the Apple/HVX solution still has a handful of bugs to work out.
toke lahti
Well-known member
You can still remove pulldown with Cinema Tools...