Hvx Mac G4 And Other Questions

[jefft99]

I made the plunge and bought that beautiful HVX which arrived today from Studio-Exchange without a hitch (5395) That said, I want to wait until the G5's are upgraded. Currently, I am currently using FCP 4.5 to edit. Therefore, I'm stuck in the middle. Not that I need to edit my footage right away, however, I will need to offload, check and store the footage for awhile. What is the process of off loading the P2's to the G4 laptop? Is it just a drag and drop and then can I view it? Any help you can provide will be totally appreciated.

Also, would you recomend Avid over FCP for editing HVX footage?

Thanks so much...

www.jefft.org

 

[David Saraceno]

If you intend to mount the p2 card on the desktop, you need the p2 driver which is available at Panasonic's web site.

I believe the Mac driver is also on the web site.

Copy the full contents of the card to the desktop, txt file and everything. Many people create a series of folders, and copy each of the p2 card contents to each folder.

Viewing the footage is a different matter. If you don't have 5.0.4, you are essentially stuck.

HD Log, I believe has a demo version of its P2 Mac reader. I have the full version of the Pro version, and it not only allows you to preview the clips, but convert to movie files as well.

 

[editatjoes]

>>>What is the process of off loading the P2's to the G4 laptop? Is it just a drag and drop and then can I view it? Any help you can provide will be totally appreciated.

If you're going to work with P2 on Mac, you definitely need to upgrade to a version of FCP that can import it. The software that allows you to view P2 on Mac is around $700...way less than you'll pay to upgrade your FCP software. It's not that big a deal to import the footage into FCP, but you can't do it with version 4.5. I usually back up the P2 card files to DVD and also import them into FCP as DVCProHD Quicktimes, but it's not just drag/drop/play without spending some more money.

Joe Murray