necessary acc for hvx200

R

raw911

Active member
ok - after plenty days comtemplating - ive finally ordered the HVX-200 now i will be editing using FCP using macbok pro and or power mac quad - what else wold be needed to at least start i have 2 - 4gb cards -

i was told that i would need P2 logger $99 and not the $699 gold version . is this correct?
 
That is correct you only need to get P2 Logger. One thing you should consider is a PCMCIA card reader, something that will allow you to read p2 cards without having to tie up the camera.
Personally I was very glad I got my 1.67ghz powerbook instead of waiting for a macbook for this very reason. The macbook pros are powerful machines and I would love to have one, but having a pcmcia slot makes the powerbook a great solution for on field p2 dumping.

Other than that, you're pretty much set I believe.
 
from the picture i saw on the P2 logger web site they have a P2 card that is being inserted straight into the mac book pro - or is that a regular mac book that they are using?
 
I wouldn't consider P2 logger 'necessary' I use p2 genie to dump my cards onto the mac and it works great and is a little less expensive at $30. I then convert the downloaded mxf files into the .mov files within FCP using the import P2 command. If you don't need to view the footage before you convert and can wait a little longer p2 genie works great.
Also be aware that in order to use p2 logger on both your desktop and laptop you will need to purchase two licenses bringing the total to $200 (still a relatively small price for software) rather than $100.
 
raw911 said:
from the picture i saw on the P2 logger web site they have a P2 card that is being inserted straight into the mac book pro - or is that a regular mac book that they are using?
Click to expand...

Not an Intel Mac.

None available as of yet
 
ok with that being noted of not for intel mac yet - can i ask what is the process now for importing P2 footage into mac - i have a macbookpro and also a power mac g5 quad that i would be working on.
so would the p2 logger help me any at all?
 
I haven't used p2 logger, however many people seem to love it. I use P2 store and the P2 genie software. P2 genie recognizes any mounted volumes containing the mxf files whether they are coming from my P2 store or straight from my P2 cards via camera via firewire. One click copies the various volumes to my hard drive and other click ejects and erases my card (you can customize P2 genie to work in several different ways from manual to automatic) When I am done for the day I just open up final cut pro and select import P2 media. I dialog appears I click on a volume and hit import all. All of the files are then converted to the .mov wrapper and appear in my project. P2 logger may make this process easier but so far this has worked well for me. I don't really need to work that quickly. If you are just dumping your cards from the camera you could probably just copy them straight from the camera by dragging them to a new folder. I chose P2 genie because with the P2 store I can have 15 volumes mounted at once and it is a huge pain to copy each one individually. I don't know if this is such a great workflow but I am kinda of new to this is well and am always looking for a more streamlined approach so if anyone can let me know why P2 logger is worth the $100 I am willing to give it a try
 
P2 Log has its uses. For us in the PAL region, it's the cheapest way to get hold of the 720/25PN format in a form which can be used by FCP (using Imagine's pass-through codec, which has its problems but at least you then have a QT movie of an otherwise unsupported format which can be edited in FCP). If you can make use of the metadata, P2 Log allows a great deal of control over metadata content. On the other hand, I find the playback is a bit shaky, and the interface is a bit of a rush job - no short-cut key for opening a P2 volume, for instance. Still for PAL region users, it does the key job.
 
Does P2 Logger put a QT wrapper around the files, or does that process still need to happen in FCP?

I'm about to start a feature and we're going to have a ton of footage. We just bought 4 500GB hard drives (2 Terrabytes total). At the end of each day I will be offloading the P2 Store to one of these harddrives, and then also to a 2nd harddrive for backup. But I'm wondering if I should be backing up and storing the MXF files or the Quicktime? If I save everything in MXF, then when I covert to FCP I'll have another HUGE amount of space. What are people's workflows with this? When you convert to Quicktime do you delete the MXF? Curious on that workflow.

Thanks,
Brian
 
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