P2 to laptop to . . .

Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer

Active member
What would be the minimum requirements for an Apple Powerbook (probably a 1-2 year old used one) for offloading from P2 to an external HD for use on FCP5? Also, what would be the best and most cost effective HD in the 100GB range? Any help you can give to this newbie would be much appreciated! Thanks . . . what a great forum.
 
Are you wanting to edit the footage on that laptop as well, or just transfer it to an external hard drive? If you're just transferring, any laptop will do... you can either put the P2 card in the PCMCIA slot (if your laptop has one; most do) or just hook the USB or firewire cables to the computer and transfer away. Of course, you can bypass the laptop completely and just copy to an external firewire drive straight from the camera if you like... you just have to make sure it has its own power supply. Unfortunately, this isn't possible with USB... originally it looked like it would be a feature of the camera, but somewhere down the line this feature was removed. That's one of the few things of the HVX I am dissapointed with. If you want to use the "capture now" setting to record the footage from the camera while you're shooting it, you'll need a system that's somewhat current. I captured and edited a large Varicam shoot on a 15" Powerbook G4 about a month ago with no snags whatsoever - but multiple streams slowed it down considerably. Obviously, the more power you've got the better - but don't fall to the hype that you need some quad core system with redundant raids to handle the HVX footage. It's just not the case.

I'm not confident on long-term storage of my master footage on hard drives myself - I've had way too many fail over time - but until Blu-Ray starts permeating the marketplace, there isn't much else of a cost effective alternative. Right now, I think Seagate drives are the best... they're a leader in SATA technology and they offer an unparalleled 5-year warranty on all of the drives they sell. Of course, a warranty isn't going to get you your lost footage back, but at least you aren't out a couple hundred dollars if something happens.
 
I am planning on backing up on DVD all footage, plus using Raid 1 for all footage as well.

Losing the footage is not an option for me as I am sure it isn't for most everybody.

Some people are going to use several hard drives, others DVDs. Just depends on what you want to use.

Since I bought a laptop specifically for the HVX-200, I am going to burn DVDs of all the footage (dvd burner was included). This includes making at least two copies of each 4 minutes of footage.
 
So would this device work to transfer footage from the HVX200 without using a laptop?

http://www.xpcgear.com/120gbfe720.html

Then to the G5 to edit with FCP5 . . . Is that going to work?

Duh . . . I just realized that would make for a terrible work flow. What about using the external HD with an external card reader to offlaod one P2 while you keep shooting with another? Would this work and, if so, does anyone know of a reasonably priced reader that would work with this scenario? I'm trying to get a handle on this so any help you can give this newbie would be much appreciated. I'm just trying to get away from the expensive P2 Store and find a more cost effective alternative. Thanks . . .
 
Paul Farmer said:
So would this device work to transfer footage from the HVX200 without using a laptop?

http://www.xpcgear.com/120gbfe720.html

Then to the G5 to edit with FCP5 . . . Is that going to work?
Click to expand...

Yes. Any portable hard drive will work as long as it is Firewire and self-powered. You would have to plug the drive into the wall as the HVX does not have power through the firewire bus.

Then you could hook it up to your PC/Mac and it would be Ready to Edit.
 
Haakon : are you able to edit the downloaded footage using your G4 powerbook with FCP in realtime without getting annoyed by long processing times????? Nobody has given a strait answer to that question yet and you are probably one of the few who has done it with Varicam footage..


Haakon said:
Are you wanting to edit the footage on that laptop as well, or just transfer it to an external hard drive? If you're just transferring, any laptop will do... you can either put the P2 card in the PCMCIA slot (if your laptop has one; most do) or just hook the USB or firewire cables to the computer and transfer away. Of course, you can bypass the laptop completely and just copy to an external firewire drive straight from the camera if you like... you just have to make sure it has its own power supply. Unfortunately, this isn't possible with USB... originally it looked like it would be a feature of the camera, but somewhere down the line this feature was removed. That's one of the few things of the HVX I am dissapointed with. If you want to use the "capture now" setting to record the footage from the camera while you're shooting it, you'll need a system that's somewhat current. I captured and edited a large Varicam shoot on a 15" Powerbook G4 about a month ago with no snags whatsoever - but multiple streams slowed it down considerably. Obviously, the more power you've got the better - but don't fall to the hype that you need some quad core system with redundant raids to handle the HVX footage. It's just not the case.

I'm not confident on long-term storage of my master footage on hard drives myself - I've had way too many fail over time - but until Blu-Ray starts permeating the marketplace, there isn't much else of a cost effective alternative. Right now, I think Seagate drives are the best... they're a leader in SATA technology and they offer an unparalleled 5-year warranty on all of the drives they sell. Of course, a warranty isn't going to get you your lost footage back, but at least you aren't out a couple hundred dollars if something happens.
Click to expand...
 
Cees Mutsaers said:
Haakon : are you able to edit the downloaded footage using your G4 powerbook with FCP in realtime without getting annoyed by long processing times????? Nobody has given a strait answer to that question yet and you are probably one of the few who has done it with Varicam footage..
Click to expand...

Many people who have access to the camera have posted that this is easily done, even on older g4 powerbooks. HVX firewired to the G4 laptop/ Captured directly into Final Cut timeline
 
Benton said:
Many people who have access to the camera have posted that this is easily done, even on older g4 powerbooks. HVX firewired to the G4 laptop/ Captured directly into Final Cut timeline
Click to expand...


What is interesting is that possibility that Apple will release a 3 pound PB at MWSF.
 
Cees Mutsaers said:
Haakon : are you able to edit the downloaded footage using your G4 powerbook with FCP in realtime without getting annoyed by long processing times????? Nobody has given a strait answer to that question yet and you are probably one of the few who has done it with Varicam footage..
Click to expand...
I've seen HVX footage being edited full-screen, full-frame-rate, full-resolution on a 1.33GHz G4 powerbook.
 
David S. said:
What is interesting is that possibility that Apple will release a 3 pound PB at MWSF.
Click to expand...

Oh Yes.. and Apple and Pany seem to be working well together.

I was thinking of using a PB as a monitor/streaming/storage option...
especially if one wnats to use a 35mm lens which flips the image...but this doesn't seem possible to fip ...
Any ideas?
unless Apple comes out with a tablet...
Then I will faint. go into debt & put the HVX on a steadicam with a 35mm attachment for (almost)unlimited recording possibilities.

~J
 
The FAQ says USB can be used for file transfer. So why all talk is concentrated on Firewire drives? (to tranfer files from P2)
 
redindian said:
The FAQ says USB can be used for file transfer. So why all talk is concentrated on Firewire drives? (to tranfer files from P2)
Click to expand...

I believe the USB port on the camera will work to transfer files from the HVX to a computer. You can transfer files from the P2 card to a firewire drive without the need of a computer.
 
redindian said:
The FAQ says USB can be used for file transfer. So why all talk is concentrated on Firewire drives? (to tranfer files from P2)
Click to expand...
The firewire port will be much faster than the usb port anyways.
 
bgundu said:
I believe the USB port on the camera will work to transfer files from the HVX to a computer. You can transfer files from the P2 card to a firewire drive without the need of a computer.
Click to expand...

So a standalone powered USB drive would not be able to transfer files from the cam?
 
Cees Mutsaers said:
Haakon : are you able to edit the downloaded footage using your G4 powerbook with FCP in realtime without getting annoyed by long processing times????? Nobody has given a strait answer to that question yet and you are probably one of the few who has done it with Varicam footage..
Click to expand...
Well the Varicam records in 60p every time, all the time. In order to deal with overcranking and undercranking, we had to run the footage through the FCP Frame Rate Converter (available for free on the Panasonic website), which took a bit of time to "process." The beauty of the HVX is that it has a special 24pN mode that records only the active frames, allowing you to bypass that step altogether. It's as simple as plug in your P2 card, transfer the files, edit away. (You could even edit them straight off of the P2 card without transfering the footage if you wanted, but you would be limited to the capacity of the card itself).

Once the files had been converted with the plugin, editing them was painless and worked flawlessly in realtime. Keep in mind the Varicam also only shoots in 720, not 1080, but still, that's a lot more drain on a system than SD footage would be and it handled it without a hitch. I was very pleasantly surprised with the workflow, and working with the Varicam and FCP was one big push for me to switch to FCP with the release of the HVX.
 
redindian said:
The FAQ says USB can be used for file transfer. So why all talk is concentrated on Firewire drives? (to tranfer files from P2)
Click to expand...
USB2 is for connecting the camera to a PC, and having the PC control the camera.

Through firewire, the camera can actually control the drive. The camera can offload files directly to a firewire drive. But for USB, it has to go to a computer, not a drive.
 
redindian said:
So a standalone powered USB drive would not be able to transfer files from the cam?
Click to expand...

Probably correct. The camera cannot control a USB drive. However, it's possible that through USB2-To-Go, the drive may be able to control the camera. I ordered a self-powered USB2-To-Go enclosure to test that theory out, should be here in a couple of days.

Standalone self-powered firewire drive would work fine. Standalone self-powered USB drive would not work at all. MAYBE a standalone self-powered USB-To-Go drive would work.
 
If you were shooting a project with the varicam/F900 and then used the HVX with the installed lens, etc., as a "B Cam" would there be a noticable quality difference in image? I have a low budget (100K) feature to shoot in March and was thinking of using either varicam or F900 but wondered if the HVX could be used in some sequences in the 720 mode to match the footage?

I just wrapped a feature with the F900 and the quality of image was the best I have ever seen (looks more film like than Michael Mann's trailer for Miami Vice and our budget was only 500K).
 
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