I went to an Apple store yesterday to buy a new MacBook primarily to use as a tool for ingesting data from cards on the road. I was distraught when I learned that the new MacBooks have a narrower slot that won't accept the P2 cards..

The clerk looked at me like I had four heads when I asked the last model that had the full size CardBus... Does anyone know, because I'll shop for a refurbished one (No, I don't use PCs)...

Steve,

G4 power books had the last macs with a slots, their is an adaptor that has come out for the new Mac's but has a proplem with drivers as of this writing something to do with the latest MAC OS. Should be solved soon.

I us my G4 15 in in the field all the time with no problems. Also have a 300GB FW drive attached to the PB for backup.

Hope this helps.

Steve:

The MacBooks don't have any slots. The MacBook Pros have ExpressCard/34 slots.

The dueladapter from duel systems is a new PC Card to EC/34 adapter that works with p2 cards.

Waiting on the 10.4.9 drivers

My G4 PowerBook is almost three years old and works great for the P2 workflow.

Or... get a P2 Store.

It'll stash 7 8-gig cards even while you're walking with it. And it'll double as a card-reader into your MacBook via USB.

That frees up your Express 34 card slot to run a high-speed external Firmtek RAID.

That's what I did on a recent trip and it all worked out nicely.

Yep, I'd have to second using the P2Store -- it is really a nicely made piece of hardware and is perfect for documentary work. I'm working on a feature doc now and use two P2Stores and 4 8GB P2 cards every day, which has worked out nicely. I can get about 8 hours of footage this way, which will get me through a day. If you are running and gunning and don't have an assistant, the P2Store is a great way to go.

Peter

Peter, I agree with you. The P2 store is a wonderful little machine. It offers in my opinion an highly efficent way to work with the HVX200 and for now the cheapest too. But I have a question for you. You said you can have 8 hours of footage using four P2 cards plus two P2 Store. Recording in 720 pN (as I usually do) I could have something less than 5 hours with the configuration you've mentioned: 16 minutes each P2 card and 112 minutes each P2 store: 288 minutes total. It's quite possible I'm missing something but how can you get 8 hours from your cards and stores? I'm working with one P2 store and two 8g cards at the moment however I'm seriously considering to buy another P2 store together with a new 16g card to have the same configuration you have.
Five hours are an acceptable amount of time for my daily work but eight hours would be better.

I picked up a P2 Store to take with me out in the field in Yellowstone. It'll allow me to leave my laptop behind for some of the longer hikes. Maybe with the 16gig cards coming out we'll see a price drop since it looks like there are no plans to increase the size of the P2 Store any time soon. I'd love to pick up a couple more to take out with me on longer trips.

I like the concept of the P2 Store, but at only 60g it doesn't make a lot of sense with 16g or 32g cards.. Too bad, because it is an elegant design, and I really like elegant designs... (I wonder if you could hot rod it and install a bigger drive)...

Hey Francesco,

Yes, I was a little off on my calculations. I actually get 6.3 hours of recording with the setup I described. I think the only error in your calculations was in the time/card. I get 21 minutes/card shooting 720p 24n. Are you only getting 16 mins/card? HOpe that helps ,

Peter

PS I agree with Kevin that if the price on the P2Store comes down, I would consider buying another. I'd probably do this instead of buying larger cards, actually. There's something a little scary to me about having "all your eggs in one basket" so to speak with a 16Gb or larger card. At least with the 8GB, if somethign happens to it or you accidentally format it, you aren't losing 42 mins of ftg. That being said, I'm glad Panny is rolling out the larger cards and dropping prices on the 8GB models.

Yeah Steve, that has been a complaint of mine on these boards -- that Panny didn't roll out a larger P2Store. I think what they are hoping is that for long form filmmakers, we will just invest in enough cards to get us through a full day's worth of shooting, which, with the price of cards coming down, is becoming more and more likely. I don't think having a laptop in the field with external HDD's is a very good solution, which others have suggested on this forum before.

peter

Another question I have is about P2 reliability.. I've scanned here and elsewhere for horror stories and have found more than a few, mostly referring to corrupted files...

I am starting a difficult feature length documentary film (for which I am buying the HPX500) in which people will be telling me very painful, intimate things about their past that I do not want to have to put them thru twice...

I will use a Titanium G4 on the road to move files to two 500g ATA drives ('A" drive and backup). I generally average about an hour or two a day when I shoot, so it won't be a huge problem - but it will be over many days... I will be cutting with FCP6 on a G5 quad, not on the PowerBook...

Tell the truth now - anyone have any data loss that wasn't pilot error? How trustworthy is this technology?

Hi Steve,

While past performance is of course never a guarantee of future reliability, I can say from personal experience that the P2 workflow has been pretty bulletproof. I have had a couple of corrupted clips on the doc I'm currently making, but that was due to "pilot error" as you say -- letting the battery run out on a take as a terminal cancer patient was talking about their impending death. I didn't want to stop them and the battery ran out on the take, so part of the clip was corrupted. I'm still trying to recover the non-corrupted portion.

I use a similar workflow to the one you describe while on the road. I travel with my MBPro and two 500GB G-Raids. While I shoot I offload to the P2Store and then transfer everything to the G-Raids (one as backup) while I sleep. It has worked out well so far.

I think that if you are only shooting 1-2 hours of footage per day you will be well-served by the HPX500 and not need the P2Store, especially with 16GB cards.

Back to your original question: the P2 system has been extremely reliable for me. That being said, it is still a data centric environment, and to me that always adds an additional level of fear. What if a 16Gb card corrupts and you lose 42 minutes of footage? Of course you could just as easily lose a tape, or accidentally expose a roll of film, so it's just something we all have to get over eventually.

Now for a favor: let us know how it goes with the HPX500. Right now I have a reservation for a Red One that I should receive in October, but if there are problems with the Red I will likely invest in an HPX500, using it mostly for documentary work. So let me know what you think :)

Peter

Peter: Thanks for your comments - it's true that over the years I have lost footage when film jammed in a magazine without my knowing.. your heart just sort of sinks and your mind starts replaying everything you lost and how you're going to replace it or cut around it.. boy do I hate that feeling - and, additionally, with video you loose the audio too. I do occasionally record audio on a Tascam when I have a soundman, but more often I don't.

I suspect that in 6 months you will be the object of considerable envy. Everything I've heard about the RED has been more than glowing. I would have sprung for one if there was any chance of it being available in time for this shoot. I love everything about the modular design and the STARFIGHTER look of it.. and the footage is unbelievable... It will change everything, as you say - - if it works...

Do you have any special software in your PowerBook? Do you just use it to move files, or do you do any editing as well? Somehow I doubt if FCP6 will work in a G4, but maybe...

Thank you for your reply, Peter. I'm pretty shure I can have just 16 minutes from a 8g P2 card but I'm shooting at 720p 25n (not 24n). Maybe this is the reason for the difference.
In any case I really would like a bigger P2 store (120g for example). I'm planning to travel overseas for a project and I don't like to have too much equipment (as a laptop or/and hard disks) with me. Unfortunately Panasonic seems not interested in a development of this machine.

Tell the truth now - anyone have any data loss that wasn't pilot error? How trustworthy is this technology?
Never had a single corrupted frame. Near as I can tell, almost every story that you see boils down to either a) flagrant pilot error, or b) unintentional pilot error, and some are c) bugs in FCP.

By "flagrant", I mean either they just didn't copy all the files over on purpose (they just copied over the VIDEO directory, for example) or they changed the name of the CONTENTS directory.

By "unintentional", I am specifying that apparently (APPARENTLY) if you put a P2 card in a Mac, and you haven't write-protected the card, then there's a chance that the footage on that card will glitch when imported. Macs write files onto unprotected volumes when they're first mounted (like the "Trashes" directory) and apparently that's somehow messing up the ability to get clean transfers.

And by "bugs" I mean just that -- bugs in FCP. FCP is still sorting out its issues; it's had problems importing clips that were "repaired" in-camera, and it sometimes changes the frame rate of an imported clip (especially if you import a 720pN clip and have the "remove duplicate frames" checkbox checked). The footage on the cards (or drives) is perfectly good, but FCP fails to properly import it.

If you follow a few simple rules, you should have no problems whatsoever and it should be extraordinarily bulletproof.

1) Whenever you copy files to a hard disk, keep the CONTENTS directory intact and don't change its name!

2) Never put a P2 card anywhere near a Mac unless it's write-protected.

3) If using FCP, use the latest version. Don't run anything earlier than 5.1.4.

Barry: I have printed out your warnings and will tape it to the lid of my PowerBook... It's strange that FCP should be quirky with P2 when at first, at the NAB when Panasonic was touting the technology, Apple seemed to be in bed with them... Guess they didn't get along..

I have another question or two for you about the 500, but I will start a new thread.

Forgot to ask - whomever is using a Mac - given the above warnings, am I safer xferring directly from the camera via firewire than using the CardBus slot?

I get yelled at a lot for saying it, but P2 just works better in the PC environment than it does in the Mac environment. There are numerous little quirks in the Mac implementation that I find annoying; quirks that we (few) on the WinXP side just don't have to put up with. Panasonic is a Windows company, they make Windows PCs, and near as I can tell they rely on Apple to do all the support for the P2 system on the Mac side.

And that being said, P2 works just fine on the Mac and something like 95% of HVX users are using the Mac. The quirks I'm talking about are really minor quibbles once you look at the whole system in context, and Mac users seem quite content with the way the P2 system works on the Mac.

Apple and Panasonic do have a healthy relationship, and DVCPRO-HD footage on the Mac platform absolutely flies.

The only real problem that I have is the glitching issue, and it seems like that's solved by using the write-protect tab.

I still think that the single simplest, easiest, and best way for a Mac user to get the most from the P2 workflow is to torch $500 for a Windows laptop. That way they get glitch-free importing, instant scrubbing and footage preview, metadata annotating, ability to execute all firmware downloads, more reliable and more-sensible P2 Store integration, and they can always just copy their footage to an external hard disk and import that footage right into their FCP desktop. That way you'd have the best of both worlds.

Forgot to ask - whomever is using a Mac - given the above warnings, am I safer xferring directly from the camera via firewire than using the CardBus slot?

No, you're equally safe as long as you write-protect the card before ever exposing it to MacOS.

Thanx for all your informative responses in this and other threads... entering into a whole new way of working is always more than slightly nerve-racking - especially when you're doing it on someone else's dime...

I'm sure I will be a happy P2 user, just as I eventually learned to like and trust HDV (I never had a dropout, by the way, and with a DeckLink card it was just like working with DV)..

It's all about storytelling after all...

2) Never put a P2 card anywhere near a Mac unless it's write-protected.


Barry,

Does this APPARENT bug only seem to happen with DVCPROHD footage or does it apparently happen with any type of codec on a card?

Its just interesting to hear, i've never had a problem bringing in DVCPRO50 footage off my works spx800s onto our Macpro via the p2 card reader. Or is it apparently just an hvx issue?

joe

The issue is extremely rare, as evidenced by there being maybe 50 reports of it happening on all the boards put together, yet there's something like 35,000 HVX200s out there (not counting all the SPX800s, SPC700s, and HPX2000s too).

So it's not a widely prevalent thing. I don't know that I've heard of it affecting DVCPRO50 or DV footage, but I'd guess that it's likely because there aren't that many shooters (proportionately) shooting in SD vs. shooting in HD.

The issue seems to come into play when transferring footage from a card to a Mac. I don't know that I've ever heard of it happening from an external drive into the Mac. And there's a tad of evidence to suggest that write-protecting the cards prevents the issue from ever occurring. But it's hard to know, because it's a very infrequent issue, so how do we know when it's truly definitely gone? It seems like the write-protect does make it go away though.

I know this will probably be obvious once I have the tools in front of me, but just so I know -

How does one write-protect the P2 card? - and is it something you need to do and undo, like the tab on a tape cassette?

On the back of the P2 card there is a little switch that you can slide to Protect.

Just finished a shoot with another HVX owner this weekend....
Dallas, TX - scattered showers - it was Hot & humid and
we were shooting outside all day with 4 - 4 gig cards and 2 - rented 8 gig cards...
I was shooting and lugging my G4 around - transferred 4 x 8 gig cards
and 6x 4 gig cards onto my 100 gig Firewire external. Not one glitch.
Just finished the first edit and I saw no problems. And I like the fact
that I can "digitize" what I need....and skip what I don't need.
This was an event and you might start recording and people would
come up and look in the camera and ask what TV station you were from....
or the tech guys who start asking 20 questions - Deja Vu from NAB.

Francesco -- yep, guessing the discrepancy in ftg is because of the 24p vs. 25p. I too wish there was a larger P2Store (I've been griping for a while now) but, alas, it doesn't look likely.

Regarding your question Steve, I don't use any program for copying over P2 cards, but I probably should. There are two programs: P2Genie and HDLogPro (Robert Lane, P2 Guru, recommends HDLogPro, though it's considerably more expensive), that automate the copying and also can verify a copy, which is a really great feature. That being said, I've never had an error on a transferred file (knocking wood) even without using these programs. I would emphasize the importance of using quality hard drives, however (I only use G-Raid's). A friend copied to some off-the-shelf HDD's and had errors and I was once on a shoot where the production provided a low-end Maxtor and a number of cards were corrupted.

I am indeed excited about the Red, but it's always a little nervewracking being one of the first. We'll see how it goes :)

Peter

A 300+g P2 Store would solve all of my worries... Why is that such a problem I wonder?

Great question. Because panasonic wants to sell P2 cards, and not P2 stores, probably :)

Peter

Well, if they want to sell more P2 cards, they need to make the process more appealing - to be honest I almost cancelled my HPX500 order with the idea of buying a used Varicam... good old tape happily rolling along - mechanical - something I can understand...

It looks like I'm going to be using a 1ghz G4 PowerBook and offloading cards (at lunch, at dinner, whenever) to a pair of 500g Seagate FW drives. My concern is -

is this process going to give me the ability to check my clips? I know Barry recommended a PC for ease in doing that, but I'm an old dog and this (P2) is enough new tricks for now...

Also - has anyone shot 720/24pn and added the pulldown (for broadcast) in the FCP timeline? I've done that successfully with Canon's 24f and wondered how it looks with DVCPRO HD because that would give me a lot more card space...

How about P2 Gear when it is available? You won't need to lug a notebook around once P2 Gear is in the market. Just bring a couple of 160GB or higher 2.5" disks with their USB2 and/or Firewire connection casing ... and you can shoot for hours and hours without worrying about running out of space. It should be better than carrying the P2Store.

Not available till August... I checked... I start shooting my current doc (for which I'm getting the 500) in June and will be mostly finished by Aug/Sept...

That's kinda the problem.. There are lots of nice options - in the future - right now I'm having to make do...

After some months with my HVX200 I think that P2 workflow is really great.
The camera itself is, in my opinion, a jewel and the HVX 200 picture on my monitor is wonderful. The only real problem, at this moment, is P2 cards price and storage capacity. For this reason I think that P2 store is the best available solution to minimize the recording and storage cost. The P2 store (priced in Italy around 1.500 euros) can record the content of almost four 16g cards (priced around 1.000 euros each) or seven 8g cards (priced around 800 euros). Moreover the P2 store is very light, small and efficient. At this moment, even if I could afford the cost of, say, seven or eight 16g P2 cards the use of the P2 store would add a good 50% to my recording capacity for only a fraction of the equivalent P2 cards price. P2 gear is certainly a grat machine but is priced around 5.000 euros in Italy and in my opinion is not an alternative to the P2 store (it's a completely different thing).

P2 is great for aquisition, I'm convinced. And getting your footage off of P2 cards and on a hard disk, fairly straightforward. What do you do with the original footage once it is edited. Delete? Surely not. If I'm using 4 16GB cards at a time and most likely more, what are my options for archival. Blue-ray? Does anyone here have workflow that includes P2 archival. What do you use? Have any problems. We all know the advantages of tape. Does it end up on tape?

Francesco: Your points are well made... The problem for me isn't only offloading files to free card space, but being able to view the clips so I know they're there and I can sleep at night..

Since I'm a Mac person (and I gather this process is best done in a PC environment) I am needing (I think) to offload clips, using the G4 TiBook, to a FW drive, then import clips into FCP (again, using the PowerBook) to view them.. The result of this is that I will be double filling hard drives in order to keep the original file AND the file on the Scratch Disk.. True?

Please, if anyone has a better way let me know... I don't actually have a camera or a card or any of this to test, so I'm only surmising...

I broached the subject of HHDs with my computer guy, who writes code and is a software BETA tester for various companies in Silicon Valley, and he emailed me the following...

"HHD is a hybrid hard drive, and I disagree that they are any better for video... actually, they are worse. The Hybrid is a 1 gig cache RAM built into the drive. For "regular" use, it might be useful, since 1 gig can hold a lot of files. The way they work is to load up the built-in RAM, and then spin down the drive, thus making for faster access, and lower energy consumption.

But for video, where the files are larger than 1 gig... it's actually a poor idea. You don't want the drive spinning down all the time when you're accessing video files.

And for archival storage, it's a waste of money.

Let's see... what else... oh yeah: they won't work with Macs...*"

I would appreciate anyone else's POV on this, because everyone here seems to be recommending HHD for archival storage.

Mac programs P2Log/HD Log both allow viewing of mxf files directly from your p2 card /HDD w/o converting to QT.

Thanx Chris - Do you know if there's a tutorial somewhere that will lead me (like the blind, er - vision impaired) thru this process with PowerBooks and FCP etc. so I don't have to keep asking these stupid questions?

Hell, I got so nervous I just ordered a P2 Store for backup...

Well, if they want to sell more P2 cards, they need to make the process more appealing - to be honest I almost cancelled my HPX500 order with the idea of buying a used Varicam... good old tape happily rolling along - mechanical - something I can understand......



Hi Steve, I do understand the jumping off the cliff feeling, I have talked to dozens of people that have felt this way. Moving from something you know how to do vs moving to something you have not done before. I can encourage you to set up a set of behaviors for the off-load and always follow them. Mirror your transfer drives, that way you will have a Master and a back up. Always use the software to eject the P2 card. Never just use the button on the side. Put the icon in the trash, this erases the ghost image in the Mac. Then mount the next card.

It looks like I'm going to be using a 1ghz G4 PowerBook and offloading cards (at lunch, at dinner, whenever) to a pair of 500g Seagate FW drives. My concern is -

is this process going to give me the ability to check my clips? I know Barry recommended a PC for ease in doing that, but I'm an old dog and this (P2) is enough new tricks for now......


I heartily encourage you to purchase P2 Log Pro, they have an automated offload with verify on the data. This is worth every penny and yes it will allow you to look at your footage as well. I know that Barry says to buy a PC but he and I go round on this all the time. We did the Iditarod, 3.5 TB of stuff and not a single glich, except for the 2 cards that had not been write protected, and those were easily resolved.

Also - has anyone shot 720/24pn and added the pulldown (for broadcast) in the FCP timeline? I've done that successfully with Canon's 24f and wondered how it looks with DVCPRO HD because that would give me a lot more card space...

This is the easiest. FCP will give you the option on output to reinsert the 3:2 pull-down, it there you go. That simple. And yes, we were all wishing that the 2000s had 24pN in Alaska, would have saved us a number of P2 cards.

I know you will love it once you have it and set up your work flow. Do this in advance of starting the project. Know what you are going to do and practice it so that you are doing the flow by second natur, you want to be sure that when things get crazy on the set, the process is still very clear.

Best regards,

Jan

Jan: Thanks... Yeah, it's always difficult to change from something you're used to... but I like change - after over 20 years of shooting nothing but film I changed to DV, then to HDV, now to tapeless (I still have my super16mm camera though)...

This camera (and the other new Panasonic entries) will obviously bring a lot more people like me into the P2 environment -

As useful as this forum is (and I've really grown dependent on it) , it would be nice for those of us who have to land running and make a living with this new technology if there was an all-in-one-place website devoted specifically to P2 workflow issues - not "look at my clips" or "where do I get a matte box?" but workflow only - an online tutorial with a Q&A page...

For instance, the suggestion of P2 Log Pro (I just looked at their site) solves most of my problems (although it looks like it may have a "learning curve", and that is an expression I've learned to dislike). In fact, since so many of us have been using Macs since the Media100 days, Panasonic should consider bundling it with the new cameras...

Steve,
I know where you're coming from. I sold my Aaton pkg. last year (should have saved the superspeeds for the RED :) , bought the HVX, a Powerbook (never needed a laptop before P2)and haven't looked back.
No one stop/shop tutorial available, but if you hang around these boards lurking long enough you'll pick up what you'll need to know.
I've shot all the cassette video formats and initially I missed the security blanket of being able to clutch the shot tapes in my hands. Now I'm getting weaned off that nasty habit and there's no going back (sounds like an AA rant!).
Think what the sound dept. has gone thru over the years - tape reels, cassettes, MD, DT, MP3 , etc.
It's a whole new world out there.

chris

Jan: Thanks... Yeah, it's always difficult to change from something you're used to... but I like change - after over 20 years of shooting nothing but film I changed to DV, then to HDV, now to tapeless (I still have my super16mm camera though)...

This camera (and the other new Panasonic entries) will obviously bring a lot more people like me into the P2 environment -

As useful as this forum is (and I've really grown dependent on it) , it would be nice for those of us who have to land running and make a living with this new technology if there was an all-in-one-place website devoted specifically to P2 workflow issues - not "look at my clips" or "where do I get a matte box?" but workflow only - an online tutorial with a Q&A page...

For instance, the suggestion of P2 Log Pro (I just looked at their site) solves most of my problems (although it looks like it may have a "learning curve", and that is an expression I've learned to dislike). In fact, since so many of us have been using Macs since the Media100 days, Panasonic should consider bundling it with the new cameras...

Steve, you heard it from the expert (Jan C.) - I use P2 Log Pro all the time.
You can view footage direct from cards using a G4....
I use it to check footage on location. Clients like it because we can view full screen. I copy the P2 contents to an external Firewire 800 drive.
I then go back and look at the clips from the hard drive for a double check.
I have never had any glitching and I am using FCP 5.1.2.
Good Luck

Steve,
Just want to add that if you are using the P2 store, make sure the battery you are using is well connected (sometimes 3rd party batteries don't connect well to the HVX or the P2 store) when transferring data. If there's an interruption in the power supply it can corrupt the footage.

Steve:

The MacBooks don't have any slots. The MacBook Pros have ExpressCard/34 slots.

The dueladapter from duel systems is a new PC Card to EC/34 adapter that works with p2 cards.

Waiting on the 10.4.9 drivers

This is the route to go with MacBook Pro: http://www.duel-systems.com/products/adapters.aspx