I'll send you are link via email. It could be the graph won't build due to whatever is wrong with the P2 Viewer. Does Panasonic offer support on the P2 Viewer? Maybe they will after you purchase the camera.

More instructions.

1) Open GraphEdit
2) In Graph Menu select "Insert Filters..."
3) Find "DirectShow Filters" and open that folder.
4) Find "Panasonic MXF Source Filter", select it and press "Insert Filter"
5) With the file requestor select your MXF video file (via file type *.*).
6) Find "Panasonic DVCPRO_HD Video Decoder", select it and press "Insert Filter"
7) Press Close.
8) Grab the output pin of the source MXF box (little square box on the right) and draw a line to the input of the decoder.

Do these pins connect?

9) Right click on the output pin of the decoder and select "Render Pin". This should add the video render.

10) if that works press "Play".

well David....Progress...I got your instructions to work with your skate file but not the DVfilm clip...Obviously that clip is not a raw.mxf file...
I Can open the .mxf file with windows media player...awesome...I can now convert to Cineform common with HDLink....works well..

Go figure, still cannot see .mxf files with P2 Viewer..???
Did the above procedures prove anything to you that I should know???

I already own the cam, I'm just waiting for cards, so I will get panasonic to help me with rest..I would just rather not talk to them, they led me astray for a couple of weeks on another issue...I ended up figuring it out using the forums...way better for troubleshooting...Anyway's, Thank you so much David, Truly Awesome Tech support...Cineform rocks..
I will send you a update on the resolution to the p2 so you have the new info....Warm Regards..Chris Walker

the panasonic driver installation executable does some, um, interesting things during the course of installation: one of them is that it asks you to insert the relevant media (for p2 drivers, the p2 card; for p2 store, the actual p2 drive, etc.). i'm not sure why it is setup this way, and it appears to cause a corrupted installation if you dont' have a PCMCIA slot AND a P2 card handy. i think most desktops dont' have PCMCIA slots so this is a problem.

i went through the driver installation process on a laptop but WITHOUT inserting a P2 card when it asked. i just clicked "okay" but it really didnt' like that, so it complained but i continued. then whenever i tried p2 viewer it ran REALLY SLOWLY. so then i reinvoked driver installation and selected "repair" this time, and DID insert a P2 card when asked, and then everything worked fine after that.

i'm not sure how that helps you on your desktop. perhaps you can try to install the drivers WITH a p2 card on a laptop then read your files from there. my guess is that it will work.

David or anyone. I have a shoot in the morning, client does not need HD and I don't really have enough P2 cards for HD. Can I shoot dvcpro50 widescreen 24p and convert to cineform with the HDlink and edit on our prospect system? will HDlink convert?

Yes, HDLink will convert DVCPRO-50. HOWEVER, 720pN24 takes up less P2 space at 40Mb/s than DVCPRO-50 at 50Mb/s. So unless you want interlaced, shoot 720pn24.

Thank you David, I learn every day! less bitrate for SD....hmm..makes me wonder, would dvcpro50 look better uprezzed then HD 720?

No, upressing DVCPRO-50 would look softer than 720p. But an SD production can benefit from the light compression of DVCPRO-50 (yes DVCPRO-HD is much more compressed than DVCPRO-50), however I always prefer the flexibility of HD even for SD work. It is nice to crop video without loosing definition.

I've read through a lot of these posts, but am still uncertain of my answer. I would like to avoid the HDV compression, but P2 is still too expensive and the HD-SDI recording devices aren't mature yet, so I'm trying to understand how the Cineform codec solves the HDV compression problem when it converts from HDV tapes. If I record to tape on a JVC100 camera, it results in like one I-frame and five non-I-frames...so when I convert with Cineform, what does it do to those frames? Does it return all the non-I frames back to I-frames? What exactly is lost through the HDV compression/Cineform conversion process that wouldn't be lost if I recorded thru the HD-SDI port or used the DVCPRO HD codec?

Basically, what are the advantages/disadvantages of the two methods: HDV tape/Cineform conversion vs DVCPRO HD? Data rates? Degree of compression? Color space? Artifacts? Image quality? NLE editing issues?

CineForm is effectively an I-frame wavelet codec. It is a lot lighter compressed than either HDV or DVCPRO-HD, as a result it is much higher quality for post production workflows. See info on quality here : http://www.cineform.com/technology/quality.htm

David, thanks for the quick response. Wow. Lots of great info to go through. One quick question (sorry if this is on your site). I saw the Wafian, but do you have, or plan to have, a small portable recorder that can ingest directly into the Cineform codec thru the HD-SDI port? Like a couple hours worth of storage in the field to be dumped later at home?

Jeff,

We do want to enable such a device we are currently software based so you need a computer to compress the data. We are hoping for an HDSDI card for enabling laptop/battery operated capture, like we can do with the Silicon Imaging camera.

David, what is the best preset for editing a 24p cineform file from the hvx200 at 720?

I recommend an upscaled conversion to 1280x720p23.976 10-bit. The select the 1280x720p23.976 preset (ignore that the preset says it is for HDV, 1280x720 is the same HDV or HD.)