Looks like Apple's posted a whitepaper on using the HVX with FCP 5.0.4.

http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/pdf/20060302_FCP_Wkflw.pdf

Thanks, that looks like good reading. Out of curiosity, how long does it take FCP to ingest P2 data directly and add the Quicktime wrapper, for say 1 GB of video?

Thanks Barry! I've copied this and plan to print it out and keep it with the HVX manual.

Good stuff.

Thanks, that looks like good reading. Out of curiosity, how long does it take FCP to ingest P2 data directly and add the Quicktime wrapper, for say 1 GB of video?
It's pretty fast. It appears to be about the same amount of time as it takes to just copy the cards over as MXF data.

for some reason after reading that doc it makes me want to get that camera over all other cameras now.

Hi all:

Thanks for the tip and link on this white paper. I learned that we can do a layback to a P2 card, at least for short enough project. Now the question is, will any post houses or dub facilities accept a P2 card as a finished work that they can make dubs to tape with? How cool would it be to shoot a show in 720 24PN, edit in FCP in 720P, output back to the card(s), send to a dub house and have the dub house upconvert your 720P P2 "master" to say, HDCAM or something that most broadcasters and clients will accept and then just return your P2 card along with your dub order?

Could be a pretty cool way to work for us poor people that cannot purchase a $65,000.00 HDCAM deck?

Dan

Dan, Have you been able to get the "record to P2" option to work.
I have tried & failed so far.

Barry: Excellent find on the HVX - FCP White Paper!

Dan: P2 cards are expensive and valuable items to be mailing around. Why not simply budget a cheap Firewire drive into each project, and dump your finished project to the FW drive and mail that?

I would caution against the word "cheap fire drive"
Make sure you are buying reliable drives. My understanding is that cheap drives crash more often. Am i wrong about that.

I would caution against the word "cheap fire drive"
Make sure you are buying reliable drives. My understanding is that cheap drives crash more often. Am i wrong about that.

The point is that even the reliable drives from Seagate, Maxtor. etc, are cheap now, especially compared to P2 cards. A Seagate or Maxtor FW drive should be around $120-170 USD, as compared to a $650 P2 card. I don't plan to mail out P2 cards to post houses. I'll simply back up my footage to a a few hard drive sources, dub it off to an affordable, but good quality FW drive, mail out that FW drive, and clear out the P2 card for further use.

sorry Steve,
I agree with you. I get a little concerned because I do see people talking on these forums about cut rate drives and am afraid they will give the whole workflow a bad name if they are unreliable.
Suggest that you keep a backup drive until the client has recieved and back-uped himself. Backups should be the rule.