A PC + Prospect HD + Varicam Footage
 

I have footage that was shot with a Varicam to tape. The post house captured the tape from deck and put the files on a harddrive for me. I have a PC and Cineform Prospect HD. The files are just not recognized by any of my Adobe software or Cineform. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

I think I read somewhere that you need a Panasonic reader software in order to access these files. It may be a free downloadable, I think "p2viewer.exe".

This may only be applicable if the files from the varicam are of the same type as the HVX200 as recorded onto a P2 card.

I wonder if there is a remote chance they captured the footage as the sort of files that would be recorded upon a P2 card.

This is all highly guesswork on my part so please do not take too much notice.

If you are able to bring the files up in Windows Explorer, perhaps right click on the filename then select "properties". What information you get from that should include a filename extension.

Please post that info here and somebody may be able to help furthur.

This is all the file shows under description: VaricamTest_002SERS

I tried tagging the file with a .mov extension. It made Quicktime Pro freeze twice. After Effects would recognize and open the file that I added the .mov to but when put in a timeline there was nothing there but all white screen.

Devon.

The filename extention should be laid out something like "bbhart01.bmp". In this example, the ".bmp" portion is the extension.

If something like this does not show in your properties box in Windows Explorer, then you might have to go into DOS and hunt it down if you know how to do this.

Renaming the file with a .mov extension included in the main filename is only going to trick the software into thinking the file is something that it isn't.

If I did this with my example above in Windows Explorer, the filename on a DOS screen might then look like "bbhart01.mov.bmp" which is not going to do much to help.

Hopefully someone with the knowing will put things right on this. In meantime it might be worthwhile getting in touch with the post-production house and enquire to what format or filetype, they captured and saved to and what the project settings should be. It might be a simple case of formats not matching.

My friend can view the files fine on a Mac. I still have not had luck. I guess I could just have him turn them into Quicktime Animation files and give them to me that way.

Its polly in a mac only codec....(yes, Apple has castrated windows Q Time)
Have him put it to a "true" Cross platform Qtime codec

The Varicam footage ingested on Mac is almost Mac only. You could use an Intel Mac to transcode footage to CineForm using the Mac version of our encoder. Or you could look at Raylight decoder (give their trial a go) to decompress the Mac streams and convert the results to CineForm.

David:

Thanks as always. I will just have them put it into the Animation codec. Cheers.