Panasonic P2 software for Mac - it's about time!
 

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro...cms/index.html

Not sure you guys saw this but Panasonic has released a Mac version of their P2 software.
Features: display, ingest, search, categorize, edit properties, play back, add text or voice memo, export, back up, archive, and restore footage.
works with QT 7.1.6 ( incompatible with QT 7.2 ).

thanks HDforindies for posting that up.

Thanks eric,
is this the same software that is being discussed on DVXUser (P2CMS)?

"hallelujah!!.... New P2 software from Panny for both PC and Mac!"

I got confused reading that frankly, but i'm not a post guy so much.

Hey as a brevis owner, could you chime in on another post on this forum. I'd like to hear your experience

"Neutral Density filters for use with the HVX"

Does not appear to be incompatible with QT 7.2, only 'not supported', they probably have not tested it yet.

It works with 7.2 however on some clips there seems to be no audio when playing back in the program.

Joe

And you can directly import mxf video files, although not synced to audio

It about time
 

You know I would be willing to bet that more than half of all HVX users are working on a mac. I know when you registered you had to indicate what platform you were using, so they certainly have a track on this info somewhere. I guess it takes 6months to a year to make it from the marketing dept. down to the engineering dept.

Try about 80 to 90 percent according to Barry Green.

Panasonic has clearly missed its market segment on many things Mac related.

Holy smokes, that's unbelievable. I guess we'll be seeing more mac outta-the-gates first updates and maybe even some beta testing down the road.

Barry bases this on the attendance at his and Jarred's Bootcamp series and in talking to other HVX users.

It isn't scientific but a poll at another web site indicates the figures as close.

I don't mean to speak for him, so I hope he chimes in as well.

My observation at BootCamps across the US is that about 95% of BootCamp attendees are using the Mac with their HVX. I've run that survey over and over and over. The lowest I've ever seen is 85% FCP, the average is 95%.

That's probably a disproportionate number of indie filmmakers though, and not necessarily representative of the industry as a whole.

Now, internationally my seminars show a more even split, more like 49% FCP and 49% Avid, and about 2% anything-else. The larger the organization, or the older the organization, the more likely they are to be using Avid; the newer the organization the more likely they are to be using FCP.

So David's probably accurate, at least 80% overall.

On DVInfo it seems like the 90% figure about holds accurate as well.

I have intimate knowledge of one of the cable news channels and while they do use avid in the studio they have been buying macbooks for field operations. Their graphics dept is entirely mac of course, while the IT dept services mostly windows machines for the production staff. It'll be interesting to see how this works out as the network moves to a tapeless workflow. They just installed a huge IBM tape storage system in their vault so it won't be long before we find out.

My 2 cents ...

It doesn't matter whether the video / audio is produced on Mac or PC platforms. Both sides have very capable tools (both h/w and s/w). Years back, the Mac is a superior platform because of good s/w being made available. But, the point is now moot since the PC has largely caught up with the Mac. Most of older video production houses are stuck with Mac - Avids or FCP. They can't migrate them to better platforms because of costs. Some are still using Beta SP.

What really matters is the skills of the people involved in doing the video / audio in that platform of choice. Without getting in the age old debate of whether Mac or PC is better, I have the fortunate experience of using both Mac and PC. I would say - there is NO difference at all. Both platforms have its strength, and both has its pitfalls.

No one was making that argument. I use a PC at work while my home machine is a mac. I was simply saying that for my $6k it will be nice to enjoy the same support as the PC community.

My comment about convergence speaks more to the political side of the equation since it seems that vendor decisions are going to increasingly be made by the IT dept since they are assuming responsibilites that were previously outside of their domain so to speak i.e. they are now responsible for maintaining a footage library. Those decisions used to be made by a different dept.

A house with PC based Avids would certainly benefit from MAcbooks in the field, as their Avid software will run just fine on the Macs. Especially MC. I will be buying a MacbookPro this fall, and I cut on AVID PC in my studio.

It is a bit unfortunate that Panasonic is a Windows based company. They make notebooks under the Toughbook brand as well. This might imply that support for PC / Windows will always be better positioned than the corresponding support on a Macintosh.

Just take a look at their support for upgrading P2Store is enough. I can't see how the P2Store can have their firmware upgraded via the Mac platform. The instructions and programs only run on Windows.

If 95% of the HVX200 users are on the Mac platform (as Barry has stated above), somebody better wake Panasonic up !!!

95% of indie filmmaker/forum readers, who attend seminars and HVX BootCamps, are on the Mac, yes.

Overall, worldwide, it's probably more like 50/50. Which is still a startling statistic, considering that Apple's Mac is reported to only have about 5% of the overall computing marketplace. Regardless of how you slice it, HVX users use the Mac at an extremely disproportionately high rate!

I hope Panasonic representatives are monitoring this one ...

At the Portland 48 hour showing nearly half were on Final Cut, nearly half were on Premiere, and a couple were on Vegas. Of course, this is more of a DVX than an HVX crowd. The Premiere users didn't mention if they were Mac or PC.

One team edited on one platform and did effects on the other. They came to regret it from a work flow standpoint. To many incompatibilities - still.

On the DVX it was much more PC-centric. At one point we did a poll on DVXUser and found that 82% of DVX users were on Windows, 18% on Mac.

With the HVX it seems to have flip-flopped.

Can you think of any reason why that should be so? I don't see a lack of editing software on the PC versus Mac.

I can't see any reason for it whatsoever, and it's really puzzling -- but like they say on Wall Street, you can't fight the market.

The only thing is -- when the HVX was released in Dec. 2005, FCP announced an update that very day to allow editing support. Editing was more limited on other platforms for the first six months, so FCP definitely had a leg up in the early days. Now it's kind of the other way around and other editors much more tightly integrated with P2 footage than FCP is -- but the initial impression has "stuck" and so FCP remains probably the majority if not "vast" majority platform for independent HVX users.

The reason seems obvious from my prospective. People who are entry level, like myself, and don't have any previous experience or equipment and who do spend time researching things seriously come to two conclusions. Apple and HVX. There are also a lot of people entering the video market right now as prices come down on equipment.

That's what happened to me, I came to video with a strong technical background and the ability and desire to research products with a consideration towards their long term potential. HD is the future, like it or not (I don't). HDV does not make any sense to me. I see it as a transitional format. DVCPRO HD is technically superior. I am in a small market doing small projects and I have not used the HD feature of my HVX commercially once. (My family videos look great though!) I bought it for the future.

The Final Cut Suite is an obvious choice for my market also. Research shows that quickly. So, starting from scratch which puts all of the products on a level play field, it's pretty clear - Apple and HVX.

I love your book Barry. Thank you.
Jan - Please tell the people at Panasonic how important Apple users are to the HVX.

Given that Apple's FCP don't edit DVCProHD P2 data in "native" mode - but must convert it to Quicktime format (correct me if I am wrong here), and that Canopus EDIUS Broadcast has one of the best integration around, I have a fishy feeling that I am missing the "dark matter of the universe" here. I watched my friend doing his P2 editing on Apple FCP - it does not feel that seemless as my Canopus Edius. I am wondering what I must be missing (if any).

I have also doubts that Panasonic could treat Mac's platform at equal footing to Windows. It is more than software here. There is also hardware integration - and these things have to be engineered with Mac + PC in mind, not just PC. I might have stated it somewhere else, but a pretty good example of this is how the P2Store is engineered. Right now, there is simply NO way to upgrade the firmware of the P2Store using a Mac. It must be done on a PC.

Yup, you are missing Raylight for Mac http://dvfilm.com/raylight/mac which allows you to do exactly that with FCP.

You missed my point TingSern. My point is that the reason that there are so many HVX users who use Apple software is that they are both individually leading the industry. I did not imply that they work together well. That is why my last line was to Jan (Crittenden Livingston) of Panasonic North America to implore the head guys at Panasonic to take note of the connection with HVX200 and FCP and start putting Apple ahead of PC's. Parity with a Windows machine would be ok, but it would be a lot smarter for Panasonic to give us preference. I tried to say that politely, but if you missed it, than others might have missed it too. So I'm glad that you brought it up.

Panasonic, please develop for Apple first, then see what you can do to help out the few people using a PC with the HVX in North America. This is not a statement made of pride arrogance of Apple. (I haven't had that great of an Apple experience personally.) It is good economic advice for Panasonic corporate. By my observations on this forum Panasonic has lost some HVX users to date because they have missed the importance of the apple/HVX demographic. Although I'm not pleased with Apple I would rather buy and learn a new camera, then buy and learn a new computer and programs. I'm sure that others would choose to change their camera over their computer also.

I don't know whether Panasonic is hearing your pleas or not. These decisions are taken at the very high level in the corporate HQ and aren't so easy to reverse in the field.

It might be that Panasonic lacks the Apple software developers? Writing programs for Windows are totally different from that of the Mac OS. The API are different. Also, Windows allows a program to interface to the h/w level at a lower level than the Mac will allow - without having to recourse to writing device drivers. Hence porting codes from Windows to Mac and vice versa is an en devour that few companies are able to do successfully. Adobe is one of those companies - but Adobe is a pure software company.

Panasonic, on the other hand, is essentially a h/w company with little s/w experience. Even if they want to support the Mac first - I don't know whether they can pull it off.

People can be hired. People can be fired. It's a matter of management making a commitment to the project and acquiring the resources to complete the project. If it takes 10 programers to prepare a product for the Apple platform to have a timely release then management should have 10 programers working on it.

I run several business and this is not a programming problem. This is a management issue. I think that I can safely state that there is not the proper team with enough resources in place at Panasonic to properly roll out product to the large demographic of FCP users who own the HVX200.

I'm not writing this to try to embarrass Panasonic, or sling mud. I really do want them to take action to improve the situation.

Well said. But we don't represent Panasonic. We shall see in due course whether they actually want to do anything about this situation then. I think they are trying - their latest P2 data management software is released for both the Mac and PC platform.

Well, they obviously have some very bright and forward thinking people at Panasonic. Let's hope that they made the correction I've discussed a while ago and we are now starting to see the fruit of their labors. Obviously, change of this sort always has a lag time before results are seen as products go through the development stages. Color me optimistic.

Thanks TingSern. I enjoyed our conversation. It was both informative and cathartic.

My pleasure :-))).

Am I being silly or is there no way to export a finished sequence back to a p2 card from final cut pro. Am using the dueladaptor thingy...

I can't confirm that - because I don't have a Mac + FCP anymore. But, I can do that using Canopus (Glass Valley) EDIUS Broadcast. Import from P2 and export back to P2. Maybe it is time folks explore what available on the other side of the valley?

Raylight for Mac will have that capability soon (in a few weeks) and also allow you to put metadata on the recorded clip. There is a screen grab of the prototype on the raylight support blog ( http://raylightsupport.blogspot.com ) In the meantime you can "print to tape" through the FW port and set the camera to record.

For those in FCP, Raylight for the Mac is a fabulous utility, and Marcus continues to improve it.

It probably is the best money you can spend in working the mxf files in any video application on a Mac.

Raylight for Mac 2.0 is out
 

We've released Raylight for Mac 2.0 and it has added
DV and DVCPRO support, more pulldown remove features
and also the P2 Authoring feature which allows you make
P2 Cards from Final Cut Pro. You can try a demo at http://dvfilm.com/raylight/mac

Marcus,

using the dual link express card to pcmcia adaptor for the macbook pro can i export to p2 from final cut pro with this?

Thanks

Phil

Yes, that's correct.

brilliant. just what i needed!!

All this discussion of Avid vs. FinalCut, I have to wonder what the future holds for Adobe given the intense focus and successful implementation of interoperability between all of their flagship applications.

Working directly between After Effects, Photoshop, and PPro is very enticing.

I understand that much of the professional community has thumbed their noses at Premiere, but Adobe is pouring huge resources into getting PPro into the game.

-Brad

PPro has promised a free update soon that will allow native editing of Panny 200 P2 files. I'm waiting to see if it works before purchasing a 200 and upgrading my editing workstation. I'm at a crossroads, would like to stay with PC & PPro because of the way Adobe's suite communicates. There's a lot of potential. We shall see if Adobe can meet expectations/fulfill promises. Right now one can edit P2 using Aspect HD in PPro.