P2toMXF

A native macOS app that merges Panasonic P2 card clips into self-contained MXF or MOV files — without re-encoding.

The Problem

Panasonic P2 cameras (AJ-PX5000G, AJ-HPX, VariCam LT, etc.) record in MXF OP-Atom — video and each audio channel are separate files:

CONTENTS/
├── VIDEO/
│   └── 0001AB.MXF        ← video only (AVC-Intra)
└── AUDIO/
    ├── 0001AB00.MXF      ← audio channel 1
    ├── 0001AB01.MXF      ← audio channel 2
    ├── 0001AB02.MXF      ← audio channel 3
    └── 0001AB03.MXF      ← audio channel 4

Most NLEs handle this fine. But MAM systems, archive workflows, and delivery specs often require a single self-contained file (MXF OP1a or MOV).

FFmpeg can't do this for P2 AVC-Intra — it chokes on Panasonic's proprietary frame padding:

[mxf @ ...] track 0: frame size does not match index unit size, 568320 != 568832

P2toMXF solves this using the BMX toolkit (BBC) which has Panasonic-specific lookup tables, then chains to FFmpeg for concatenation. The result is bit-for-bit identical video and audio — only the container changes.

Screenshots

Screenshots coming soon

Features

• Merge & Concatenate — Combine multiple clips into a single output file
• Individual Export — Rewrap each clip to its own self-contained file
• Batch Queue — Queue multiple jobs, process sequentially
• Multi-Card Loading — Load all P2 cards from a parent folder at once (Cmd+O)
• Output Verification — Quick or full decode tests on converted files
• Timecode Preservation — Original P2 timecodes carried through
• Audio Remapping — All channels, stereo mix, or mono
• Time Estimation — Learns from past conversions for accurate ETAs
• Sleep Prevention — Keeps Mac awake during long batch runs

Output	Container	Typical Use
MXF OP1a	.mxf	Broadcast, MAM, archive
QuickTime	.mov	NLE editing, general delivery

Installation

1. Download the latest DMG from Releases
2. Open the DMG and drag P2toMXF to Applications
3. On first launch, right-click > Open (macOS Gatekeeper)

Requirements: macOS 14.0+ (Sonoma), Apple Silicon (arm64)

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/Xpycode/P2toMXF.git
cd P2toMXF
open 01_Project/P2toMXF.xcodeproj

Build with Xcode 16+ (Cmd+B). All dependencies (FFmpeg, BMX) are bundled in the project.

Usage

1. Load a P2 Card — Cmd+O or click "Load P2 Card". Select a card or a folder containing multiple cards.
2. Select Clips — Click clips to select, or use Select All. Clips are grouped by recording span.
3. Choose Settings — Output format (MXF/MOV), mode (Merge/Individual), audio mapping
4. Set Output — Choose destination folder and filename
5. Convert — "Convert Now" for immediate processing, or "Add to Queue" for batch

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+O	Open P2 card picker
Cmd+A	Select all clips

How It Works

P2 Card (OP-Atom)    BMX              FFmpeg
┌─────────────┐   ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐
│ VIDEO/*.MXF │──▶│bmxtrans- │───▶│ concat   │───▶ Final
│ AUDIO/*.MXF │   │wrap -t   │OP1a│ demuxer  │     MXF/MOV
└─────────────┘   │op1a      │    └──────────┘
                  └──────────┘

1. BMX rewraps each P2 clip (1 video + 4 audio files) into a single OP1a MXF
2. FFmpeg concatenates the OP1a MXFs into the final output (stream copy, no re-encoding)

All operations are stream copy — no transcoding. Typical throughput:

Operation	Speed
BMX rewrap	~30x realtime
FFmpeg concat	~60x realtime
16 clips merged	~1-2 minutes

Bundled Tools

Everything runs self-contained — no Homebrew, no PATH setup:

Tool	Version	Purpose
FFmpeg	8.0.1	Concatenation, verification, thumbnails
bmxtranswrap	1.2	OP-Atom to OP1a rewrapping
mxf2raw	1.2	MXF inspection

Project Structure

01_Project/P2toMXF/
├── P2toMXFApp.swift                      # App entry point
├── ContentView.swift                     # Main three-column layout
├── ConversionViewModel.swift             # Core state
├── ConversionViewModel+CardManagement.swift
├── ConversionViewModel+Conversion.swift
├── ConversionViewModel+RecordGroups.swift
├── Models/
│   ├── P2Clip.swift                      # P2 card/clip data models
│   ├── ConversionJob.swift               # Queue job model
│   ├── ProgressModels.swift              # Metrics, estimates
│   └── VerificationModels.swift
├── Services/
│   ├── P2CardParser.swift                # P2 XML metadata parsing
│   ├── FFmpegWrapper.swift               # FFmpeg process management
│   ├── FFmpegWrapper+Conversion.swift    # Rewrap and merge logic
│   ├── FFmpegWrapper+Thumbnails.swift    # Frame extraction
│   ├── BMXWrapper.swift                  # BMX toolkit wrapper
│   ├── QueueManager.swift                # Job queue + persistence
│   ├── QueueManager+Processing.swift
│   ├── QueueManager+Operations.swift
│   ├── QueueManager+Verification.swift
│   ├── VerificationService.swift         # Decode verification
│   ├── SpeedTracker.swift                # Historical speed data
│   └── ThumbnailManager.swift            # Async thumbnail cache
├── Views/                                # SwiftUI views
└── Resources/
    ├── ffmpeg, bmxtranswrap, mxf2raw     # Bundled binaries
    └── lib/                              # BMX dylibs

Building BMX from Source

Only needed if you want to update the bundled BMX version:

brew install cmake uriparser expat
git clone https://github.com/bbc/bmx.git
cd bmx && mkdir -p out/build && cd out/build
export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/expat;/opt/homebrew/opt/uriparser"
cmake ../../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build . -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

See CLAUDE.md for library bundling and code signing details.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Third-Party Licenses

• FFmpeg — LGPL/GPL (ffmpeg.org)
• BMX — BSD 3-Clause (github.com/bbc/bmx)

Contributing

Contributions welcome. See CLAUDE.md for architecture documentation.

Acknowledgments

• BBC BMX Project — the MXF toolkit that makes this possible
• FFmpeg — multimedia Swiss Army knife
• App icon by NanoBanana