P2 Formatter Software

[OversteerProductions]

I work in post and do not have access to a camera. I have a lot of P2 cards that need to go back out in the field but I can't get the P2 Formatter software to recognize the card I have loaded in the P2 reader to get reformatted. The software is unbelievably simple, yet I can't find anything that says "load card" etc.. Anyone have any insight as to why this isn't working? I have a Snow Leopard mac and am using the AJ-PCD20 card reader.

Thanks,
Kyle

[Stephenh]

Hi OversteerProductions,

I havn't personally used one of these but I work on macs. What type of mac have you got it connected to and how. If you go the the Apple Menu/About This Mac and click on More Info in the Dialog Window, can you see the hardware under the particular hardware device. Might sound obvious but are the correct drivers/if needed installed. When you insert the P2 card in the slot, it should just mount on your desktop as a drive (like a external firewire HDD or USB Thumb Drive.I have a feeling that it may be related to Snow Leopard compatiability only and may be fine with an earlier version of Leapard.

[puredrifting]

How are you reading the card? With the camera or Duel Adapter or ?

[Stephenh]

I believe he is pluging it into the Panasonic 5 slot AJ-PCD20 which I assume is connected by firewire. I could be wrong but his post suggests that the AJ-PCD20 is not being recognised by Snow Leopard.

Steve.

[Phenixone]

Yeah ... Sno is a no go (I could make a rap song out of it)

Do you even see the card mounted on the desktop and if yes does it appears in P2CMS (you can actually erase a card through P2CMS)

[Jim_Behl]

Make sure you have the latest AJ-PCD 20 installed. I noticed the same thing until I installed the software. The P2CMS and P2 drivers are not enough.

[OversteerProductions]

Thank you for your responses. I am connecting to the imac via USB 2.0 (the imac only has one FW800 port which is being used by the drive I store the P2 media on). I am able to mount, see the card in P2CMS and transfer the card just fine. The problem I am having is using the Formatter software that comes with the P2CMS to delete the cards and send them back out in the field.

Jim- When I get back to work on Monday, should I be looking for a driver off the Panasonic website or something that came in the AJPCD20 box? I don't know where my company got the card reader from but when they gave it to me I didn't get anything with it.


Phenixone- I'll look in the P2CMS to see if I can delete the cards that way. Thanks again.

[Stephenh]

I don't think you can reformat through the P2CMS software on a Mac. I think windows has an option that may allow it. The only way on a mac is with the Formatter software. Make sure you have the latest version the the software + drivers (if any for your device) + firmware update if any for the AJ-PCD20. It would be worth a short to try to test it on a firewire port as macs sometimes are natively better with F/W. If the mac recognises the device when you insert a card, it will mount on the desktop. If you can't get to that stage the Formatter software will not work.

Steve.

[puredrifting]

I wish that I could try it for you. I use Formatter on my MBP but only with Leopard, I will probbly never update to Snow because of all of the other apps I use that will be broken with Snow.

Dan