to duel or not to duel

[valladao65]

I was out on a shoot today and my duel adapter decided that today was a good day to die.

I have always hated how the thing is designed, but its always done the job. I especially don't like the way it hangs off your laptop in the field when you get in tight spaces and dont have a desk to sit it on right next to your laptop. I am surprised its lasted as long as it has - so props for that much to the Duel Adapters gang.

So anyway...

Do y'all think buying a new adapter makes sense, or any thoughts on just buying a cheap laptop with a built-in PCMCIA slot?

A slightly older laptop is fairly cheap these days, and I dont need the laptop for anything but transferring footage. I lug around a big ol' Dell E1705 (17incher) as it is now, so maybe it makes sense to just buy a cheap-o smaller one.

The new Panasonic adapter is $350 and I can get a whole new laptop for that.

I'd love to hear the pearls of wisdom this site so often spews forth...

Thanks,
Mike

[wgzn]

my old powerbook G4 works great for P2 transfer. the only drag is it only has usb1.0 (as opposed to the MUCH faster 2.0) so if a client brings me a usb drive, its painfully slow.

so what i generally do is:
1. just transfer everything to the internal drive then dump it to all firewire drive back at the studio
2. bring my own firewire drive to hand off to clients.

[Barry_Green]

There's the new Panasonic PCD2 single-slot USB reader...

[Rob]

There's the new Panasonic PCD2 single-slot USB reader...

Barry,

How much longer before we see it ?

[Gary Huff]

Get a Lenovo R500 along with an ExpressCard eSATA or FireWire 800 adapter and then a copy of Mac Drive.

You'll never be the same!

[Barry_Green]

Barry,

How much longer before we see it ?

I don't know -- I thought the new press release said it was "available immediately" so I would expect it to be in stock very soon.

[Paul Hudson]

I use an older Powerbook and a Duel with equal success. I understand many people have problems with Duel but mine has always worked flawlessly. I must be living right.

[valladao65]

I just noticed the Addonics adapter is only $60 and works just as well in my PC world...

It seems this would also solve the issues presented by having the Duel adapter hanging off the side of the laptop, I think I'll go the Addonics route this time!

Thanks for your thoughts y'all.

Mike

[Barry_Green]

Addonics will not work on Apple hardware.

[David Saraceno]

Barry:

There is some conflicting info about pricing over a the NAB2010 feed.

Is it $250 or $350?