Apple vs Windows laptop for p2

sick boy

sick boy

Well-known member
Hey all,

I have been hurting in my head if I made a possible wrong move. I purchased a powerbook g4 for my p2 dumping needs. I love and have used macs for years and prefer to stick with them. But after reading a decent amount about the issues of dumping, it seems like the g4 has sometimes issues in transfering the fottage, with bus delays and slow transfer rates, meaing long transfer times and common restarts. I am mad since this seems like an issue they would have figured out some way around of by now.

The question is should I have gone with a low end 600 laptop opposed to my g4 powerbook? Has everyone had better luck with pc laptops than mac laptops for p2 dumping?

I would imagine instantly that the laptops are a little better since pana favors the pc based on the lac of support for the mac. I have a mac pro which I do all my editing on, so not have a mac laptop is not that big of a deal. I am more concerned with workflow when dumping and I dont want to have to worry about restarting every 4-5 cards or waiting 20 minutes for a 8gb card, stopping my dp/cameras from doint their jobs.

Thank you all in advance!
 
ps I may have the opportunity to exchange my powerbook g4 at the store for a pc laptop, possibly incurring a 15% restocking fee, which means I get penalized but I would still be saving money and getting the proper tool. I may be able to get out of the 15% thing too since the laptop has been going randomly into sleep mode when I surf the net, and I hear the best solution to this is replacing the motherboard (or I could just complain that I hate macs and never expected this, wanting a windows machine back, obviously a blaten lie).
 
Who is the "they" that should have figured out what?

PC Card bus transfers are about the same on Mac or PC. There are some issues with FW transfers. Most agree that all you need to do is to move the read only tab on the card to get good transfers.

Panasonic has offered firmware upgrades for p2 cards only on PCs. It also has a p2 viewer for PCs. But other than that most of us Mac users favor the easy of operation of Macs.

And for the speediest transfers, a MBP and a duel systems adapter is the fast transfer available. 2.5 minutes for a 4 gb card
 
Thanks david. My current p2 card i got last week, so I hope it has the latest firmware on it. If I have to, I can get to a pc to update it. I have just heard a lot on how people have to restart their powerbook 4 or 5th card. I will have to try the write tab test too, never thought of that.

On that note, while the card is in the drive of my laptop, can I turn off write protection? That is if I dump the footage with write protection on then, with it still in the computer push the button to turn it off to erase the footage, is this possible?

I would of thought the duel adapter can only go as fast as the carbus speed, which i think is something like 650 mbs or so? how is that the due adapter can push the p2 to output faster? or is that the macbook pro has a faster bus which allows the duel adapter to actually run at full speed, none of this "it is rated" stuff. I knoww they claim usb is rated at 480 but rarely achieves these speeds, I feel so deceived.

good then, I can keep my powerbook, I wanted to keep it anyway, its perty.

Thank you again!
 
Depends: you work on a Mac based workflow? If so, than the PC laptop won't do you any good. It may have native pcmia ports on a core2duo laptop, but you can't work on the road and interchange your edit with your Mac desktop. I'm having a problem with my mac since I've been asked to deliver in AVI format, but other than that I'm a happy Powerbook g4 1.67ghz and dual 2.7ghz Powermac g5 owner- Perfect p2 workflow.
 
I've used my Powerbook 1.5gh G4 on quite a few projects to dump my P2 cards, and have not had any issues yet (knock on wood). I also don't switch the card into read only mode either. I love being able to dump my card onto a hard drive then be able to edit in Avid or FCP on the fly if I need to.

Hope this helps,
 
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