If Panasonic Offered A $500 USB2/FW p2 Reader Would You Buy It?

If Panasonic Offered A $500 USB2/FW p2 Reader Would You Buy It?

  • Yes

    Votes: 44 62.0%

  • No

    Votes: 20 28.2%

  • Don't Know

    Votes: 7 9.9%
  • Total voters
    71
Barry_Green said:
Why can't you? It should work. Or are you saying you don't want to have the camera tied up? If so, again -- windows laptop, gigabit ethernet. One or two slots, live, showing up right on the desktop, instant edit, instant access. Under $600. Available now.

(testing will verify if this theory works, but I cannot imagine why it wouldn't)
Click to expand...

In theory it works, however I would like to see a PC laptop coming in at 600.00 that incorporates:

Gigabit Ethernet
Firewire 400/800 On the motherboard or built-in
1 PC Slot (2 Would be ideal)
Post Pentium 4 processor
2 Gigs of Ram (Minimum for this application IMO)

The rest doesn't really matter, those are the core factors that will effect offloading, etc..

I do have an old Dell and while it's not terrible, I can see the differences in using a Macbook + ExpressSlot adapter with a built-in firewire out.

Not challenging anyone, just interested in knowing where that Laptop is and which company offers it at that price.
 
Good show, man. Although there are varying degrees of just fine. One man's rabbit is another man's turtle, so to speak. It'd be nice to get some hard evidence as to what does effect Offload speeds.
 
Kholi said:
In theory it works, however I would like to see a PC laptop coming in at 600.00 that incorporates:

Gigabit Ethernet
Firewire 400/800 On the motherboard or built-in
1 PC Slot (2 Would be ideal)
Post Pentium 4 processor
2 Gigs of Ram (Minimum for this application IMO)
Click to expand...
Okay, first of all, no Windows laptops have FW800. As far as I know, that doesn't exist. Second, for purposes of doing what we're describing here, where does RAM or processor or FW800 even enter into it? We're talking about using it as a dumb offloading device and a live slot for a Mac desktop.

But, to meet your specs, let's go for the Lenovo R61. This system will come in at $648; then use the coupon code USPGREATSAVINGS to save 15% to end up at $551.44.
Intel Pentium Dual Core T2370 processor at 1.73GHz
2GB RAM
PCMCIA slot
ExpressCard slot
80GB SATA hard disk
Gigabit Ethernet
Firewire
Ultrabay - so you can install a second SATA drive internally for the ultimate fastest offloads. Buy your own drives; I put a 320GB drive in mine for $119 I think.

And you're talking about a premium brand Lenovo ThinkPad, not some off-brew system.

If you NEED firewire 800, you could get a cheap firewire 400/800 ExpressCard. Or forget firewire and use that ExpressCard as a second PCMCIA slot by using the Addonics $69 adapter. So now for $700 you'd have a fairly screaming two-hard-disk two-slot super-mega-offloading system, which does double duty as a live two-slot ingest station for your Mac Pro.

(my R61 has firewire 400, I'm assuming this one does as well)
 
Kholi said:
Good show, man. Although there are varying degrees of just fine. One man's rabbit is another man's turtle, so to speak. It'd be nice to get some hard evidence as to what does effect Offload speeds.
Click to expand...
My Lenovo, very similar to the one I just spec'd out, offloads a 16GB card in 8:30.
 
Memory is still needed to run operations and I'm not sure (someone feel free to fill me in on what role memory plays in the scheme) what memory effects in regards to this application. Can anyone say, without a doubt, that 512mb of Memory will see the same results as 2 Gigs of memory?

Processor probably has less to do with the equation than memory does, but can anyone recommend reading on how it effects the process? If it doesn't that's pretty nice and I'm not saying that it does. The processor effects every other operation on a computer, I think it's fair to assume that an outdated processor is going to have some impact on times?

The system you outlined, however, is 2 x as much as what my old dell C640 entails so I'm sure it'd be better than even that. That's all I asked, if there was a system that incorporated all of that for the price.

Edit on live slot for a desktop: That really isn't that easy. Even if you're setup on a network the Windows machine will not speak to the OS X machine and vice-versa as easy as that. You end up using FTP's which slows the process. The way to alleviate that is to use NTFS-3G which will allow OS X to manipulate items on an NTFS partition. I think that would make the laptop stance a more valid one.
 
Great, that's the kinda stuff I wanted to know. PCMCIA > FW400 and the extra slot my 16gb Offload times are 10minutes but I suspect that's due to the laptop bein' half-past-dead to begin with. For a 300.00 laptop that's not bad and I'll continue to use it.

Actually checking and playing back footage however is a no go, it can't even handle the P2 previewer software at more than 4 frames a second. So it really isn't good for much more than an intermediate between PCMCIA and Firewire external.

And just so I'm not misunderstood on the memory: Once you've got too many operations running (see: task manager) the operations page which basically means that instead of using the memory-- it's faster than your moving-parts hard-drive-- the operation switches over to the Hard Drive which sees slower speeds for said operations. I'm not sure how much memory is used by XP to begin with, and then tacking on background operations that you may have running and then finally the actual transfer itself. So to avoid paging you add more memory. It's less a horsepower thing than improved efficiency. Even slower memory in excess can prove to be beneficial to nearly every computing operation. My info might be wrong and I'm always happy to be informed of such! That's why I brought up memory and Firewire400/800 (for external devices. Not sure how many people transfer to internal drives as the capacities in laptops aren't very deep.)
 
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In reading the last dozen posts, it seems that a low cost reader would have saved the exchange of inforamtion in the last dozen posts.

:)
 
Barry_Green said:
Okay, first of all, no Windows laptops have FW800. As far as I know, that doesn't exist.
Click to expand...

This is my single biggest problem with the PC laptop workflow. I recently had to pick up a PC laptop for a big drama i've just started working on as thats what they wanted, and for the life of me all i could find were PCs with USB2. A couple had a 4 pin FW400 connection but no 6 pins.. 4 pin is useless for attaching drives in the field.

I know its the fact that i life down under, but still, why on earth are no PC laptops being built with a 6 pin connection and sold here? im guessing its different in the states?

For now i'll stick with my PB G4. and when that dies. grab a pcd20.
 
Well, the networking solution works; the card appears just as you please on the Mac desktop; we were getting pretty good speed results from my scandalously slow 100 mbps eternet port. Barry will report back later with results using his gigabit port. Looks like the ability to use the XP laptop as a full-service solution is a go.

Barry will be back with more details.
 
Nice. Details on how you did that plus pictures. How is it showing up on the desktop or is it really reading it off as just another drive?

I had a whole lotta trouble doing it and just went on over to NTFS-3G but that might be because my desktop isn't a real Mac. Hmm
 
David S. said:
In reading the last dozen posts, it seems that a low cost reader would have saved the exchange of inforamtion in the last dozen posts.

:)
Click to expand...
It's easier to curse the darkness than it is to light a candle.

And it's easier to put on slippers, than it is to carpet the whole world.

Yes, if we had that device, this whole discussion wouldn't have happened. And if we had jetpacks, traffic jams wouldn't exist either. But neither of those exist. I prefer solutions that actually exist and can be implemented and get people up and working, rather than beating dead horses about products that do not exist and will not exist.

So, if you want a working solution, at your price point, we've got one. If you want a mythical product that doesn't exist -- well, I'm sure we can find a stick to beat the dead horse some more with. :thumbsup:
 
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I want the mythical product that doesn't exist.

How much is it, and can I get it FedEx overnight?

:)

And does it come with a fresnel?

:)
 
I don't think there's anything wrong with hashing these sorts of things out in public. After all, it costs nothing per thread to just talk. And if a manufacturer comes across this thread and realizes the potential and makes a product as a result- so much the better. There's really no downside other than maybe it's a little annoying for some folks but then again that happens on the internet... :bath:

Noah
 
Barry_Green said:
I shall paraphrase the famous quotation: Buy the best, and you only cry once. Instead of every time you run into frustrations from refusing to just choke it down, buy the darned thing, and get on with life. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, yes! I know. As I said. But the issue is, there're usually twenty or thirty things that I could potentially buy to ease various frustrations, and there're some threshold issues, no? I just (a month ago) bit the bullet on a 744t, which makes a much bigger difference in my life than the P2 reader would... so i have to simmer a bit, or find a cheaper 3-card reader.

I'm just voicing here for myself and whatever others are interested in a cheap, easy product dedicated to getting 2-3 P2 cards online at once, rather than an offload solution. As you've made clear, reasonable offload solutions are available. I'd definitely go with a laptop for that, mainly for the ability to review footage, redundantly back up, use for direct capture if necessary, etc... but I'd love a simple small bus-powered multi-card reader - for around $500-$700.
 
Okay, it's been tested and verified. We plugged my Lenovo into an iMac through Gigabit Ethernet. Told the PCMCIA slot to act as a "shared drive". The result?

It's as if the iMac had its own P2 slot. It was awesome. A full 4GB card offloaded to the iMac in 2:05, which is about as fast as if I copied it to the laptop's internal hard drive. P2CMS works fine with it, you can view full-screen full-res 1080p footage right from the card. FCP works fine with it. We tested FCP 5.1.4, and file->import->Panasonic P2 worked great. All this, mind you, is running off the card in the slot in the Windows laptop.

Then, for fun, we decided to see how many streams of realtime HD we could play off the card directly. Since we had P2CMS installed, that meant the MXF import component was installed, so we dragged MXF files directly to the timeline (no audio) to play 'em. We tested with 1080/24pA footage -- no wimpy little 720p here... One stream, no problem. Two streams, well, how do you know you've got two streams? We solved that by setting the opacity on the second stream to 50%. So, yeah, two streams, no problem. Three? Yep, three streams, realtime, it works. How 'bout four? Yep, four streams. Five? Sure, we dragged a fifth stream over, so now we had a 1080/24P project and a stack of five 1080/24pA files, and four of them had 50% opacity applied. Did it work? Sure did, five streams of 1080P HD playing straight off the card. Six? Well, no, that one didn't work. We tried a sixth stream and the timeline turned red and it said it had to render.

So, there you have it -- the absolute ultimate solution for a desktop reader for a Mac. If you've got a gigabit ethernet port on your Mac, run (don't walk) to get a Lenovo R61 or other ~$500 Windows laptop, and you too can have direct editing from the card right on your desktop -- and you never have to see the Duel Adapter again! I think I'm going to turn this into an article in the articles section for future reference.
 
OK... now we just need to test a 2-3 cardsolution... anything out there for close to the same price with 2 cardbus slots and an expresscard for the duel? That someone has and can test? That would make me a happy camper...
 
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