Duel Adapter - yes or no?

B

blando3

Well-known member
I have decided to buy a Mac laptop for editing and for dumping P2 footage in the field. I know the old Powerbooks have a PCMCIA slot, but I hate dealing with dodgy people on craigslist.

What about buying a new Mac Book Pro and using the Duel Adapter? I have heard very mixed things about it. Any thoughts or advice? What's the best route here?

Thanks...
 
its really THE ONLY route if you use a new macbook pro.

i still say that an old 1.5ghz powerbook is the way to go.
 
I was very skeptical on the whole Duel Adapter idea as well... then I bought it. Haven't looked back since. It works great.

Workflow for me as follows:

With MBP turned off, insert the Duel Adapter.

Turn MBP on, insert P2 card (write protected of course) into Duel Adapter. It will pop up on your desktop.

Use P2CMS to capture footage. Select an input device (the P2 card) and select all clips (CMD+A) and right click on one of the clips. Choose export and choose the folder for where you'd like your footage stored. After that, choose "Compare" to insure that the clips are copied correctly. Hit ok and watch your footage copy very quickly to your harddrive.

After your done with that P2 card, just eject the P2 card by dragging it from the desktop to the trash can, then take the P2 card out of the Duel Adapter, insert another card and do it all over again.
 
Duel works for me

Duel works for me

I have a Macbook Pro

The duel adaptor was my only possibility, but it works well.

Just slot the cards in and treat them like any other external drive dragging and dropping files from the P2 cards to an external drive.

I connect external hard drives with firewire 800. The transfer speeds are high enough to enable me to move 32 GB (approx 32 minutes of footage) off the cards in about 20 minutes. Then reformat the card. This means I can hot swap 2 32GB cards and record for hours on end. Inconvenient but a solution otherwise solved only with lots of money for P2 cards.
 
I second the vote for old powerbook. duel adapter and Firestore are both items that have been hit and miss in the forums since they first appeared.

Noah
 
I have found that once the adaptor is removed, the MBP needs to be restarted before the DSA can be used again.

Other than that, Works well.


J
 
Most of our customers buy 2 or 3 of these things and they don't have 2 or 3 laptops. They break fairly easily. I wish there was a better route but there just isn't for the price point. When it's working its fast too.
 
Thumbs up for the Duel Adapter. I have had my first and only one for about a year and a half with no issues, no breakage, no freeze ups, none of the other weirdness that the rest of the world apparently has with the Duel.

Oh and as far as the old PowerBook route, I have one too and the Duel is MUCH faster for transfers, about 3 and a half minutes faster on a 16GB. The PB works but it kind of pokey in comparison.

Dan
 
I use a $300 Acer laptop for dumping. I usually transfer in the internal drive and backup to an external. Then I just log and transfer off the external on my MacPro. Works great.
 
i was very happy with my Duel Adapter till it stopped working. I got second adapter that never worked. Duel customer service, blamed everything on my computer and/or on Panasonics upgraded drivers and had me reinstall the old drivers - which screwed up a bunch of other stuff on my MBP.

I got a PB G4/1.67 and loaded it up with Shotput P2 & P2CMS (for verification playback only- works fine).

I found that the PB was faster than the Adapter/MBP combo - I think because the P2 card is right in the computer and not going through an adapter. I was offloading an 8gb card (apx 6.5gb of data) in just under 5 minutes.

The PB G4 has been rock solid and i'm giving a shout out to Shotput P2 'cause I can walk up to my transfer station, pop in a card and walk away- when I come back I have a clean card ready to go.

I 'won' the PB G4 on ebay for about $550 and the peace of mind has been great.
 
That's interesting, you get the exact opposite speed reading than I get. I own the same PB and the MBP and the Duel. On my two computers, the MBP with the Duel is really quick, yes about 4-5 minutes with an 8GB, while my PG G4 1.67 is about 8-9 minutes. I wonder how we could be getting such differing times using the same computer, adapters and cards?

BTW, 8GB card have 7.23GB of media when full, or at least mine do. After you download a few thousand 8GB cards, you remember that number, it's like the magic number I use so that I can always verify that my 8GB cards are full.

Dan

quicklad said:
i was very happy with my Duel Adapter till it stopped working. I got second adapter that never worked. Duel customer service, blamed everything on my computer and/or on Panasonics upgraded drivers and had me reinstall the old drivers - which screwed up a bunch of other stuff on my MBP.

I got a PB G4/1.67 and loaded it up with Shotput P2 & P2CMS (for verification playback only- works fine).

I found that the PB was faster than the Adapter/MBP combo - I think because the P2 card is right in the computer and not going through an adapter. I was offloading an 8gb card (apx 6.5gb of data) in just under 5 minutes.

The PB G4 has been rock solid and i'm giving a shout out to Shotput P2 'cause I can walk up to my transfer station, pop in a card and walk away- when I come back I have a clean card ready to go.

I 'won' the PB G4 on ebay for about $550 and the peace of mind has been great.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry - I should clarify.

I didn't find the Duel Adapter - MBP vastly slower, just the PB G4 seemed a little faster.

I use OWC's pocket drives which I lend to the client (I have several so I don't need to fret if the gigs are on top of each other) if they don't bring their own - which they usually do. The times I remember for offloading are to my drives.

Not sure why, and I'm sure everyone has no trouble with spanned clips, but I almost always try to switch cards when I get to a minute or two left. I'll keep a card in the other slot which I can thumb in if the need arises - but that's why I only transfer in the mid 6gb range usually.

Good info to know the number though - I can see that you would have that fast verification and notice if something was out of whack.

I'd be perfectly happy if my Adapter worked so I wouldn't need the two laptops. I guess I really only *need* the PB G4, but I really like the MBP!
 
The MBP/duel combo is a lot faster than my PB 1.5ghz until it broke down. The problem with duel is you need to restart the MBP if the duel cable got disconnected from the MBP. While the PB you got no problem connecting/disconnecting the p2 reader. It's slower by about 50% using the PB route.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top