Laptops with PCMCIA slots

I got the Toughbook CF-W5 from panasonic. It has one cardbus typeII slot. The battery last's more then six hours(i mean in reality not just stats), it's so light it's funny. +it can handle quiet a dose of punishment.

I just went to the panasonic website and it seems the replacement is the Toughbook-W7.

Btw i got mine refurbished, that way it was more affordable, otherwise they are a bit expensive.
 
Here's a recipe for the best Mac P2 card reader:

Apple PowerBooks are finally becoming inexpensive. Picked up a PCMCIA slot PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz for $350 on craigslist. If you're more comfortable with Macs the later 15" PowerBooks work well, they feature the PCMCIA slot (good riddance, Duel!) and importantly, FireWire 800 for fast copying to external drives. That's my main complaint with the Windows solutions- USB copying, yuck!

The PowerBook era laptops use the older style IDE drives so the WD 5400 RPM 250 Gb is the largest available replacement. $99 @ OWC at the moment. I've researched this and the biggest baddest IDE 2.5 drive is this one:
250.0GB Western Digital "Scorpio" 5400RPM 9.5MM SuperSlim IDE/ATA Notebook Drive with 8MB Data buffer.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD2500BEVE/

A company called MCE makes a cool second internal drive option for PowerBooks and MacBook Pro's- for $99 you get a fitted bay that replaces the internal DVD drive and allows a second internal hard drive. You can have a redundant backup inside your laptop as well as a scratch disk. Very cool. They offer a USB external DVD drive if you need it, but as a card reader I think the 2 internal drive PowerBook with the built in PCMCIA slot makes the coolest P2 reader on the Mac side. I have not yet used one of these but reports are that it works well- I plan to try it.

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/...4&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY&Product_Count=4

Of course with Macs when you get home you can connect to the desktop Mac using FireWire 800 for fast transfers from the PowerBook, so the transfer speed is better and more robust than what most PC solutions can offer. Works for me!
 
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i must be an idiot, but what is the reason why you can't use the firewire cable coming out of the back of the camera to offload?
 
bigjohn said:
i must be an idiot, but what is the reason why you can't use the firewire cable coming out of the back of the camera to offload?
Click to expand...

There are many times when this might be impractical. For example, when you still need to continue shooting with the camera.

- Mikko
 
min requirements for laptop for P2 transfer.

min requirements for laptop for P2 transfer.

Hi Guy's,
Would like to know your thoughts on min system requirements for laptop to allow P2 transfer in the field. I make fishing related DVD's and some of the places I fish are fairly remote. ( next location Papua New Guinea).
I am just in the process of upgrading all my equipemnt from my DVX100 to a new HPX172 (Pal) including my laptops.
I have a new Toshiba G50-402 for a desk top replacement but is a little heavy 4.9kgs with its 18.4 inch screen.
Looking for something portable/robust plus a rugged external hardrive (Lacie rugged?)
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
regards
from Ozfish
Western Australia
 
I have a Sony VGN-SZ750N,
and it has been the bet laptop to date for all around use.
It can take the P2 cards and is very light and made of carbon fiber and aluminum.

My sony pulled it off 4 foot high table by the power cord, and it suffered no cosmetic or other damage.

It also comes with dedicated video memory which is good for magic bullet effects editing.

There is a Gateway NX860 XL laptop on ebay that has a 1080p screen and p2 card reader if you like the larger 17 inch screens
 
fruit anyone?

fruit anyone?

I got myself a Dell Precision M60. It's not the freshest apple in the bunch, but it can be found for a peach of a deal at about $300, has a cherry of a screen(1920x1200), and can run the most pomegranate(OK I'm running out of fruits) of editing applications(I'm running CS3, albeit not as quickly as many).

For the person on a budget I think it's one heck of a cranberry.
 
Small laptop with PCMCIA slot that can run P2 viewer

Small laptop with PCMCIA slot that can run P2 viewer

Hello

Great list! Very useful, but I am not sure most of these smaller laptops can playback HD with the P2 viewer software???

I tried both the Fujitsu P7230 lifebook and the Lenovo X61s at a store and nether seem to like playing back video?
I tried to play some MPEG and Quicktime compressed video clips without using P2 and it was slow and choppy playback on both laptops?

Any suggestions? Feedback? Anyone use the X61s or Fujitsu to view P2 HD footage?

Thanks
 
Just to clarify. We need a small and light laptop for transfer and viewing of P2 footage when we travel to remote areas.
Since we usually have to carry our own gear without a car, size and weight is a major concern.
The Lenovo T61p 16" is just too heavy and big to lug around in the middle of nowhere...
 
Looking for a laptop only for P2 offloading. I'd like to have 2 Pcmcia and a firewire 800 slot, but I can't seem to find any PC laptops with firewire 800 (ideally it would have 2 firewire 800 ports, but 1 will do). If I can't find this I think the best option is to find a laptop with a pcmcia slot and an expresscard slot, this way I can load the P2 directly into the pcmcia slot and get a firewire 800 or even esata adapter for the expresscard, and if I really need it, I can load in two cards by plugging in the duel adapter.

I checked some of the laptops that were originally suggested with these specs, but many have been discontinued. Any tips on something that would suit my needs at a decent price point that's available?
 
So HP tells me that the HP Pavilion dv5t seris will work- has the card slot,etc. but when I look at the specs it says "
PC Card Slot 1 ExpressCard/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)"
so I guess they are wrong -suprise!suprise!suprise!
But being as I have saved and saved to just now be able to get the hvx200a (ordering thursday- yeah!!!) and of course things are tight, and I have the ability to wait while it downloads- no need to run and gun-

do you think that the stand alone hard disk drive with the firewire connected to the hvx would work okay (any approx. download times??) - the idea is to download to the HDD and take it back to the big computer (desktop that I already own) to edit

"The AG-HVX200A offers a host function. Insert a P2 card in the card
slot, and data can be transferred to an external Hard Disk Drive​
(AC Power Supply needed) via the IEEE 1394 port."

Also once I save enough $$$ to get a new laptop, how are the expresscard to PCMIA adapters working- I read somewhere that they have some issues and you should always carry a spare- any truth??

Thanks so much!
 
If you want to use a stand alone Hard Disk to download from the HVX you need a self powered Hard Disk.

We use Nexto portable Hard Disk to download in the field. They are durable and have USB and Firewire. Works great. 16G card download in 10minutes, and if you varify the download its about 15min http://www.nextodi.com/en/
 
Noah said:
Looking for a laptop only for P2 offloading. I'd like to have 2 Pcmcia and a firewire 800 slot, but I can't seem to find any PC laptops with firewire 800 (ideally it would have 2 firewire 800 ports, but 1 will do). If I can't find this I think the best option is to find a laptop with a pcmcia slot and an expresscard slot, this way I can load the P2 directly into the pcmcia slot and get a firewire 800 or even esata adapter for the expresscard, and if I really need it, I can load in two cards by plugging in the duel adapter.

I checked some of the laptops that were originally suggested with these specs, but many have been discontinued. Any tips on something that would suit my needs at a decent price point that's available?
Click to expand...

No one had any advise for me so I dropped $1000 on a new 12' Lenovo X61 with a 2.1Ghz and 160G HD.

Works great! Has a PCMCIA slot, 1394 Firewire port, 3 USB and it weighs only 3 LBS!!!!
Weighs less then a Mac book and it even runs Premiere and edits HD!
 
newsbykko said:
If you want to use a stand alone Hard Disk to download from the HVX you need a self powered Hard Disk.

We use Nexto portable Hard Disk to download in the field. They are durable and have USB and Firewire. Works great. 16G card download in 10minutes, and if you varify the download its about 15min http://www.nextodi.com/en/
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, can I offload the mxf files from the HPX170 to a hard drive like this? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/558882-REG/LaCie_301371_500GB_Rugged_All_Terrain_Triple.html

A Hard Drive like that powers itself through the firewire port when connected to a computer. Does the HPX/HVX camera have enough power to make that kind of transfer or do you need something that has to be plugged in? Can it be just a regular external drive?
 
Ok, I've got a bit of a challenge for everyone.....does anyone know of a laptop with atleast one PCMCIA slot that comes with FW800, ESATA, and uses the latest memory tech., i.e. DDR3(for the system memory, not the graphics).

I wait a few years to purchase equipment, and I wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for the good deals, as I realize if their is anything like this that it most likely will be one of two or 3 models that sports all these goodies....if any do, lol.

I currently am happy with my hardware, but once these technologies hit the sub $500 arena I'll be jumpin all over it like crabs at a frathouse.
 
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