Affordable P2 Slot Reader for Macs

Hi David,
Your correct, (I checked) 10/100 .
I have installed a 200Gig HDD in the little Thinkpad, maxed out the Ram to 2gig , loaded Premier 3.1. (for News Compile edits back to P2 cards) OS is XP Pro , and at this stage it does me for in field work. With My 4 8gig and 2 x 32 gig P2 cards, combined with the laptops HDD space, I have sufficient at this point to save most jobs that come my way. ( all up cost $400 approx)
Also have a couple of USB 750gig externals on standy. these are very handy as back ups.
Cheers
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au
 
Thank you for this post Barry. I'm trying to set up my workflow right now and was looking for a PC laptop to Mac desktop option-I think this might be it for me.

Would this workflow allow one to bypass FAT32 files? My original plan was to transfer the footage via a portable external harddrive. But I've read that the files can only be 4 gbs and I have 2 8gb cards-I've read somewhere the the footage will be split into 2 files, not sure if this is the case or not. I've also read that you can only have 15 partitions.

If I don't have to worry about FAT32 then this means I can use any card size right?

Anyways, great post!
 
The P2 cards themselves are FAT32, so the file sizes on the cards will be limited accordingly, regardless of the size of the card.
 
Any third party P2 readers coming to market?

Any third party P2 readers coming to market?

Hi Barry,
Great article. I am on the hunt for a good solution to this workflow problem. Just finished a two camera shoot and we most certainly had issues with the P2 ingesting workflow.

I am curious why there are no third party hardware solutions on the market at this point? P2 is very popular and has a good market penetration. Unless Panasonic is charging ridiculous licensing fees, or is blocking third-party hardware manufacturers from accessing the firmware of the cards, I am surprised there are not more P2 card reader options out there.

Your thoughts?
Thanks again for the interesting perspective in your article.
Matt
 
My apologies for asking but i am a noob and just wanted to clarify;

Shoot your footage until one P2 is full
Pop the P2 card into the windows laptop (in the filed) offload, use P2 card again.
Get back to your Mac, connect Windows to Mac (Mac Pro in my case) via giga-ethernet.
Ingest if needed to the Mac or edit from the laptop (acting like an external hard drive/footage hub)

Id this right?

Thanks :dankk2:
 
I just tried this with my G5 and Powerbook G4, both of which have gigabit ethernet. They connect together just fine, each sees the other's hard drive(s) etc., but the P2 card, which is properly mounted on the PB's desktop, doesn't show up on the G5's list as a connected volume. Only the PB's hard drive.

Anyone know why this might be? It'll make a very convenient P2 transfer setup if I can get it to work.

Thanks
 
Ted Spencer said:
I just tried this with my G5 and Powerbook G4, both of which have gigabit ethernet. They connect together just fine, each sees the other's hard drive(s) etc., but the P2 card, which is properly mounted on the PB's desktop, doesn't show up on the G5's list as a connected volume. Only the PB's hard drive.

Anyone know why this might be? It'll make a very convenient P2 transfer setup if I can get it to work.

Thanks
Click to expand...

What about starting the PB up in firewire mode?

Connect the PB to the tower via firewire, then restart the PB holding down T. after a moment the PB will come up on the Towers desktop like another drive.

Might work :)
 
Barry....Is the laptop still the best and most affordable option ?? Any other options on the horizon yet?? We are buying a new Mac Pro and also want to get the HPX170 as soon as it comes out and I want to make sure.

Actually it seems like the "computer on location" might be the best option anyway...
 
I always want to have a computer on location.

For the Mac Pro, the "best" solution is the PCD20 five-slot FW800 reader. But the laptop is 1/2 to 1/4 the cost and works in the field as well, so the best "budget" solution is the laptop, in my opinion.
 
Hey Barry,

Thinking long term about this and I think a laptop allows you to spend far less on P2 cards. There are these funky new Dell ones I'm sure you've seen, in all sorts of colours. On some of the 15" models, you can pay an additional fee and have the screen resolution be 1900X1200. I didn't think this was possible on such a small monitor but it is. What is your position on having this HD resolution for logging your footage, or would it matter if it was 800X600 or whatever the regular size is?
 
For logging and transferring it doesn't matter. I used to have a 1920x1200 Dell, but it was so big and unwieldly and heavy that it was inconvenient. I've since migrated to a 13" and a 14" and they're much more portable.
 
I bought a Toshiba running Vista (had to) with the PC Card slot, upgraded the RAM to 4 GB. Installed the P2 drivers, checked the box for the P2 slot, put the card in. Upon restart, the computer immediately gives me a blue screen of death. It says "ERROR USB BUGCODE" or some combination of those words. I'll check back later with exact details on the message. After that I got the blue screen whenever I put the card in. Tried calling Panny tech support but I didn't know my product number (I was driving, didn't have the equipment out). I guess this would be a P2 card issue right? I got the screen off of two different cards though.
 
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