download P2 card

Cees Mutsaers

Cees Mutsaers

Veteran
Am I right in my assumption that it is not possible to download the footage of a P2 card from camera to a HDD via firewire 800? Only USB right?
 
Other solutions...

Other solutions...

What other (pricey) solutions are there to get the footage to the computer?
Is there anything like a low-cost P2-card reader?
 
I just did a drama shoot where we shot over 300gb of material the P2 workflow is superb and we did it with four 32gb cards.

Each evening I set the camera to dump the daily rushes to a cheap £30 160gb USB drive, I did this whilst unwinding at the pub with a couple of pints.

One this was done I re-named the cards on the 160gb drive for that day (i.e. DAY1-1 DAY1-2)

I then transfered the rushes to a 500 gb firewire 800 drive hooked up to a macbook pro via final cut version 7 log and transfer, we were shooting AVC Intra 100 1920x1080i 25np so I imported to pro res natively. This was very quick and each days rushes then went in a bin for the day.

We never shot more that two 32gb cards worth each day and in total there were 460 shots loaded. I now have the two back-up 160gb clone drives and the client has the 500gb programme edit drive for viewing and the on-line edit in SPain Jan 2010.

The workflow was seamless and a joy to use and I have the confidence that all my material is in two places, I will actually dump the rushes from the USB drives to my own edit raid array so that I also have the pro res files to view.

As this has been such a rock steady workflow I am now confident that I could commit more media to the back-up drives so I am going to get some 320gb USB/Firewire drives to add to the two 160gb USB ones.
 
casino83 said:
What other (pricey) solutions are there to get the footage to the computer?
Is there anything like a low-cost P2-card reader?
Click to expand...

Hi, i bought a renewed older Notebook with PCMCIA-Slot and Firewire-connector.
Thats very cool, i can download the footage while shooting if necessary. Without adapters or something. And i can copy it twice, first to a firewire HD, then from the first HD to an also connected USB 2.0 HD.
The Notebook was around 250 €...
Then you simply can connect one of the drives to your Base-Workstation for direct editing or copying.
 
Yes stupid of me :-) I just recognized the flat UCB connector because the other type of USB connector I have never seen before and assumed it was a firewire connector. So I use the USB host connector (the flat one) to dump the footage from the P2 card to the HDD. So what is the use of the other one next to it? To upload from the HDD back to the camera again (is life so simple ?) :-)


Barry_Green said:
Especially since the HPX300 doesn't even have firewire 800...
Click to expand...
 
casino83 said:
What other (pricey) solutions are there to get the footage to the computer?
Is there anything like a low-cost P2-card reader?
Click to expand...
In ascending order of cost:
You can use the camera as a P2 card reader, through USB (or, on the older cameras, through firewire). (free)

You can plug the P2 card directly into any laptop that has a PCMCIA card slot. (free)

You can use a $25 PCMCIA-to-expresscard adapter for Windows laptops that have expresscard slots.

You can plug the P2 card into a $100 PCI-PCMCIA slot adapter for a Windows desktop.

You can use the $119 Duel Adapter for Windows or Mac laptops with expresscard slots.

You will soon be able to get the Sonnet QIO, a $995 multi-slot reader.

You can get a used P2 Store for probably $1000, it has a slot that connects to computers via USB.

You can get a used PCD10 or a new PCD20 or a PCD35, five-slot reader, for desktops or laptops.

Or you can use one of the P2 field workflow tools, the HPG10, HPG20, HPM100, HPM110, etc.
 
Isn't panasonic also preparing a dual adaptor.

I can remember reading a thread here that the Duel adapter did not work very good on an Apple (driver or SL problem I can't remember) or is this solve already?

Bye the way what is the reason that the HPX300 has no FW800 connection? Isn't it not handy for faster dowload from the cam to the HDD?


Barry_Green said:
In ascending order of cost:
You can use the camera as a P2 card reader, through USB (or, on the older cameras, through firewire). (free)

You can plug the P2 card directly into any laptop that has a PCMCIA card slot. (free)

You can use a $25 PCMCIA-to-expresscard adapter for Windows laptops that have expresscard slots.

You can plug the P2 card into a $100 PCI-PCMCIA slot adapter for a Windows desktop.

You can use the $119 Duel Adapter for Windows or Mac laptops with expresscard slots.

You will soon be able to get the Sonnet QIO, a $995 multi-slot reader.

You can get a used P2 Store for probably $1000, it has a slot that connects to computers via USB.

You can get a used PCD10 or a new PCD20 or a PCD35, five-slot reader, for desktops or laptops.

Or you can use one of the P2 field workflow tools, the HPG10, HPG20, HPM100, HPM110, etc.
Click to expand...
 
Panasonic has said that they will be introducing a single-slot reader. We know nothing about it, we don't know when it will come out, what it will connect to, or what it will cost.

And no Panasonic camera has FW800. No camera in existence has FW800, as far as I know. Firewire on cameras has always only ever been FW400.
 
Is there a particular reason for it why there is no FW800, I just try to learn and understand why somethings are like they are (no offence intended). Wouldn't it benefit transfer from P2 to HDD or is the HDD the speed limiting factor?

Regarding the single-slot reader we just wait and see :-)


Barry_Green said:
Panasonic has said that they will be introducing a single-slot reader. We know nothing about it, we don't know when it will come out, what it will connect to, or what it will cost.

And no Panasonic camera has FW800. No camera in existence has FW800, as far as I know. Firewire on cameras has always only ever been FW400.
Click to expand...
 
What is FW800 used on? Some Macs, I guess most Mac laptops now. No Windows computer has ever shipped with FW800 as far as I know. It just isn't a standard. I mean, it's THERE, you could use it if you want, but with 90% of the world's computers being Windows, and Windows only using FW800 as an aftermarket add-on... why bother?

With that said, you could get a PCD20, it has an FW800 port on it.

And yes, the HDD speed is the limiting factor. FW800 could get you a little bit more maybe, but not much of anything. Now, if you were going to a two-drive (or 3-drive or more) RAID, then yes, FW800 is much much better than FW400 or USB for that. But PCI-e and SATA are better still.

So if you want FW800 transfers, the PCD20 can do that. The cameras are all USB and FW400. The PCD35 uses PCI Express and is the fastest possible, supporting five cards simultaneously and a full 1.2gbps transfer rate.
 
Barry_Green said:
You can use the camera as a P2 card reader, through USB (or, on the older cameras, through firewire). (free)

You can plug the P2 card into a $100 PCI-PCMCIA slot adapter for a Windows desktop.
Click to expand...

The firewire can be used if you shoot in DV mode - then you simply play the footage out thru the firewire into a DV deck in real time. I haven't tried to shoot in DVCPro-25 mode and play that out to a DVCAM deck via firewire - anybody know if that will work?

I have one of those $100 PCI slot adapters, but it doesn't work with Windows computers that have a 64 bit operating system, unless someone knows of a recent update on that. (I have Vista Business 64)
 
The firewire works in every mode. A DVCAM deck won't read a DVCPRO stream, but a DVCPRO deck would. And a DVCPRO-HD deck would read the DVCPRO-HD data stream, etc.
 
Barry_Green said:
In ascending order of cost:
You can use the camera as a P2 card reader, through USB (or, on the older cameras, through firewire). (free)

You can plug the P2 card directly into any laptop that has a PCMCIA card slot. (free)

You can use a $25 PCMCIA-to-expresscard adapter for Windows laptops that have expresscard slots.

You can plug the P2 card into a $100 PCI-PCMCIA slot adapter for a Windows desktop.

You can use the $119 Duel Adapter for Windows or Mac laptops with expresscard slots.

You will soon be able to get the Sonnet QIO, a $995 multi-slot reader.

You can get a used P2 Store for probably $1000, it has a slot that connects to computers via USB.

You can get a used PCD10 or a new PCD20 or a PCD35, five-slot reader, for desktops or laptops.

Or you can use one of the P2 field workflow tools, the HPG10, HPG20, HPM100, HPM110, etc.
Click to expand...
Hi, first time post. I realize this is an old discussion, but I am seeking a solution to the same problem. I have a laptop with pc bus and a dual adaptor which works fine for downloading p2 footage in the field. I cannot find equivalent for desktop (the edit system).

usb is slow and ties up the camera, networking from laptop to desktop is slow.

I've had a lot of difficulty finding readers for the desktop.

First I tried

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/552375-REG/Actiontec_PC750WB_PCI_Dual_Slot_PCMCIA_Card.html

the card wouldn't even fit in the slot (it was keyed differently).

Then I tried

http://www.psism.com/pce10.htm

This one will not recognize anything plugged into it. Been round with manufacturer's tech support, no answers, giving up and returning it. Drivers, power, connections, everything seems right.Thank

Does anyone know of a device that will install into my desktop and read either the P2 card directly or the dual adaptor?

Thanks much for any advice.

Scott

Core Microsystems PC
Axio LE
Dual quad core Xeon
20GB RAM
NVidia GEForce 8800
Win Vista Ultimate 64bit SP2
Adobe Creative Suite CS4 4.1 (Premiere version 4.1.0)
Matrox Utilties 4.0.0.343
All drivers up to date, all windows updates installed
 
I have the same problem - the reason it doesn't work is Vista 64... they don't work with 64 bit Windows (at least as far as I can tell - someone correct me if they've solved it.)
 
Firewire 800 is backwards compatible - with a simple adapter cable you can connect a FW400 device to a FW800 device and it'll work fine (at 400mbps).

So you can plug a P2 camera (with FW400) into a computer's FW800 port just fine.

- Mikko
 
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