Duel adapter and snow leopard not yet compatible

Wow, bleep me away!!!

This is killing my workflow, not that the adapter works now, but this is ridiculous. And the last sentence, thank you for contacting the DuelAdapter email support. Support this ***!
 
I received the following response from Duel systems today:

"The DuelAdapter is no longer supported under the 10.6 Snow Leopard Operating System. Apple has excluded key features to make our drivers functional, please feel free to contact Apple if you have any complaints or questions based on their decision to stop their DuelDriver support.

Thank you for contacting the DuelAdapter email support.
Ryan "

I have an older MBP 2.33 C2D machine with a copy of 10.6 sitting on the desk. A very,very frustrating quandry. My choices as i see them are:

• don't upgrade to Snow Leopard
• drop the coin for a Panasonic solution, which will be a chunk of change either way you slice it.
• go back to off loading from the camera- which is not really an option anyway ;-( .

Any one else in this predicament ?

Grrrr.... waaah !
 
I guess until I come up with a new way of offloading P2 cards in the field, I will install a copy of Leopard on a bus-powered firewire drive and start up from that copy whenever I need to offload footage. That leaves Snow Leopard as the main operating system on my MBP--I don't want to downgrade from that because of the new way Snow Leopard handles gamma and the problems that hopefully will resolve. It is a pretty simple workaround, but it certainly does not do away with my irritation at Duel's refusal to support its product.
 
Duel does work

Duel does work

The Duel adapter actually does work, at least in my Macbook Pro when it was running Snow Leopard. The problem is Panasonic. Panasonic has not updated its driver as of yet, although they claim to be working on it. As with Leopard, you needed to install a P2 driver(from Panasonic) to see your P2 card on your desktop. My recommendation to anyone who cares for it, is to bombard Panasonic PASS support with email requests for an updated P2 driver, specifically for the Express slot on your laptops. Again, this really has nothing to do with Apple OR Duel. It is all Panasonic's lack of a Snow Leopard P2 driver software for the Express slot bus.
 
i think we are all getting worked up for the sake of getting worked up. there are several affordable P2 offload options:
- dont upgrade to snow
- use an old powerbook
- use a cheap windows machine...

im a big fan of the P2 workflow and will continue to use it until i cant. but we have to be honest, pcmcia is kinda old technology anyway.
i personally predict that once the red scarlet line actually becomes available, P2 card production will dramatically decrease.
i personally cant blame duel systems for tapering off P2 card support.
 
Last edited:
There's a good point there. The core of the problem is Panasonic which has developed and it's still pushing a product based on an obsolete technology, so it's up to Panasonic to encourage other companies to keep their product functional and up to date.
 
Is it the definition of "obsolete" technology when Apple quits using it? Because by that metric, sure, CardBus would be called obsolete, and so would firewire 400, and so would ExpressCard (except on the topmost model, and who knows how long that will last?)

My understanding of "obsolete" is that it isn't used anymore. And while that's getting to the point in the laptop computer market, the other argument that could be made is that with 80% of the world's broadcasters using P2, the proper term for it might be "ubiquitous", not "obsolete". :thumbsup:

So -- yes, most modern laptops no longer have the direct PCMCIA slot (excepting some models, such as several Lenovo and Fujitsu and Panasonic laptops). So? Readers exist to adapt that "obsolete" technology to work with any computer made.

You guys are making it sound like Panasonic has "abandoned" the format, when it's Apple that's screwed the developer by changing their OS, breaking the driver, and then telling the developer "too bad, you fix it", and the developer (Duel) throwing their hands up and saying "we're not gonna fix it."

So if the Duel goes away, you have to turn to one of the other half-dozen current and perfectly viable offload options. At least, until Panasonic's own single-slot device comes out, which is supposed to happen in Spring 2010.

I do agree that it is incumbent upon Panasonic to provide a complete end-to-end solution. Of course, it could easily be argued that they already do -- the cameras can be used for offloading, or the five-slot readers, or the HPG20 or P2 Mobile. They have provided a solution for every circumstance (if not every wallet). Hopefully their new one-slot device will be inexpensive as well, covering that last area of the market.
 
Barry_Green said:
when it's Apple that's screwed the developer by changing their OS, breaking the driver, and then telling the developer "too bad, you fix it", and the developer (Duel) throwing their hands up and saying "we're not gonna fix it."
Click to expand...

I haven't really been following this thread since my earlier post, but I have to disagree with the statement above. I don't think Apple screwed the developer here--new versions of operating systems often require developers to update their drivers, and most developers do so without "throwing up their hands." It is Duel Systems who is screwing their customers by refusing to do so. I would be hesitant to purchase anything further from a company who will not support its products by updating their drivers for compatibility with a new operating system.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Last edited:
well i have both a pc laptop with macdrive installed and a macbook pro for offloading. it will be good to have a back up. do u know of anything else i can use with mcp other than a dual adapter? they keep breaking on me, and at over a hundred bux a pop i'm getting seriously sick of it. why is it so hard to make an adapter like the addonics one to work with osx? it's just silly.
 
xmephestox said:
why is it so hard to make an adapter like the addonics one to work with osx? it's just silly.
Click to expand...
I seriously don't know. Because it's not just the OS, apparently the Addonics is incompatible with the MBP even if the MBP is running Windows under Bootcamp. There's some sort of hardware conflict.

I wonder if anyone has tried an Addonics on a Hackintosh laptop...
 
Slightly OT but I've been using a lenovo R61 which I bought for about 590€ It sports both a PC slot and an ExpressCard /54 slot I've used it for offloading P2 on the field and its a breeze. This laptop actually has a quadro nvs 140 a Core 2 Duo 2.2 and 4gigs of memory. I've even done quick test edits on the field, directly from the card with Premiere CS4, no problems there either. The lcd is crap (I don't care) but the whole machine is built well and it can handle abuse, plus it doesn't look expensive, so it kinda thwarts a little some prospective crooks. I use MacDrive on it to also plug a FW 800 ExpressCard (T.I Chip) and a Lacie FW800 disk to dump the footage with very nice speeds! and then connect to the Mac system. Just some options to soothe the Duel Systems mess.... p.s: The exclusion of the expresscard slot in the 15' MBP can only be considered a foolish choice, whoever thought of that must be an idiot.
 
Wait - , think about this rationally for a minute,

Panasonic has a-lot invested in P2 (PCMCIA) architecture (while SxS is gaining on them).
However they'd like for you to be end-to-end Panasonic (hence the 5 card USB loaded, and the P2 Deck).

Duel happens to make PCMCIA to Express34/54 and Express34/54 to PCMCIA adapters, they just so happen to work with the P2 cards in MacBooks so Duel opened this new market (forget about those Verizon/AT&T WiFi cards).

Apple happens to like their OS to have only Apple K-Ext's and Drivers, one of those happens to be for PCMCIA devices, if Apple decided that the last PCMCIA device they made (non third party) was the G4 Powerbook, and it's out of scope of Leopard 10.6 (not compatible)
then they pulled the PCMCIA framework out of the kernel. (10.5 was intended to run on the G4 Powerbook)

Neither Panasonic nor Duel won't be able to do anything about it, short of writing their own PCMCIA framework, Duel has more at stake, while Panasonic will most likely redirect you to their own devices (though still hurting cheaper adoption of P2). Panasonics drivers are just a simple way to make their NON-ATA flash PCMCIA card (without a standard vendor code) appear as a Volume/Harddisk. Whether it happens via PCMCIA or USB is not up to Panasonic.


So Apple simply does not care (though I see their market share shrinking in FCP sales because of this, unable to edit in the field, must buy PC notebook. etc.. etc.. etc..) - They are now too large to care.

Panasonic cares somewhat, since it hurts P2, P2 being a whole thing that brings peace on earth and kindness towards all men. (not just HVX200 camera enthusiasts).

Duel cares most of all, since %80 percent of their sales depend on this market as the Verzion/AT&T/TMO folks got hip and started shipping Express34 to PCMCIA adapters with their WiFi cards and offering upgrades from PCMCIA to Express34/54 and USB, only the P2 owners are Carbus/PCMCIA zealots who need the maximum blazing speed from thier media, faster and cheaper than anyone else.


I forecast Duel writing some obfuscated driver for Snow Leopard, that will make it crash like mad with kernel panic (and have issues with any tripple dot update 10.6.2 10.6.3 etc..), and Panasonic quietly releasing a proprietary P2 to USB2.0 single card solution and throwing in their P2-CMS diskette in with it for $500+.

At some point someone will figure out that 802.11n is built into most modern laptops, and like Hassleblad and their live photo-retouching, will offer a custom live stream/net attach device/built-in to the new line of P2 cameras to be 802.11n ready.

In the long run Duel should start R&D on a PCMCIA/CardBus to USB 2.0 adapter immediately, since they cannot use the P2-Card in the name w/o a license and call it a day.
 
Last edited:
jazzx said:
The exclusion of the expresscard slot in the 15' MBP can only be considered a foolish choice, whoever thought of that must be an idiot.
Click to expand...

The same Idiots at apple that made the batteries in MacBooks non-removable, so when you go filming in the Outback, you cannot bring 10 pre-charged batteries with you, you must believe in the force, that your laptop will operate for 8 hours or you'll be next to a power source.

The Same idiots that moved the battery charge indicator to the front of the notebook so that you must put the battery into the laptop to find out if its charged, instead of just picking one up and pressing a button before you put a discharged battery in the laptop.

The Same idiots that made the displays SHINY GLASS (pay extra for no glare) since most people using a notebook computer will be in very light controlled environments like trains, cars, parks, greyhound buses and near office windows during the day - where no direct sunlight will fall, ever onto their screen and ...... blind them.

- This is what happens to Apple when Steve Jobs steps away from the wheel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top