Dumping P2 contents to a drive in the field

Mat Cain

Member
We are still pretty new to the 300 as well as workflow with P2 cards - I am trying to wrap my brain around it so excuse me if this sounds dumb.

While in the filed we want to dump full P2 cards to a laptop or external drive. I realize that Panasonic makes p2 readers but they are a bit pricey for the non-profit I work for. The laptops we have around here don't have the necessary slots. Are there some other options that you 300 users are taking advantage of for this?

Thanks,
Mat Cain
 
We have a PC laptop that has two PCMCIA slots (which is the P2 card
interface). We use the MediaFour
Macdrive software that allows Mac formatted drives to be mounted on
the PC.. we then copy the cards to the drive. .. Take the drive to
the Mac and then do a FCP Log and Transfer .. unless you have Raylight,
and then you don't need to L&T....

We also have a Macbook pro .. and a Duel Adapter. I have found
the Duel's to be very fragile .. we've broken two of them so far.

jeff
 
Hi Mat I have two methods that I can use in the field.

1: Two 160gb 2.5" bus powered USB drives that plug straight into the camera, this is a good safe way to offload as you can get the media verified. This then becomes my safety copy and I then import to FCP at pro res. You can also re-name the cards once on the USB drive for each days rushes.

2: A powerbook G4 with a PCMIA slot, I can go straight to a firewire drive or if I am doing ENG or quick turn around jobs use FCP V5 and less demanding codecs to import and start editing straight away.

I have a macbook pro and the duel adaptor but have not managed to get it to work, I do use the macbook pro to import the USA drives to a firewire drive for use with FCP v7 though.

With the USA connector I also have the ability to go straight from the camera to the macbook pro as well.

With panny bringing out the new reader I may get that and get rid of the powerbook if it all works OK with the macbook pro.
 
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