Express card P2 Cards?

I hope not. The ExpressCard format does not have the locking mechanism that PC cards have. Just touch an ExpressCard wrong or exert a little pressure against it and it pops right out. It is the kind of thing that only could have been designed by the same moron who designed the 4-pin firewire connector.

Ned Soltz
 
nsoltz said:
I hope not. The ExpressCard format does not have the locking mechanism that PC cards have. Just touch an ExpressCard wrong or exert a little pressure against it and it pops right out. It is the kind of thing that only could have been designed by the same moron who designed the 4-pin firewire connector.

Ned Soltz
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I have to agree with you. : (
 
I have clinged to my g4 Powerbook, just so I can retain use of the PCMCIA slot -- I hate the new ExpressCards! Amen Soltz.
 
Justin Reade said:
I have clinged to my g4 Powerbook, just so I can retain use of the PCMCIA slot -- I hate the new ExpressCards! Amen Soltz.
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I haven't used ExpressCard yet. Do they have any technical advantages? Speed? The design may suck, but hows does the technology compare when used in a P2 type application? I know the new Sony's are going this route.
 
The expresscard is a smaller device than the PCMCIA card, and the expresscard bus is capable of about twice the data transfer rate of the PCMCIA bus.

(that doesn't mean that a Sony SxS card will be faster than a P2 card, of course; theoretical maximums have little to do with real-world performance, and an SxS card is slower than the PCMCIA bus maximum speed anyway).
 
i love how barry chimed in on the SxS card speeds, haha. i use the duel adapter and its about twice as fast offloading a p2 card than using a pcmcia slot in a powerbook.
 
I'm just pointing out that while the bus speed is higher, the practical real-world application may not show a speed increase. It depends on the underlying memory speed.

Example: a moped is a motorized vehicle that is limited, by law, to 27mph. Any faster than that and they'd have to reclassify it as a motorcycle. So a moped goes 27mph. What happens if you put that moped on the freeway? Does it now magically go faster because there's a higher speed limit?

Same thing applies. If Panasonic (or Sony) used the ExpressCard bus, that doesn't mean their cards would be any faster at all. It depends on the underlying memory technology. The SxS cards could have been implemented at their current speeds on the PCMCIA bus; PCMCIA is faster than the SxS card.

ExpressCard does have the potential to be faster, but today's technology doesn't even come close to maxxing out the speed of the PCMCIA bus.
 
manglerBMX said:
i use the duel adapter and its about twice as fast offloading a p2 card than using a pcmcia slot in a powerbook.
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There's more to it than that though. For example, my Sony Vaio laptop is about twice as fast at offloading cards than my Dell laptop was. Yet they're both using PCMCIA. So what's the difference? Better hard drive, better internal components, better hardware all around, faster processor, everything in the Sony is better than everything in the Dell. So the overall experience is much, much faster, even though they're both using PCMCIA!

So if you're using the Duel Adapter, I presume you're using a Macbook Pro? The changes in speed you're experiencing are due to the MBP using much better technology throughout than the older Powerbook. The ExpressCard inherently can't be making things faster because you're still reading from a PCMCIA card!
 
Have people noticed a difference in speed when using a powerbook compared to a macbook pro with the duel adapter?

My biggest issue with the powerbook is the first time I dump a p2, everything is cake. The next dump, I have to hit the power button, click on things and finally, after a minute, everything comes to life. After that, I have to reboot, or the instant I put the p2 into the slot, everything freezes or the p2 card never mounts on the desktop.

So I am curious, has this been an issue on the macbook pros?
 
yes, i'm using a macbook pro. but i understand what you mean as far as the internals being better suited and whatnot. as long as i dont remove the duel adapter i can insert and eject the cards all day long and never skip a beat. i never liked how it took a powerbook a good amount of time for the p2 card to mount, it always made me a bit nervous. but with the duel adapter its super quick at mounting.
 
man, I just posted a query in the other forum about that issue of mounting p2 cards. I have loads of problems with that. It makes me question if getting the pro with the duel is a better route.

I dont mind speed, issue more is consistency, if the flow is broke, then things become chaotic, and that adds stress, the thing I need the least of.

I might start looking in to a pro and the duel if this is the case.

Rock on...
 
is the duel with a mbp typically faster or slower than a pc laptop?

I was looking at the fujitsu site and they have some nice laptops with both express and pc card slots for under $900.

Curious, some of the p2 power users, can you post what your best and fastest laptop for doing p2 transfers? I prefer a mac since I have been using them primarily for the past 5 years (also, their partioning scheme is way better than fat32) to do all my editing but if a pc laptop is better and faster, then it may not be a bad move.

Later
 
no. there isn't really a difference in offload speed using the duel adapter on a mbp vs. using the pcmcia slot on a decent pc laptop. As Barry said earlier, it's more to do with the overall specs of the laptop than the pcmcia vs expresscard bus.

Basically look at around 2 gigs per minute for offload time.... A 16 gig card would take about 8-9 minutes to offload on a mbp w/ duel adapter or a pc with pcmcia slot.

I use a laptop with both pcmcia and expresscard slots. I find it good b/c I can use the pcmcia slot for offloading p2, and then I have eSATA raid setup running to my expresscard slot. This allows for fast external drives to edit off of and transfer footage to, etc. I can also take those drives to a desktop and continue on using an eSATA card in the back of the desktop. expresscard allows for 2.5Gbps throughput, so you can almost take full advantage of the 7200rpm SATAII (3Gbps) HDD's. vs. 800Mbps of FW800, 480 of USB2, and 400 of FW400.

Speaking strictly from a workflow point of view with p2 and a laptop... A laptop with PCMCIA slot, expresscard slot, SD card slot, and EDIUS is a perfect combination. Now that's not talking about feature sets of one NLE vs. another or anything. But, that is a great match. EDIUS is so much faster in terms of realtime performance with DVCPRO HD than anything out there, and it lets you take FULL advantage of the benefits (timesavers in particular) of the P2 Workflow.

But, you could always get any cheap pc laptop with a pcmcia slot if you just want to use it for offloading and then take that footage to your platform and desktop/laptop of choice.

Later,
Jason

Later,
Jason
 
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