Laptops with PCMCIA slots

I have now pretty much settled on the Thinkpad X200 (one express w/ 160 GB) or Fujitsu P1630 (one PCMCIA and up to 120 GB - got a question in about larger HD)

QUESTION: How does the express card slot work with an adapter to PC Card? Is it as fast as just having the PCMCIA slot?
 
so i got the lenovo yesterday and its blue screened 3 times so far...oh boy...sysdump says its cased by- ati2dvag


lenovo support said to send it back....

update...


lenovo said I HAVE TO work with them to fix motherboard or get hit with 15% restock fee...I will take the loss and send it back...OH well..I guess I will use the old reliable tower for now


update....after trying the lenove and then a dell i bagged the pc laptop thing and got a used 2.8 macbook pro for 900.00.....so far it works .....
 
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Have an opportunity to trade a friend for an older IBM Thinkpad T43. Would use it for dumping P2 cards in the field. Wanted to know if anyone else has used it. I tested it, and it's running fine(I know it's old). It actually has both express/34 and express/54. Any help is appreciated.
 
Barry, I should have known better.

Barry, I should have known better.

You get what you pay for. I went originally with the duel adapter and I literally got 4 uses out of it. There goes 100 beans or so.

My question is if you only plan on using this laptop for the purpose of transferring the cards of to a portable drive, how important is the rest of the specs on the laptop.

In other words processor speed ram etc...

Thanks
 
Well, it depends on how fast you want the transfer done. An old IDE laptop can get the job done, typically at around a gigabyte per minute. A modern laptop with SATA drives can run at about 2 to 2.5 gigabytes per minute. Graphics card and RAM and all that shouldn't matter all that much, unless you want to be able to play the footage back in the field using P2 Viewer; in that case you'd want a dual-core and a good accelerated graphics card.
 
Ok Thanks Barry!

Ok Thanks Barry!

I have a MacBook Pro, I'm just trying to by pass the Duel card reader since it is just so unreliable.

My thought was just using the CPU as a transfer station to off load to an external drive and If I want to view or edit I can put the external drive onto the MacBook Pro, and log and transfer the material using the log and transfer feature in FCP.

In your opinion is this a viable, reliable work around to the Panasonic P2 card reader at 2,000 or so?

Thanks for responding, I value your opinoin and experience with panny products and the work around to many issues you provide.

FYI, I love my HPX 300, despite people's complaints, I've just adapted the camera to its strengths and avoided the weakness you've pointed out. I have not had any complaints from clients implementing your philosophy when using this camera.

I was really concerned when I 1st bought it, but you were dead on, for the money, it currently can't be beat. Sorry I drifted off subject, thanks again for your input and help.

Carlos Castro
 
You can definitely use any PCMCIA-equipped laptop to offload to external hard drives, and then plug those drives into your Mac for editing. That's a well-established workflow.

If that's what you want to do, you might look into Jason Adams' post about the Lenovo S10E, with a Rosewill adapter, the total system should cost about $325.
 
I don't get it

I don't get it

I had an HP Laptop sitting around running Windows XP 2000 that has two card slots that accept my P2 cards...at least, they fit and lock in. No express card slot that I can use for my now-Mac-defunct Duel Adapter. But. even better, I thought, card slots that my P2 cards seem to fit.

However, when I went to the Panasonic site to download the Windows driver that recognizes the P2 I read a message that the Cardslot driver will only work with a maximum of 8 Gig cards.

The USB driver, it says, will work with 16 and 32 gig P2 cards.

I have two 32 Gig cards. I don't understand what I would be putting a P2 card into that would connect to the USB 2.0.

But the CARD READER software will NOT see my 32 GB P2 cards?!

I thought I have been reading success stories here of people using a PC to read the P2 cards and download them at faster-than-USB speeds!

Now I am back to reading about USB 2.0 speed transfers, which for a 32 GB card is FOREVER. And what is the reader with USB output?

This quest all started when my Duel Adapter was disabled by Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro.

I did a disk image backup of the old 10.5 OSX environment before "upgrading" to Snow Leopard and I hate to think I have to completely uninstall Snow Leopard JUST for a faster-than-USB copying of P2 files from my AG-HVX200A.

Please tell me how using a PC is working for you Mac Users.
 
Latest PCMCIA card bus slot Enabled laptops?

Latest PCMCIA card bus slot Enabled laptops?

looking for latest Laptops with PCMCIA card bus slot. Price not a problem. I am using PCMCIA DIGIGRAM sound card on my old laptop Lenovo..works fine.

The new laptops come equiped with express slots which are not usefull for my requirement.

IBM or Hp have good support here in india. Also looking for models for these manufacturers.
hope u guys can help.
Thanks
 
I'm confused a little here. For a couple years, I've been reading about everyone searching for laptops with PCMCIA slots to offload P2 cards in the field, but since many manufacturers seem to be phasing these out (switching to Express cards) and many newer laptops also have Firewire ports, why not just download the P2 cards directly to the laptop via Firewire (with the cards still in the camera)? Is this not possible; I thought the camera could transfer the material via Firewire to an external source?

Forgive my ignorance if this is not possible; we're ready to begin a shoot and no one at Panasonic has returned my calls yet. Is something like this possible? Or USB 2.0 maybe? Basically, if you want to offload to a laptop (without an adapter) directly, is taking the cards out and inserting them into a PCMCIA slot the only option?

Thank you everyone.
 
It is totally possible to download them via firewire.

It is now also possible to get a PCD2 and offload them via USB.

Or, if you have an ExpressCard slot, you can get a $25 to $60 adapter from Rosewill or Addonics.
 
Okay, thanks Barry. So... if I understand the workflow correctly:

1. Shoot and store onto the P2 cards.
2. With the P2 cards still in the camera, connect the camera to a laptop (with a firewire port) using a firewire cable, subsequently offloading and saving them to the laptop's internal hard drive.

That's it? Then re-format (empty) the cards and shoot/store/offload again?
 
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