Mac OS X 10.4.10 and Duel Adapter

N

nsoltz

Veteran
Apple has released latest update to Tiger, 10.4.10 today, June 20.

Would some intrepid soul test it with the Duel Adapter. After all that we went through to get the thing working under 10.4.9......

And, as a side point, always update using the Combo updater, not the incremental updater from Software Update. You need to dig deeper to find it now with Apple;s new post-WWDC web design. You'll need to go to Support and then keep clicking anything that looks like the OS until you finally get to a download page. There are versions for PPC, Intel and Server.

Ned Soltz
 
I'm throwing enough caution to the wind by a possibly shooting (video) next week on a hill overlooking the beautiful town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza. OS updates are far too risky for me.

Ned
 
Man o man mine is working perfectly thus far, updating the OS scares me. I head out of town tomorrow for an eleven day shoot, after I return I'll give it a try.

I may need a couple of shots of liquid courage first ;-) .
 
A good idea is to clone your existing system onto another partition or hard drive, with Carbon Copy Cloner.

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Start up on the cloned system. Install the update on the cloned version and test all apps for several weeks (or months!), to check for any problems. ie broken apps, odd behavior.. Then apply the update when it all checks out.
 
scary? New updates are exciting, im always first and never had a problem. EVER!

*doesnt even knock on wood*
 
Oh, works perfectly by the way. 10.4.10. Even uninstalled the driver i was using, and reinstalled the 'beta' driver from Duel Systems, first plugin worked perfectly;

1182397448.png
 
Mac OS X 10.4.10 is working on my 17" 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with the standard Panasonic drivers. It's presently working in the same fashion as it was with 10.4.9

Please reference this thread for the specific sequence I used to install drivers while using 10.4.9:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...=100317&page=2

Just for kicks, I decided to try offloading the P2 files to a compact flash card. Not just any compact flash card; the new Sandisk FireWire 800 reader with a 4 Gb Extreme IV card which I use for still photography.

It sucked up 3.6 Gb of data off the P2 card in 2 minutes flat.

That's using the Duel Systems PCMCI card reader with a 16 Gb P2 card in the Express card slot, and the Sandisk FireWire 800 compact flash reader connected to the MacBook Pro FireWire 800 port.

The Sandisk IV cards come in 4 or 8 Gb flavors presently. Presumably 16's will be along soon. This is an interesting alternative and a very fast one!

The first caveat I will offer is that most compact lash cards are not designed to be used like hard drives so I certainly wouldn't recommend trying to edit with it, but as an intermediary storage solution and/or backup option, it seems quite viable.

The second caveat is the limited lifespan and questionable durability of a compact flash card for this type of data transfer- it's not really what the photographically oriented compact flash cards are intended for. Compact flash cards have been known to die when used excessively as data storage devices. I wouldn't rely exclusively on a single backup to a compact flash card and then erase my P2 card. But it's certainly a cool option as a quick secondary backup.

I think solid state to solid state backups are the future. Seems entirely logical that a simple flash solution would be perfect to back up the P2 media which is of course composed of an SD flash RAID. I'd love to see optimized and tested compact flash cards which are designated as appropriate for the task of backing up P2 media. The new NAND flash drives stand a very good chance of being the solution we want...

Here's a place to burn through your coffee break:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
 
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Steve:

Exactly what drivers did you install after updating to 10.4.10?

Was it the 10.4.9 beta version -- the AJ-PCD20 package, and the Intel Mac Panasonic reader?
 
Steve:

You say in the link:

"I did NOT use this beta driver from Duel, since my system works adequately with the one I am using right now. But here it is for reference. It's beta so once again- proceed with caution. "

That's why I'm asking WHICH duel adapter driver are you using?
 
David S. said:
WHICH duel adapter driver are you using?
Click to expand...

David, I feel your pain. Do you think there is ANY way Panasonic and Duel could make this more confusing? Sheesh, there must be a dozen threads on this forum alone on the herculean task of... loading a driver.

I used the TWO separate Panasonic drivers described as follows from the file pcdriver_macintel.zip:

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro...pcdriver_e.htm

Which, just to add to the general confusion, is a revised page since a few days ago.

I used two installers. They are located within the file you download called "pcdriver_macintel.zip" I used both the "P2PCCard Install.pkg" at the root level of the folder pcdriver_macintel and also the one called the AJ-PCD20 driver. In the nested folder for the AJ-PCD20 driver is a cryptic text file specifying "Only_AJ-PCD20.txt" along side the installer called "P2Drive Install.dmg" which is, in spite of the misleading note, the other one to use. Yikes!

It would appear that Panasonic is only referencing their own devices in this iteration of the software but I think it's reasonably clear what's happening; the secondary AJ-PCD20 driver is what is recognized by the Duel as a device driver in the same way a similar printer driver will sometimes be recognized when you try to print to a printer you don't have the exact driver for.

In other words it's a somewhat generic driver, not written specifically for the Duel and that's why it's not robust.

Hopefully after enough blood spills a simple installer will actually install a simple driver on the first go.
 
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