P2 Cards Mount Sporadically from Camera to Desktop...

V

vicrattlehead

Well-known member
Hey All,
Quick question for the Mac users out there, or those who simply transfer P2 card contents from their 500 to a computer.

I've had my cam for several months and occasionally when setting it up to transfer P2 card contents from the camera to my 17"MBP, all of the cards do not mount to the desktop (perhaps only one 'no name' icon will show up instead of 2 or 3).

This is usually solved by ejecting/trashing the mounted card(s), turning off the camera, and then firing it up again to hook up to the computer. Then all 2 or 3 or 4 of the cards will show up (depending on how many I have in the cam). Not a major pain, but a bit of a time-waster when it happens.

Any thoughts? Should I try swapping out FW400 cables, or modify my workflow?
 
I have seen this happen on FCP and what I have seen the guy who is using it do is to go to the Utilities Menu and tell the computer to mount the drive. It shows up there and it mounts. Can't say why that happens but it does.

Hope this helps,

Jan
 
Hey Jan,
Thanks so much for the reply!

Interesting... Yes, it must be related to FCP & Mac somehow, because I rented my HPX out to another camera op last week, and he and his producer had the same issue on their end after the shoot. I had to walk them through a 'power down & power up' on the camera via cell phone in order to get the 2 cards in the cam to show up on their Mac desktop.

The first time they connected the camera, only one card mounted on the desktop, and it just happened to be card slot #2, which did not have any media on it. So they on/off'ed the camera once, and then both card slots mounted on the Mac.

I hope there is a fix for this somewhere down the line on Mac/FCP/Panny's side(s), because it does slow down the transfer workflow, and could result in human error deletions/missed downloads.
 
It seems that I do not hear about this on all Mac platforms and haven't heard this in a while so it must have something to do with what is on the particular Mac in question.

Whatever it is it is on the Mac side as there are no changes that we could make to affect a change here. The cards have/are working the way they have always worked. It is on the Mac system in specific but not all Mac systems.

What all do you have running on your systems?

Best,

Jan
 
Hi rattlehead,

sounds to me your cam / cable or your P2 cards may be the issue, good workflow to check those prior to assuming FCP/Mac is the culpirit.
check your firmware in cam n cards and P2 driver in mac's.
re-format your cards and try again. if it has the same issue on two mac's as you described I would assume your cam set up may be the problem.

cheers
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au
 
We have had the same experience with our 500. We just dismount the 1 card that mounts, un-plug the firewire cable, and re-plug the firewire cable. After that, all 3 of our cards mount with no problems. We have always lived with it, as it was not a big deal to work around...

-Scott
 
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