P2 Store experience

mochouinard

mochouinard

Well-known member
Hi all,

I have my P2 Store for a few hours now and I am very happy MINUS a few anoying things.

PRO:
Act as a P2 Reader for my desktop, P2 Card show as an actual drive
Have a very solid and professional casing
It small (Until you attached the battery ;)
The door is seal and well constructed.
It is made to be as protective of the content as possible. Even have a fail safe so Hard disk doesn't start under 0 celcius... (Every laptop should have that)

CON:
I wish empting a 4gig card were 1 minute... 2 minute with verify, sadly P2 arnt fast ennuf :(
No power supply or battery or USB cable with the device...
Doesn't have a embedded pin for the HDD format. (Not really a con, PC can format the device, so it not a problem)
The drives doesn't show as P2 card... so P2 Viewer doesn't detect them... (Except for the actual P2 Slot)
I wished some kind of strap, or belt attach...
It is sadly not made for on the move copy. To be safe, you need to stay mobile for 4 minutes. If vibration is detected it stop until vibrations are gone.
Have to remove and put back the P2 Card once copied to format it.
It take a few second of power on before you can start a copy

For DVCPRO HD 720PN recording, this device is great. At 1080i it is still good, but sadly the 4 minute(x2 for verify) make it alittle anoying.

Now this device is really made so it doesn't fail. They say you have to change the hard disk every 2000 hours, and they provide a counter.

They could have included USB cable and a simple power adapter... For the -2$ of extra cost, it would have been better.

Now the level of protection panasonic put into the device is impressive, and really show it is for pretty arsh situation... But even with all those security, it still written on the device "Always keep a backup of important data on another recording device in addition to this unit (HDD).".

Having a Firestore mounted on my camera that move and get shock while always operating.... I am not sure anymore about that idea...

Anyway, for the moment the P2 Store will serve it purpuses... but Panasonic could do some software upgrade to make alot of P2 Store user happy.

As for a bigger storage solution... Well let just wait for 32gig P2 Card...
 
It says change the hard drive every 2000 hours? So does that mean it's possible to put a larger hard drive in the unit? Say a 100GB?
 
If you can change the hard drive out then I'll buy one. The small drive size has always irked me. The current P2 drive will not be practical when 16GB cards are released.

But if you can change out the hard drive for a bigger one... then I'm on board.
 
P2 Store is in my view a temporary medium until bigger P2 card are out.
Do not forget that once the 16gig are out, it will take 32minutes with verify to empty it...
 
Also keep in mind your usable disk space will always be limited to 15 offloads. So even if you are using 8gb cards, 120gb drive would be the biggest usable drive.

I for one would be much more interested in this device if the hard drive was user-replacable, even if only with another 60gb drive. The idea of the drive dying on me and making the entire P2 store useless doesn't sit well...
 
mochouinard said:
No power supply or battery or USB cable with the device...
Click to expand...

I know it uses the same battery as the camera (and that one powers it pretty much all day). Bought 4 from Jarred so I'm good to go on that point.

Are you able to power it from the AC supply that comes with the HVX???
 
dregenthal said:
Are you able to power it from the AC supply that comes with the HVX???
Click to expand...

Yes.

My complaint is Mac compatibility. I can't use the P2 Viewer software so it's just drag and drop various "no name" drives that are mounted. I can't tell what has what. Are they going to make this on a Mac? Have they already and I just don't know about it?
 
Brian Petersen said:
Yes.

My complaint is Mac compatibility. I can't use the P2 Viewer software so it's just drag and drop various "no name" drives that are mounted. I can't tell what has what. Are they going to make this on a Mac? Have they already and I just don't know about it?
Click to expand...
I'm really surprised they haven't made a mac version. Apple supported P2 with the release of FCP5 in Spring of 2005. They've worked very close with Apple, it just doesn't make sense.
 
dregenthal said:
I know it uses the same battery as the camera (and that one powers it pretty much all day). Bought 4 from Jarred so I'm good to go on that point.

Are you able to power it from the AC supply that comes with the HVX???
Click to expand...


No, you can't and that's a big bummer. Ya have to buy a speical power adapter...

I too can't wait for mac software for the p2store and p2 viewer. I'd also just like a utility that copies each drive partion over.. one at a time, as I think it's a lot quicker than what I've been doing and dumping all of them to different folders at the same time...
 
mochouinard said:
Cons: ...Have to remove and put back the P2 Card once copied to format it.
Click to expand...

Mochouinard, you don't need to eject the card to reformat, here's the procedure...
After your copy completes, the 5 green Copy Status LEDs will be lit telling you that the copy was successful. Simply tap the power button to clear the LED's, then press the Format P2C button untill the Copy Status lights flash Orange. Press the big Start button and your card will be reformatted. Eject the card and you're ready to put it back in the camera. You don't have to eject the card to reformat it after the copy.

Justyn said:
No, you can't and that's a big bummer. Ya have to buy a speical power adapter...
Click to expand...

I've been powering the p2 store with the HVX ac adapter since the day I got it. It works fine. Plugs in just like the camera.

BTW,

I decided to open up my P2 store. The drive is mounted in a small removable shuttle that should be easily upgradable to new drives either by panasonic or possibly off the shelf drives. I didn't pop open the the shuttle to see what the actual drive was, this will be a project for another day. But after removing the 4 case screws and the bottom plate, the drive just slips out.

-filmstox
 
Filmstox,

Thanks for the note on the format procedure. I've been going nuts with the eject / insert / format / eject runaround.

You're a brave person to have cracked that case open - keep us updated if you go decide to further? As long as you're going to Crazytown, perhaps you could beta-test dropping a 120GB drive in there once you sort the mfg. and type. Thanks in advance!

10101886.jpg


Hey Mo!

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