Possible Reader for P2 Media

M

meddesigner

Active member
So I was poking around a bit on the inter-thingy tonight and found this gadget that looks like it would read our beloved P2 cards. Wanna take a look and chime in. Best part if it works and would transfer the data faster than camera over firewire it might be a good buy. Looks like it can be had from online retailers for about $50 or so.

Here is the link. Note I do not work the company that makes or sells this product.

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/pocket_udd.asp

Richard in Nashville
 
Won't work. No cheap USB adapter can work, it takes lots of electronics in the adapter to make it work (which is why the Panasonic one costs upwards of $2000).

The cheapest adapter is a laptop computer.
 
Barry, are you sure? True old vanilla PCM-CIA may not be enough, yet PCCard support via USB2 support is possible -- which I imagine could support P2 media. Understand it could be driver issue not expecting PCCard to be USB mounted -- and Panasonic as a business model to protect, so why support it. Do you have more details on this, or are you just speculating.
 
I believe you need 32bit Cardbus support and those readers only offer 16 bit.

There is another adapter that isn't too expensive, but it uses a PCI slot so you cannot put it in a MacBook.
 
Barry_Green said:
Won't work. No cheap USB adapter can work, it takes lots of electronics in the adapter to make it work (which is why the Panasonic one costs upwards of $2000).

The cheapest adapter is a laptop computer.
Click to expand...

This is interesting Barry.

Mostly because you can buy a complete PC laptop with a PC Card slot, TFT screen, hard drive, motherboard, DVD drive, etc. for under $400.00.

Why then does it cost $2,000 retail to buy a reader from Panasonic?
 
I purchased this reader thinking it would work, but the reader didn't even notice the P2 card when I plugged it in.
Turns out the P2 card can only be read when it is connected with the PCI bus.
So I'm back to firewire from the camera for now.
 
David S. said:
This is interesting Barry.

Mostly because you can buy a complete PC laptop with a PC Card slot, TFT screen, hard drive, motherboard, DVD drive, etc. for under $400.00.

Why then does it cost $2,000 retail to buy a reader from Panasonic?
Click to expand...

I suspect they are building many, many more laptops than P2 readers. Also, that P2 reader from Panasonic does have 5 slots in it. most laptops these days only have one and the most I have ever seen in a laptop is 2.
 
Using the SATA version of this device; would a setup like this work?:

- Laptop (either WIN or MAC based) with an ExpressCard 34 slot

- Utilize their (Addonics) 2 port eSATA ExpressCard 34 adapter http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/adexc34-2e.asp

- Hook up the reader device (SATA version of course) to port (1) of the adapter to transfer footage from the PCMCIA card (P2 card / Cineporter) to...

- ...an external SATA raid array box (http://www.g-raid.com/Products/G-SATA.cfm) to the other remaining port (2) of the adapter

If this would work, sure would be a cluttered desk with all these toys and cables.

AC
 
David Newman said:
Barry, are you sure?
Click to expand...
Yes, because I bought the dumb thing, tried it, and had to actually destroy it in order to get the card out.

All these cheap readers are 16-bit only, and putting a 32-bit card in there was a bad idea. The nubs on the top of the slot locked the card in.

Do you have more details on this, or are you just speculating.
Click to expand...
I don't speculate without some facts to back it up. I went to another company to engineer what I thought was going to be a hit seller: a budget P2 Store, using a PCMCIA USB slot reader to a USB On-The-Go backup drive. I figured -- how expensive can that be? $300 tops? I was told that yes the device could be built, they'd need to sell a certain (high) quantity per month to justify it, and the cost per unit would be...

$2000.

So I dropped the idea.
 
David S. said:
Why then does it cost $2,000 retail to buy a reader from Panasonic?
Click to expand...
Probably because nobody else offers one, whereas PCs are a dime a dozen (well, not literally a dime, of course, but there's intense competition and massive manufacturing).

It's my understanding that the reader has to have a processor, motherboard, PCI bus, USB bridge chip, operating system, all sorts of hardware. It's basically a full PC without the hard disk or display. But they're made in extremely small quantities, so there's no massive cost savings amortized across a huge production run.
 
I to found a place to make me a box... twice the size of the P2 store but 500Gigs...the problem was then I need a keyboard and screen and it then would cost the same as the P2 store..and not be Shock proof...

can some one write the software so that the moment the P2 card is inserted it would atuomaticly Transper files?

VP
 
But any old PC laptop with a PCMCIA card slot can read P2 cards, right? And transfer them to USB2 or Firewire external drives? Is that right?

You guys are looking for a way to bypass the latop. Is that right?
 
Just FYI,

We have some of these accessories, including a front-mount P2 reader, on the drawing board, but we will not be starting ANY new development until the CinePorter™ is out and all the follow-up development is done. Some of the technology for these has already been developed for the CinePorter™, so the pricing will be better then starting from scratch, but as Barry said, it's not going to be $300.

David
 
Barry_Green said:
It's my understanding that the reader has to have a processor, motherboard, PCI bus, USB bridge chip, operating system, all sorts of hardware. It's basically a full PC without the hard disk or display. But they're made in extremely small quantities, so there's no massive cost savings amortized across a huge production run.
Click to expand...


Throw in a screen, hard drive, and we're good to go.

:-)

I'm not arguing with you Barry, but somehow that just doesn't seem to make sense.

You can buy a standard Kona LH HD board for less.

It's a reader. Not a computer.
 
That's the problem David. The P2 Card is a PCI Peripheral. Like a PCI card, it needs a PCI Bus to plug into and a computer to host it. It's not a Mass Storage Device that you can just read with a reader.

David
 
Exactly.

So if you convince Toshiba that they'll sell 20 million of them, we could probably get it down to $300 or $400.

Without that, they're basically almost one-offs, and that drives the price up through the roof.

Hey, I strongly wish there was an alternative. I went out of my way to research making that alternative myself. It can't be done, from what I can tell. If you find alternatives please share with us, but from what I can determine it's pretty much a dead end.

Panasonic will be introducing a two-slot reader sometime soon, they showed a mockup at NAB. I'm sure it'll be less, but I wouldn't expect it to be a lot less. The physical PCMCIA slots are not where the expense is, it's like David said, it's all the other stuff.
 
Okay, let's all convince Panasonic that they will sell 20 million of them.

1. David - only 19,999,999 to go
2. ???
 
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