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P2 Card adapter for Mac
Hi Guys,
Can anyone tell me if they know of a nice and cheap P2/USB apater that will let me plug in P2 cards to my Mac Pro? We are doing a shoot with quite a tight timetable so would love to be able to just pull out a P2 card and capture right away. I know of the Panasonic drives etc, but we could just to with one to transfer data as we then will be doing quick tests of the composite for the client paralell to the shoot.
Cheers guys
Justin
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12 Replies
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Dual Adaptor rocks, Panasonic helped out on drivers, if you use Firewire 800 external drives with a Macbook Pro, your load times are 8 minutes for 16 G ingesting as MXF file, then you have to import into FCP, another 8 minutes, still a screamer.
Wish Apple would have a direct ingest, rather than going through MXF files. Always load your MXF files onto a separate drive and then import into FCP on another separate drive. Might get hosed if you rely on FCP import only. QT and OS issues -
How does this thing work on a MacPro?
I’m just not seeing how/where it connects (and I don’t have my Mac yet to investigate), but I’d love to spend $120 instead of the $1900 I was going to spend for a Panasonic 5-slot P2 Drive…
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The DuelAdapter thing is for *MacBook Pros*, i.e., laptops. For a MacPro… you could either connect the camera through Firewire to the computer and transfer from there (the card will show up on the Mac as a FW removable drive) or buy/rent a Panasonic card reader (don’t remember the product ID offhand): it’s a 5-slot card reader with FW and USB connections, and I think it costed above 1000$.
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Oh, okay. Now I’ve reread your post and see that you already know about the 5-slot card reader, and even how much it costs… 🙂 Nevermind then. (You can still connect your camera through FW to the MacPro, though).
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Duel adaptor connects with the express card slot on the side of the MBP. Also check out P2 Genie and HD Log for off-loading files and/or viewing them.
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
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FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
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Yeah, I was confused because the first post asks about connecting to a MacPro (no “book”) but it seemed like the Duel Adapter was for laptops.
The problem I have with connecting the camera directly is I’ll be using the HPX-500 and it cannot transfer the native 720@24p footage via firewire… and since you have to be shooting native to use the over/undercrank, stop motion and time lapse features…
It could be worse, any other format would require me to spend $7000 on a deck!
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Video Photographer / Avid Editor
Maximus Media Inc. -
Another option that would cost a bit more but give you more bang is to buy a PC laptop with a PMCIA slot. The P2 fits right in there and Panasonic makes the software to transfer to an external drive. Get a firewire 800 drive, transfer, plug the drive into your Mac Pro and away you go.
I think this is a better solution because you are lookng for a simple transfer appliance, but with this approach you also get a useful PC laptop for many other things….maybe teleprompter software? Encoding? Wireless surfing on the shoot and more.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Yeah, I’d considered a MacBookPro + Duel Adapter for only slightly more money, but I’m still sort of on the fence.
While a laptop would have vastly greater expansion possibilities, I just don’t have much use for a laptop other than pulling video off P2 cards and getting it into the MacPro. Seems like a lot more possibility for things to go wrong (or just a lot more to do)…
But you know, teleprompter software is a good idea, and I’m sure I can think of more if I try…
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Video Photographer / Avid Editor
Maximus Media Inc. -
Are you sure you can’t transfer 720p24 footage through Firewire? I’m using the HVX200 in PAL-land, but here we shoot in 720pn25 and can transfer the footage (including slow-motion clips) with FW without any problems. You just have to put the camera in “1394 device” mode, in which you’ll access it as if it was an external drive. Neither the computer nor the camera cares about whether the footage is 24p or whatever; as far as they are concerned, they’re just computer files. Are you sure the HPX500 doesn’t have that option?
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