Snow Leopard, P2 and FCS 2

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Rick DeSalvo] “Reading these threads it appears that the new OS will not recognize P2. Is this true? I’d planned on taking this system on the road on the 14th using the P2 workflow. “

Yes, if you have Snow Leopard on the machine, the P2 drivers don’t work with it.

Jeremy

[Chris Cardno]

I’m now puzzled — I just had a crew get back in from a shoot with an HPX500 and the client transferred in the field with their PCD20 (we think, I wasn’t there to confirm) and they HAD installed Snow Leopard. The lack of screaming makes me think that they were able to transfer successfully.

Is this only an issue if you start to engage the footage with software? Or are you looking at a complete kernel panic like our friends with SxS cards are experiencing?

And, more importantly…HOW THE FRAK DID NOBODY SEE THIS COMING AT PANASONIC AND SONY?!?

Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Rick Desalvo]

I’m about to hit the road (or so I thought) with an HPX 500, a new MBP 17″ and an AJ PCS 060. I’d sure like to know before I get on a plane. Apple said it’s unsure if the unit shipped with Snow Leopard or the upgrade kit, so I’ll find out in a few days.

Any way to confirm if the system you referred to was running the new O/S?

[Tom Chartrand]

Jeremy,

I’m not sure about that. I have Snow Leopard on my MacPro tower and Final Cut 6.0.6 is running just fine and HDLog and ShotPutPro are recognizing archived P2 images. The big issue out there is that the DUEL SYSTEMS drivers are not written into Snow Leopard’s database. Duel has to step up like they did in 10.4 and get drivers written.

My HVX200 is connected by FW right now to Snow Leopard and my little NoName’s are mounted. So P2 is fine but it’s Duel that’s the issue.

Tom

[Tom Chartrand]

Hey Chris,

It ain’t Panasonic. It’s Duel Systems and the drivers for their adapter are the culprit.

Tom

[Michael Sacci]

CHRIS, HOW THE FREAK DOES Anyone in the production business not understand we DON”T upgrade for a while. It takes time to get everything worked out and we should be in no rush to upgrade until it is safe to do it. Panasonic and everyone else is working on drives and we DON”T want them until they are ready.

Rick, people that purchase in the time frame, like yourself, are in a difference situation. I would make sure I tested everything and if in doubt I would down grade the OS to Leopard. There is nothing shipping that has to have SL on it.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Well, I’m not entirely sure either as I don’t have Snow Leopard installed, but I dud receive this email from Panasonic. I will tend to take their word on it. Plus we use a PCD20.

– IMPORTANT NOTICE –
****************************************************************************
P2 driver compatibility information with Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
****************************************************************************
1.P2 driver software for Mac OS 10.4 & 10.5 are NOT compatible
  with the recent Mac OS X version 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
  For the following drivers/software, upgrade are being planned
  for the Mac OS 10.6.
  – IEEE1394b driver for AJ-PCD20 series
  – PCI express(PCIe) driver for AJ-PCD35 series
  – P2 Card formatter for Mac
  – P2 Contents management software (P2CMS) for Mac

2.Notice to users working with Duel Systems’ DuelAdapter
　- P2 cards will not be recognized with the adaptor in Mac OS 10.6
    due to no software driver exists.
  – Please use Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) instead.
  – For MacBookPro users, please use USB 2.0 port which is standardly
    equipped with P2 equipment for data transfer between Mac.
 
************************************************************

[Chris Cardno]

Michael, I agree with you, leaping into a new operating system when you have a stable workflow already in place is not a good idea — we haven’t made the move to Snow Leopard, nor have we upgraded our Final Cut system, at this time simply because I don’t want to spend the next few months posting in various forums trying to find workarounds and glitch fixes. However, Apple devotees seem to have a lemming attitude to new hardware and software: “Shiny! New! Must have now!”

🙂

I’m going to call the client in a little while and find out what system they were running and if they’ve come across any issues yet. I’ll update when I have some definitive answers.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Okay, update number 1:

* Their 15″ MacBookPro was not the newest iteration, it was the type that still has the ExpressCard slot. They did install Snow Leopard but did NOT install Rosetta.
* They were using the Panasonic 5-card reader and transferring over Firewire using the Finder. They don’t know the model number of the card reader but they’re going to get back to me later today.
* They’ve had no issues whatsoever getting the footage loaded into Final Cut, but they have NOT upgraded to FCS3 — they’re still using 6.06.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

And update number 2:

The client was using an AJ-PCD20, transferring via Firewire 800. There were no issues in the field and they have had no issues since importing the files into FCS2.

So…17″ Macbook Pro with ExpressCard slot + AJ-PCD20 + Firewire + Snow Leopard = apparently successful workflow for P2.

Yay. Now we just need to buy a $2,000 P2 card reader while we wait for Duel to bring out new drivers. Which I’m sure they’ll get to just as soon as Beelzebub starts serving Slushies.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD