[Chris Cardno]

Michael, the Duel site says that you don’t need to download drivers with OS 10.5+, so I think they are bundled in. Dan at Imagine said the newest OS manages memory so I guess when the system throws all 4GB at the process it causes the conflict between the drivers and the P2 codec.

Jeremy, the machine came out of the box with the 4GB RAM, it wasn’t an add-on — my tech knowledge falls down the minute I start looking at circuit boards and things with exposed wires so I’m not comfortable starting to yank things out. However, the point of the post was more to put it out there that a new MacbookPro with 4GB of RAM is apparently going to have issues with the Duel Adapter and P2 offload. Like I said, I’d rather someone didn’t run into this the day before a shoot or spend a day waiting for a brand new $2,500 machine to boot up correctly and then have it fail during an offload.

As a side note, does anyone else find it kind of amazing that we use all these phrases nowadays and actually know what they basically mean? Three years ago I’d have read the posts in this thread and thought people were talking another language… 🙂

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

I agree, the HDX is the most popular camera we have and I’m not seeing a massive tidal wave of change towards tapeless yet although we’re getting more clients that are interested. If they discontinue the HDX they’ll be making the same mistake they did with the SDX900, which is still working, still in-demand and still a fantastic SD camera.

Gone too soon…

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

The issue is the write speed, not the actual CF card technology. There are already some questions about which cards and readers you can and can’t use — I’d hate to tell a client that the shoot was a bust because we cheaped out on the recording media.

As for data wrangling, we’ve been lucky so far in that the clients who have requested tapeless know and understand the workflow, they are willing to wait for the transfer. However, with the transfer speeds being what they are, and we usually have the MacBook ready to go, the last card is usually dumped before the producer has finished schmoozing with the interviewee, grabbed his jacket, run to the bathroom and returned the 12 very urgent calls that came in during the 20 minute interview… 🙂

The one rule we do have, though, is that the client either brings their own hard drive or they are going to be buying one of ours — we don’t do returns.

[Chris Cardno]

At the HD Expo they mentioned a bracket, I didn’t get the impression they were talking about a self-customized rig. Do you know if the P2 Gear has a way to screw a mount into it or would this be accomplished through the wonders of velcro and bungee cords?

[Chris Cardno]

So you could hook up a CineAlta and have it capture AVCIntra or DVCProHD? And then output 720p? Pardon me while I drool for a short period of time… If the HPG20 can do everything it appears to be able to do it’s going to extend the life of all the HD cameras in our shop by years and forestall any purchase of the 2700, 3000 or 3700 — our VariCam and CineAlta will suddenly be close to the equivalent of any of the new cameras.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions

[Chris Cardno]

Thanks for letting me know — and looping through the 8.4″ monitor will most definitely work.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Thanks, folks. We’ve got the viewfinder display up in the 8.4″ monitor so we have timecode but it’s black and white as we don’t have a 1:3 component BNC cable handy. Still, it’s nice to have the option for upcoming shoots until we get the right cable.

As always, the help is much appreciated.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Jeremy, late follow up question for you: what kind of speed are you seeing in transfers? The reason for the question is that we just got the DuelAdapter to allow us to use the P2 cards in the PCExpress slot and I was surprised that the transfer speed wasn’t significantly faster than using the P2 Store, connected by USB 2.0, as a reader and transfer device. Here is the equipment in play:

Apple MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4MB shared level 2 cache, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
OS X version 10.5.3
—
Lacie 250GB Rugged drive, connected via Firewire 800
—
Panasonic P2 Store, upgraded with 16GB compatibility, connected via USB 2.0
Duel Systems Duel Adapter
—
Full 16GB Panasonic P2 card

All files were transferred without the use of a Panasonic or third part software package — files were dragged and dropped to pre-created folders on the computer desktop and hard drive. As such, there was no real-time verification of data. Here are the results:

DuelAdapter to Desktop: 8mins16secs
P2Store to Desktop: 9mins38secs

DuelAdapter to Lacie: 7mins53secs
P2Store to Lacie: 8mins46secs

Obviously, the above set-up is for transfers in the field and I don’t know if you’re in an edit suite with all kinds of blinking lights and top notch hardware which might make a difference. Either way, I’m intrigued by the results you’re getting with the PCD20 connected via FW800.

Cheers,

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

Thanks, Jeremy, I appreciate the response. As a follow up question, though, how does the PCD20 work with any of the capture software when the cards come up as NONAME? Does the PCD20 come with it’s own software that allows you to assign bay numbers to each card and view and sort files before transfer? Also, is it going to be worth waiting for the PCD35? Thanks.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions
Bethesda, MD

[Chris Cardno]

First person to post a link to photos and/or specs on this thing wins a No-Prize. Any chance this thing even resembles that demo model from the trade show in Japan back in 2006?