[Dan Brockett]

Hi Tom:

Perhaps I am being a bit thick here but why would I buy this only for a MBP instead of the Duel? I see that this new Qio interfaces with the MBP via the Express card slot?

So does this mean this is really only a significant new product for desktop users and not laptop users? If I owned a PB G4 (wife is using it but I could grab it back for shoots) or I do own a MBP and Duel, what would be the point of this product?

In the edit bay with a MacPro, I can see the appeal but for shoots in the field, I don’t see a $995.00 advantage.

Or perhaps I am just not getting something about it?

Thanks,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

It is based upon operation hours and percentage that the cards are filled up and emptied. Nothing to do with the calendar.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Oh geez…

From the P2 Genie Website:

“Attention Mac-buyers

The Mac version is currently unavailable. Unfortunately we can’t say for sure when it will be available again.”

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Jeremy:

Thanks for the advice. If I could get ShotPut Pro to work, that would be an ideal workflow but ShotPut Pro will not work on our MBP with 4GB RAM and the Duel Adapter. Imagine says its Duel’s fault, their drivers have a conflict.

I’ll figure out a way to make this work. I do have a Western Digital 1TB drive that is a RAID 1 drive (so its actually a 500GB x 2). I think I will just offload to it during shoots, then make clones back at the office to SATA drives for editing. Not ideal or streamlined but it will work. The main thing is that I need redundancy as we offload on the shoot.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hmm..I have the same setup, MBP, 4GB, Duel Adapter and ShotPut Pro and it crashes EVERY time I try to use it. Imagine told me it is a conflict between the Duel drivers, Panasonics P2 drivers and ShotPut and the only solution is to try to remove 2GB of RAM, which doesn’t work for me as I use my MBP for Photoshop, FCP, etc. and need 4GB.

Interesting that you are on the same basic setup and it works for you without crashing.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Steve:

How much RAM is in your MBP?

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Michael:

Considering that I am editing right now with an eight drive SATA RAID that I created from scratch, I think I understand what a RAID is. I was under the impression that the whole point of a RAID 1 hardware device like the CalDigit VR was to give you seamless backup, which it does. I was just wondering if there is technology available that lets you configure, then separate the two RAID 1 volumes when you want to. It appears that there must not be, once a RAID 1 device, always a RAID 1 device unless you re-format it?

I have been using the dual physical drive and Carbon Copy Cloner/Super Duper route for the past three years of P2 production, I am just wondering if anyone has come up with a better way to dump P2 as you shoot and to end up with two backups simultaneously.

As you shoot all day with multiple cameras with P2, the cards quickly reach a backlog point when using this method because it takes much longer to write the card to one drive, then write the card to a second drive as a separate copy or to copy over the card from the first drive to the second. If you wait until the end of the day to clone the entire first drive over, you have been shooting all day and erasing cards, praying that the one drive doesn’t decide to crash, it is very risky to only have your P2 material on one drive at all, it needs to live on two separate drives to be considered “backed up” and having only one drive with the days shoot on it until I can make that clone is risky. To clone an entire drive takes hours and we are usually already packed up and ready to leave the location and cannot wait around for extra hours while the P2 drive clones. Driving away from a big multi camera shoot with all of my material on only one drive is not a good feeling. Sure I can clone it back at the office but what if I drop the drive before that or there is a power spike or ??

I tried ShotPut Pro from Imagine which is supposed to let you write to up to three drives at once to back up P2 but Imagine claims that the Duel Adapter drivers and the P2 drivers have a clash with ShotPut. All I know is that after downloading ShotPut, it does not work with the Duel adapter, it crashes my MBP every time. Yet, I can still manually dump P2 cards fine with the Duel adapter so I don’t know who to believe. So ShotPut may work for some people, but not on MBPs with 4GB of RAM and a Duel Adapter, which is what I use in the field. Nice idea, but unless you have an older PB and don’t need the Duel Adapter, it doesn’t work.

Thanks for your advice,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

I just realized that the new HPX300 I have been shooting with is a .45″ version of this VF, same technology, LCOS. You will love it, it is very clear and bright, easy to grab focus with. I can only imagine how nice it will look as a twice as large configuration on a broadcast cam.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Ryan:

Great post, thanks for that from someone who occasionally flys with larger cameras. Love the CineBags, I had the 20, sold it and bought an Ogio. I am not happy with the Ogio and will be selling it and getting the 25 as you have. The Ogio holds a lot of gear but it is a torture device, it is so uncomfortable.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

I can offer some input on the Hollywood sign. The image of the Hollywood sign is administered by an entity called Global Icons LLC. I had to pay them many thousands of dollars when I produced the three DVD Bonus Collection of The Wizard of Oz for Warner Bros., even though I didn’t even show an image of the stupid sign, I had a graphic artist re-create a different sign, but it did say Hollywood, in a completely different font and style than the actual Hollywood sign.

It seemed ridiculous to me that I could create my own artwork (I hired a motion graphic designer) from scratch and just type out the word, “Hollywood” and have to pay Global Icons LLC several thousand dollars but that was the way the lawyers saw it. It was a fairly high profile DVD release that sold a few hundred thousand copies so that was the deal.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs