About the P2 card not being recognized on Mac laptops
 

I've heard of the unix driver workaround. Would the installation of this driver mess up with my Powerbooks partitions and overall performance? Would I still be working on OS X?

Is Panasonic working on this, actually, or did they leave it windows compatible only?

I own an expensive 17" Powerbook and really don't want to feel ridiculous for having to use my girlfriends 15"2 years old toshiba windows laptop to dump the files... I invested a lot on this thing for it to feel useless in production! And I will need to keep my camera recording while I dump the files, since I'll be doing event coverage! 1800 $ "2x windows laptop price" P2 store my %$^%!!

I think they will come up with a solution. Many people edit on a mac, so I think Panasonic won't ignore that.

Yes, Panasonic is pitching seamless integration with FCP, so I imagine they will have to come up with a solution.

Peter

Yes, this seems to be the logical thing to do, but they have been dead quiet about the issue, and this problem is out since the introduction of the spx 800- which was many months ago...

final cut pro 5 (newest) has a direct import from P2 card feature already built in

The problem is not with the software, but with the cardbus not recognizing the card. Even tough FCP 5 can import the files, it can't "see" the card on the desktop. It can, however, import the file if it was already saved on the desktop. In order to pass the video files to your desktop on a Mac, you have to either dump the files with the camera or with the $1800 (gulp!) P2store. Bare in mind that on a Pc laptop you just plug in the card on the cardbus slot and voila, it's there for download.

And what does this do for your workflow? Yo can't record "Non stop" with the camera if you are relying on a Mac laptop to dump the information, which means an additional investment on a PC laptop, which is something many Mac users really don't want to do and will mess up with their entire workflow. Ah, the tought of going back to windows is making me nuts !

Is this a filesystem problem, or an actual hardware problem? Cardbus is Cardbus - pretty standard interface. If Panasonic broke the spec that's a pretty big blunder on their part.

My money is on a software filesystem related issue (write new software - trivial fix). Flash memory cards usually have some FAT variant filesystem. It's easy, it's cheap, it works everywhere. But your limited to a maximum filesize (FAT32 limit is 2/4GB which most flash cards use - also very bad for error recovery). When working with big video files, a limit on file size and lack of CRC isn't good.

Panasonic probably implemented some sort of new filesystem on these cards which Macs can't recognize yet. Which makes sense why you could see it on Linux. I have no idea what format might be, but as there's a linux driver floating around to allow you to access the card it's clear that it's not a hardware issue at work.

No worries.. it'll be working sooner or later.

(this is all speculation)

You could bypass the laptop entirely and dump directly from the P2 card that's inserted in the HVX to an off-the-shelf external USB2 hard disk connected to the camera. Then plug the hard disk to the PowerBook and bingo.

EDIT: Oops, I just saw that you need to keep recording while you dump the footage. The USB2 dump doesn't work while the camera's recording, I believe. Nevermind. But I'm sure Apple will have all this figured out by the time the HVX is available.

Apple is working on it. It is about their OS not recognizing the PCMCIA slot as a Hard Drive.

Best,

Jan

But when I put my compact flash card into my laptop mac via a PC card adapter, it appears as a drive???

Also, why is the nice five card reader so darned expensive???

Graeme

Jan, can you confirm this being fixed at launch? This is essential for my proposal for my company to invest on the camera.

Thanks

Sergio

Sergio, this would be a question better asked at Apple. I am not even their employee, but I do know they are aware of the situation and are working on it.

Best,

jan

Three months till the camera is under the tree. I think it´s plenty of time for apple to fix the problem.

Sergio:And what does this do for your workflow? Yo can't record "Non stop" with the camera if you are relying on a Mac laptop to dump the information.

Hi,

I am assuming you mean with the PCMCIA slot. You should be able to do this eventually as Apple is aware of the OS situation and the P2 card. They are working on it.

Best,

Jan

backward compatible
 

Hope Apple takes care of those of us who already have a PBook. Hope Panasonic presses on it. Many of us will buy the HVX only if all this works fine.