AJ-PCS060 Mac Compatibility?

[Greg Almond]

Hey all, the studio i work for went crazy for the first time today when the HVX200 came in today, we couldn't wait to use it. I got put to the job of setting up the P2 card system with our G5 Powermac Running OS x 10.4

W also bought the Aj-PCS060 P2 Reader/HDD.

For those who don't know, it contains a 60 gig hard drive for on location dumping of the p2 cards to it.
We dumped one of our captured video to the HDD and have it hooked up via USB 2.0.

However, the mac doesn't recognize the drive in the unit, it is found in the recovery agent, but it won't mount to the computer. WE still have the functionality of using the Reader/HDD as a deck for importing files from a p2 card to the G5, but the idea behind owning the unit was so that we can be on location and dump the contents of a card onto the hdd so that we can reuse the card.

I appreciate any help and hope someone has some idea what might be going wrong.

Thank you very much
Greg Almond

[Allan Barnwell]

Panasonic has a tech bulletin on this, but I've recently learned that it was slightly flawed. Here's the original text from the bulletin, and the extra note to make it work properly:


To change compatibility mode between Mac and Windows:
1. Connect USB cable between P2 store and Mac or PC, and then turn on P2
store.
2. Make sure USB LED (D) lights.
3. Press CANCEL button (A), Battery level indicator button (B) and HDD
capacity indicator button (C) simultaneously for more than five seconds.
4. The color of USB LED (D) is orange for Mac, green for Windows.

NOTE:

If you follow the instructions in order, the P2 store will not change modes correctly. The correct sequence is to first press and hold the HDD Capacity ( C ) and Cancel buttons (A), THEN add the Battery Check Button (B), now hold all three buttons for 5 seconds, the mode will change reliably from PC to Mac or back to PC. Doing the procedure in alphabetical order will produce hit-and-miss results.

As mentioned in the note, it is necessary to connect a USB 2.0 cable to the computer or the USB mode LED will not light and you will not know which mode you have selected.

----

Our shop has not received our demo P2 store yet, though we have had cameras since December, so I haven't verified these instructions yet. Please let me know if this fixes your issue.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group
Panasonic/Apple dealer
Austin, TX

[Greg Almond]

Thank you so very much, i searched and searched but couldn't find it, The instructions worked perfectly and it mounted right up to the mac.

You just saved us all here a ton of work, our thanks go to you.

Greg Almond

[Bill Southworth]

And I thank you too. I figured it was a driver flaw that would take months to get fixed. I've been using the P2 Store but, I'm embarressed now to admit, I did the copy to the Mac by accessing the store with Virtual PC and copying the files to a shared volume. Talk about slow and painful.

I'm going to do the PC to Mac incantation tomorrow.

[Robert Lane]

Omega Broadcast (www.omegaaustin.com) is where I got my HVX. Allan is tons of help and great to work with. If you need anything video related and are in need of reliable source of equipment and advice, Allan and Omega Broadcast is the place to go.

[Allan Barnwell]

Several people I've talked to have complained about the excessive time it takes for FCP to import P2 mxf files. This is due to the fact that FCP must re-wrap the files with a Quicktime wrapper (no conversion, just an extra bit of data). This means that the entire file must be moved into a local folder before FCP can start working with it.

While at the Panasonic dealer's meeting for the HVX-200 in December, the Apple rep told me that there is no reason FCP can't support mxf import directly, they just need to program it. So he suggested the best thing to do is send Apple a feature request for direct mxf support in a future update. (And throw in a request for metadata support too!). He said new features are largely prioritized by popular demand, so be vocal.

Thanks for all the complements in the posts above. Omega is excited about our new sponsorship of dvinfo.net and serving you folks however we can.

Allan

[Manuel Schuepfer]

I transferred the data from the AJ-PCS060 to an external firewire-disk with my mac and it took me hours (really!).
The AJ-PCS060 was connected with USB2 and the firewire-disk with firewire (400) to my powerbook G5. The transfer seamed to go one with about 2mb/s.

Anybody an idea why it is extremly slowly? Any experiences?

regards
Manuel

[Allan Barnwell]

If you are transferring data from the AJ-PCS060 on a Mac, the USB will be slower than on a PC. From what I understand (haven't tested this yet), using a 3rd party USB hub can help speed this connection. I will hunt down the specifics of this, but I can testify to the sluggishness.

Panasonic has recently added a new P2 drive that has both USB and firewire for this reason. I would expect to see a P2 Store with firewire down the road.

Allan

[Greg Almond]

The Other problem i think is that you are running from the USB back out to Firewire 400. Try dropping them to your internal drive, and then send them to your firewire, it should help.

[Manuel Schuepfer]

thanks for the replies.

I just tried copying from the AJ-PCS060 directly on the internal drive - it is as slowly as before :(

unfortunately I don't have a USB hub to test with that.

regards
Manuel

[Sam Jankis]

Sounds like it might be a defective unit.

[Manuel Schuepfer]

hmm - I will try with the PC to test.
Since we started working with HD I just got the feeling to spend too much time in evaluating / installing / testing drives and software and workflow and so on - instead of working on projects and ideas...

regards
Manuel