The Panasonic site mentions that the P2 Store can hook up to your pc and lists some pc drivers...it doesn't say anything about downloading files to your Mac.

I asssume that it will work with Macs, does anyone know for sure?

Thanks,

Paul

Yes! In Final Cut Pro 5, it already has presets for P2, and Apple and Panasonic have had a long, great relationship with DVCPro HD.

heath

I also believe they just released a patch today (5.0.4) that is pretty much only about intigration of p2 cards.

I also hope they made it so I can see HDV on my playback monitor.

heath

Ah, just in time.

The Panasonic personel that was demonstrating the P2/Power Book integration was saying that Panasonic okayed the software update on FCP5 to work with P2 at the time of InterBEE.

So, I guess I'm all ready for it.

Kaku,

I wish I had your access to cameras!

heath

One of my main job is providing Mac based NLE system. I gather my spare time to offer my interests like music and mountainbiking to be shot for our systems demo use. I'm changing the camera every year, so I won't be able to learn really good but at least I have broad knowledge in usage of each cams. So, I'm selling the HC1 and FX1, holding on to A1 to buy HVX200. Oh, I kept one GS400 for my sales guys to play around.

Actually, you probably wish my access to NLE and DAW because I'm more equipped with post production stuff because that is my job.

Hey Kaku, Where is your store? I'm also in Tokyo and would love to drop by, I have been to places like shirakura and system 5 and bought my HD100 at videokin, get back to me...cheers

Hi,

I'm in Shibuya, upstairs of famous vietonamese restaurant called Y. Saigon.
http://creativesuite.com

I'll be sure to drop by in the next couple of weeks, when the Xmas holidays are in, I need to by some equipment in the near future, It's pretty costly to start up a video business these days. But I will drop by and say hi sometime, I work in Harajuku so it isn't that far.

I go to Harajuku all the time. Many of my clips are shot in Yoyogi Park, too. We are working until 28th, start working from Jan. 4th. We are rather office setup instead of store, so please call or email us before you drop in.

Thanks everyone for your immediate and helpful responses!

Paul

I just called Spec-Comm to amend my HVX200 order and was cautioned that currently, there is no definitive answer from Panasonic if their 60 GB P2 Store device is compaptible with Macs.

P2 cards themselves can be read by the Mac laptops, but the P2 Store device may not be recognized. It may have something to do with the USB only interface.

I decided not to oder it and stuck with the pakage that included the 5 4GB P2 cards.

Paul

On the plus side, you don't remove the cards, just hook up a laptop and an inexpensive firewire drive, then dump your video off. On the negative side, you're still only getting around 20 or so minutes at a time.

heath

I do like the option to dump the cards directly to a firewire drive very much. I can see that being very useful in the field.

Paul

You only need to buy 2 cards, but that throws the total cost to $10,000!

heath

Check out the packages offered at spec-comm.com. Their prices range from $5,969 with one 4GB P2 card up to $8,249 with 5 4GB P2 cards. They also include an extra 6000 mAh battery with their packages.

A few weeks ago, I ordered a package with 2 8GB P2 cards, but they recently offered the option to change to camera packages that included 4GB cards instead, so I changed.

Paul

We only recommend purchasing from our DV Info sponsors:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=22

heath

Just to bring this thread back on topic...

I can't confirm that the P2 Store will be Mac compatible. However, I don't see why it wouldn't be. It connects via USB2 and acts just as a standard USB2 storage device (just as any external USB2 hard drive would) and there are no special drivers or software required. Why would a Mac or FCP care if you're importing the files from an external HDD or from a P2 card? In other words, I'm willing to bet real money that a P2 Store will work just fine plugged into a Mac.

Don't worry, it has had the basic architecture ready to go in FCP 5 for a little while. The newest update, 5.0.4 helps solidify it, though I wonder if JVC's HDV 24p is now compatible, too.

heath

I assume that it would too, but I am not willing to drop $1800 on an assumption.

Can anyone from Panasonic chime in on this and tell us for sure?

Paul

I wonder if Jan from Panny is floating around...

Try this: http://www.p2info.net/

heath

I just got a phone call from my sales rep who talked to his contact at Panasonic who says that the P2 Store is recognizable by Macs as long as it is connected via a USB 2 port.

Paul

USB 2? That sounds fishy. USB 2 claims to be as fast as FireWire 400, but in benchmark tests, it isn't even close.

heath

I am also wary of the USB 2 connection. It doesn't seem like if would provide the performance of a firewire connection.

I'll stick to dumping the P2 cards either directly from the camera to a firewire drive or by a live camera feed through a laptop.

Paul

I am also wary of the USB 2 connection. It doesn't seem like if would provide the performance of a firewire connection.

I'll stick to dumping the P2 cards either directly from the camera to a firewire drive or by a live camera feed through a laptop.

Paul

Hello Paul,

The only way to connect the P2 Store is via the USB 2.0 jack. Panasonic never included a Firewire port.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,


Andrew Hoffman
Senior Operations Manager
Specialized Communications Corp.
20940 Twin Springs Dr.
Smithsburg, MD 21783-1510 USA
800-359-1858
Fax: 301-790-0173
andrewh@spec-comm.com
www.spec-comm.com

I will check this with Panasonic.

USB 2? That sounds fishy. USB 2 claims to be as fast as FireWire 400, but in benchmark tests, it isn't even close.

heath

I don't know what benchmarks you're looking at, but in most "real world" scenarios, USB2 (if properly implemented) is actually faster than firewire. It has 80Mbps more headroom, better data scheduling and routing and lower latency. Where I have seen most USB2 benchmarks and speed reports go bad is poor implementation on mainboards and/or too many devices connected simultaneously to a single root. Bad hubs, etc...

Besides, even if you get a USB2 interface operating at 75% efficeincy, which would be really bad, that's still 360Mbps or 3.6X the transfer speed needed for DVCPROHD and about 3X the max transfer rate of the 2.5" HDD that's inside the P2 Store unit.

I wish I'd gotten USB 2 to work that fast, but editing video with a USB external hard drive has never worked well for me like a FireWire 400 and especially an 800.

heath

I wish I'd gotten USB 2 to work that fast, but editing video with a USB external hard drive has never worked well for me like a FireWire 400 and especially an 800.

Now that makes me wonder... Are you sure it's the interface in question or the speed/quality of the drive in that external box? Because if you're seeing faster speeds with a firewire 800 external vs. a firewire 400 and there's less than 2 or 3 hard drives in that external enclosure, then something is wrong. Firewire 400 is faster than just about any single hard drive on the market today. There's plenty of junk external drives on the market that can't cope with the speeds for video work and it's not the fault of USB2, but rather the drive itself. Especially when talking about 2.5" drives and external units that draw power from the USB2 port.

I have a Maxtor 300GB external firewire400/usb2 HDD. The drive itself is a 3.5", 4 platter, 7200rpm w/16MB cache and it performs identically connected to firewire or usb2. It's plenty fast to edit from and I use this to edit with from my HP ZD7000 notebook. I usually connect my DVX100 to the firewire port for capture and the drive to the second USB2 port. I capture just fine, and I can edit and play back multiple streams just fine in Vegas with this thing, never an issue. I also have a couple 250GB external USB2/firewire drives that I assembled myself with NexStar enclosures and Western Digital drives... Once again, they work great and can sustain the maximum rates for these hard drives without an issue... About 22MB/s (176Mbps), nowhere near the speed limits of firewire or USB2.

Just as a side note, I just got confirmation from Panasonic that there are drivers for the latest version of FCP to use the P2 Store for the MAC. The USB port is NOT used for DTE. Only file transfer.

Best regards,

Andrew Hoffman
Senior Operations Manager
Specialized Communications Corp.
20940 Twin Springs Dr.
Smithsburg, MD 21783-1510 USA
800-359-1858
Fax: 301-790-0173
andrewh@spec-comm.com
www.spec-comm.com

Thank you Andrew, that is what I was wondering about.

Paul