Major issues...Duel Adapter for Expresscard P2 Download...
 

A warning...if you are using the Duel Adapter...as I have very successfully done for a couple years to dload your P2 cards...do not upgrade your MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard 10.6. Apple in their wisdom has chosen to no longer support P2 via Expresscard connectivity.

I contacted Panasonic about it and this is the response that I got:

Dear customer,

We really appreciate your support for Panasonic Professional AV products.

The reason for not releasing the Cardbus P2 driver is that Snow leopard
OS itself does not support the CardBus function.

We apologize the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.
Best regards,

---------------------------------------
PASS Support Team
sav.p2support.pavc@ml.jp.panasonic.com
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----------------------- Original Message -----------------------
From: tim@chameleonmvp.com
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 02:52:14 +0900 (JST)
Subject: [P2 Asset Support System] Question
----

Why is there no CardBus P2 Driver available for the Mac Snow Leopard users? You are killing us out here. We are trying to support your extremely expensive format, but every time we turn around you make us second guess our choice.

We are desperate for a driver to be able to use our CardBus slots for download...it is way faster than the firewire or usb connections and much better for data transfers in the field.

Please take this from a huge supporter of the format...and give us a driver for CardBus use on Mac Snow Leopard.



I also talked with Duel Systems...the manufacturer of the Duel Adapter...and they are not planning on supporting the product going forward. They have tired of Apple's run around and feel there are too many other devices on the market or something...I dont know where they are looking!

The only, closest alternative that I can find is the Sonnet Qio and it is about $999.00 more than a Duel Adapter. However, I have talked with their tech support and it is supposed to work with Snow Leopard...just not in 64 bit mode...whatever that means. But they are getting successful Expresscard connectivity between it and P2 cards.

Oh...FYI...
 

This could be effecting other devices, as well...that is one reason that I called Sonnet on the Qio to make sure they are checking their device against the issues that others are having.

I don't think that you can point the finger just at Apple. Duel Systems has not been straight forward by not supporting the device going forward.

This has been a known bug for several months.

Panasonic does plan on releasing a single slot P2 card reader in the coming months. No word on the interface, though I would expect that it would have both firewire and USB. That is a guess on my part.

If you have upgraded to Snow Leopard or just purchased a new Macbook Pro, you are stuck with connecting the camera through Firewire or USB 2.0. There are also devices like the Nexto DI 2500 and 2725 which can be used for offloading files without a computer.

The third option is to offload directly to either a Firewire or USB drive from the camera bypassing the computer. This is covered in the manual and also in detail in Barry Green's book.

Daniel Weber

Sorry guys, but as a fellow P2 user, I am now with Barry Green on this. The days of begging, pleading with Panasonic, Apple or Duel are over, they are not going to support this on Macs going forward. As you know, all of the newest MBPs except the 17" don't even have the Express Card 34 slot anymore, the writing is on the wall.

The solution is simple and cheap, buy a used PB G4 or a cheap new PC laptop with the PCMCIA slot. Barry has been advocating this for years now. As Apple users, we are kind of left out in the cold as far as Apple/Pana/Duel support going forward so we must take a step back, unless you want to spend $1,000.00 or more for a QIO or something else.

Not the end of the world, it just requires thinking outside the box a bit. You can pickup a PC laptop with the appropriate slot for as little as $350.00 on special or just buy a used one for, what, $150.00?

We have fought the good fight, it is over.

Dan

Dan B.

I have not been able to find a PC laptop (new) for less than $800.00. Point me in the right direction if you can.

Bill:

Just shake the tree and a lot of fruit will fall from the branches. HP Compaq NC6220 1.86Ghz 1G 60GB 14-inch Laptop (Refurbished) | Overstock.com for one but there are dozens more. Far from state of the art but for P2 dumping, I would buy as cheaply as possible.

Just think of it as a $300.00 P2 card reader.

Dan

thanks Dan...

I have only looked around at the retail outlets (Bestbuy, Frys).

Am I correct in assuming that the the speed of offloading is ONLY affected by the speed of the hard drive (7200) ?

Offload speeds
 

Hi,

offload speeds are also related to the bus that the card is attached to and the mode of offload, 400/800/SATA.

FWIW, I have kept my MBP at 10.5.8 and am fine with offloading P2 like that until the situation has shaken out. My home desktop is Snow Leopard And I've experienced no OS related issues there.

Lenovo makes many; the $499 ThinkPad SL410, also the ThinkPad R400, T400, and W500 all have the PCMCIA slot, and there are several Fujitsu Lifebooks that have it, and of course the Panasonic Toughbooks have it. Obviously you should check each individual model before buying (for example, Lenovo is supposed to overhaul the SL lineup tomorrow, if the rumors are right; I don't know if the new SL420 will have the PCMCIA slot or not).

The other thing we've been recommending is the Lenovo S10-e netbook; you can find that for $200 in places, and then you add an Addonics or Rosewill PCMCIA->ExpressCard adapter for $40 and you're set with a 160GB offload station. If you get a USB->GigE adapter, you can even plug it into your desktop via Gigabit Ethernet and use it as a direct slot reader for your desktop.

Barry,

I looked for the Lenovo S-10E online and the cheapest I found was $350. Any idea where you can find it for $200?

Daniel Weber

Thanks Barry...I'll check those out.

Radio Shack used to have 'em for $299, and someone posted finding them somewhere (may have been radio shack) on closeout for $200...

I saw that posting too for $200. It was Best Buy and when I went to the link they were sold out.

Pretty much the best deal I found was $280 from a place online that I probably would trust to buy from. The laptop has been discontinued and is very hard to find.

On another note, I went into a Best Buy last week and looked at all the PC laptops. (This very hard for a hard core Mac guy to do!!) I couldn't find a model in stock that had either a PC Card or Expresscard slot. It seems that the newer PC's have followed the lead of Apple and gone away from those ports.

I could probably find them if I looked at more business machines than the consumer ones they had there.

Daniel Weber

Interesting that the new 3D camera that Panasonic debuted today at CES that has the 170 body with a stereoscopic imager front end uses SD cards only, no P2. And it is recording two streams of video at once.

1. Either Panasonic is going to go with SDXC card technology Panasonic introduces SDXC cards going forward, phasing out P2 eventually or...

2. This 3D camera today was introduced at the Consumer Electronic Show, perhaps it is the consumer/prosumer 3D camera and the pro version with P2 and AVC Ultra comes out at NAB in April for double price?

Dan

Hey Dan,
So many different ways Panasonic could go. It would be smart of them to offer a one card slot box with loop thru firewire, USB, esata standalone unit for say $400 and take the computer slot out of the mix. Never quite understood why they haven't upgraded the P2 Store either. This would allow them to continue to use the present form factor which has some advantages. Maybe they will make an SDXC to P2 adapter so they can keep people happy who have committed to the present P2 config. For certain keeping a proprietary form factor is going to be tougher and tougher going forward.