P2 Store: is it Mac compatible?

[Heath McKnight]

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

heath

[Paul Lohbauer]

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

[Heath McKnight]

We only recommend purchasing from our DV Info sponsors:

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

heath

[Jeff Kilgroe]

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.

[Heath McKnight]

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

[Paul Lohbauer]

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

[Heath McKnight]

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

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

heath

[Paul Lohbauer]

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

[Heath McKnight]

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

[Paul Lohbauer]

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

[Andrew Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Paul Lohbauer

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

[Kaku Ito]

I will check this with Panasonic.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

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.

[Heath McKnight]

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

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

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.