Sd card reader or faster connection - On Location

My MBP crashes my application (Pr) on preview of mts files. (MBP 2.4 dual core $g ram)

However on my main MacPro it does not. I use the same OHM SD reader on both. On the Macpro i connect via the extra usb on the ultra thin keyboard. On the MBP i connect to the usb on the right side of the laptop.

If i transfer the file to the HDD on the MBP it will play just fine, but on location i cant wait 30-45 minutes for an off-load, then spend 10mins doing a preview.

It would seem that the direct connection would be faster than the connection thru the keyboard, but that doesn't seem to be.

My question is....
Is there a faster connection or a better Sd reader that might solve this mystery?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

If you have an express34 slot on the computer, get an Express34 SD card reader. I have that. VERY fast.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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thanks shane

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Any good fast economical card readers for Macbook Pro and p2 cards? (there was an older Sonnet card that constantly crashed the machine - and we now just do firewire connect to camera which ties up the camera and is fairly slow) Thanks Andy

Last week I was looking for a P2 to express34 adapter and a salesman at Melrose Mac told me that the problem
is that there are no drivers for those adapters running under Snow Leopard. He didn't seem to think any were coming.

I was trying to switch field operations completely to our 17" Macbook Pro and his suggestion was to put some money
into fixing up our 6 year old Powerbook instead.

I have this feeling that the Express Card adapter option for P2 is dead, given the lack of support or new drivers for the current solutions. Panasonic did release a new reader that's a USB model; not cheap but it's probably the most reliable solution at it's price point ($350)

[www.evsonline.com]

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

There is a little review of the USB P2 reader on the CC: [library.creativecow.net]

[catalog2.panasonic.com]



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Pardon my ramt, but that really sounds fcking weak. You don't want to shoot to multiple 32GB cards on P2 only to wait anxiously for it all to offload during lunch break over a USB 2 bottleneck. There's a reason why some of us bring redundant storage on Fw 800 out to location. P2 formats are usually 100 Mbs, not 25/35 Mbs like the xdcam variants. Yea, I know Panasonic makes multiple P2 card readers for a few thousand dollars a pop, but still? Cant they get a solitary card reader that works via expresscard or at the very least FW800 so we can get an express card/fw800 host?



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pardon my ramt, but that really sounds fcking
> weak. You don't want to shoot to multiple 32GB
> cards on P2 only to wait anxiously for it all to
> offload during lunch break over a USB 2
> bottleneck. There's a reason why some of us bring
> redundant storage on Fw 800 out to location. P2
> formats are usually 100 Mbs, not 25/35 Mbs like
> the xdcam variants. Yea, I know Panasonic makes
> multiple P2 card readers for a few thousand
> dollars a pop, but still? Cant they get a solitary
> card reader that works via expresscard or at the
> very least FW800 so we can get an express
> card/fw800 host?

Why? Then you wouldn't have to wait, or maybe more important, you wouldn't need so many of the (overpriced) P2 cards... They make more money on P2 cards and readers than on cameras, I bet (?)... similar to how inkjet printer manufacturers sell printers at a loss, but more than make up for it in ink cartridge sales...




-Dave

Get a KiPro or KiPro Mini (when they come out) and forget P2.

Or, just get large enough capacity cards so that you can shoot all day, then offload all night. Use Shotput Pro that will do the offload for you, and chime when done. You can wake up, switch cards, go back to bed.

That USB reader is pretty fast. It is comparable to FW800...it is USB 2. I've tested it and it is about as fast as my G4 Powerbook with the direct connection. Tad slower, but not by much.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

>Or, just get large enough capacity cards so that you can shoot all day, then offload all night.

The largest capacity card is 64 GBs. A 100 Mb/s stream works out to around 44 GBs an hour, not including audio. Roughly an hour and a half of footage. An hour long shoot would take you roughly 13 mins to transfer out through a USB 2 connection provided it is able to maximize the full 60 MB/s transfer rate according to USB 2 specs (pretty unlikely). A raid 1 array running off eSATA/express card can have a real world write speed of around 90-110 MB/s. The theoretical limit for fw800 is 100 MB/s, but in the real world we probably average around 70% efficiency at best.



www.strypesinpost.com

I've grown to have considerable disdain for P2 cards. They are just far too uneconomical for film work, negating much of the advantage of tapeless. Two cards of 16GB each, either CompactFlash or SDHC for Canon DSLRs, come to about $50 to $100 ($200 if you go the extra-expensive SanDisk route). Two 16GB P2 cards cost over $1000 (and 16GB of P2 storage is only about 40 minutes of 960x720, 24pN run time). Get one stolen on set and your budget goes supernova. On my last project involving an HVX200a, the delivery PA dropped one card on his car floor for about 24 hours and the whole production had a heart attack.


www.derekmok.com

I like P2 formats in post production. They are the nicest codecs to work with with pretty good quality. Quite a bit of leverage too. I don't deal with production too much, but having a storage formatted whittled down to a USB connection sounds.. well, kinda dumb.



www.strypesinpost.com

Just worked with Convergent Design's Nano Flash -- Fantastic!

See it here

Nano Flash demo

Shooting on an older Sony HDCAM Tape Deck with this connected to the SDI out -- rolls and stops when the camera does (not sure how it does that but something about sensing timecode running out of the SDI connection)

Will record in Long GOP or MPEG (P2 format) and give you finished Quicktime Files - not MFX -- so you pull the compact flash out of the box -- insert into your mac -- copy - edit

The upfront expense is steep -- about 3500 for the box and then whatever media you buy -- but once you've bought it - that's it - will work with anything that has SDI out - small enough to strap to the camera -- and no log and transfer time delay. Plus you get better quality -- will record at high bit rates and whatever the camera is capable of in resolution to the card - not the highly compressed video required to squeeze into DVCPRO or XCDAM codecs.

This is a joy to work with and from an editors point of view the fastest way from Camera to Edit.

The nano Flash looks nice. very high bit rate. It could made a HMC much richer. A bit out of reach right now but certainly on the radar.

As i looked at the video it seems like it negates the limitation of the cams built-in codec. I think its neat way ta go.

I am stuck in the sd world right now so i think the express34 needs a ride before i could go to that level.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

The AJA "Ki-Pro-Mini" was just released. $2,000 as opposed to $3,000 for the NanoFlash.

I'm assuming that AJA know how to make stuff that works.

Harry.