Any news on a Express Card 34 to PCMCIA adapter?
 

Like many of you I'm waiting anxiously for an Express Card 34 to PCMCIA card adapter so we can load P2 cards directly onto our MBPro's and not use the camera for transfer. Has anyone heard rumblings of when of these adapters might come out? In the field I usually just offload to a P2Store and then bring everything onto a GRaid Pro RAID back in the edit bay, but for safety's sake I'd like to start copying to both the P2Store and a G-Raid connected to my MBPro when logistics permit. The only other option I have is using my PC laptop, which has a PCMCIA slot, and transferring to the G-Raid there. Only problem with that is that the G-Raid's are formatted for the Mac. Will the PC read a Mac formatted drive or is that trouble? Thanks,

Peter

Duel Systems (http://duel-systems.com/) is producing that adapter, and it should be out soon (a few weeks maybe?)

Thanks Barry! I'll keep a tab on their website to see when it's released. Best,

Peter

You have to format external drives in OS X as FAT 32 (MSDOS) to make them 'bisexual'. ;-0 If you format them in XP, Mac won't have any write authorization, no matter how you set permissions.

Wow...still nothing
 

It's September and still no adaptor. I emailed duel-systems and haven't gotten a response yet. Has anyone heard anything?

Seriously. When is this thing going to come out?

I run both Mac and PC, so my external HDDs are used on both. OSX can't write NTFS and FAT32 limits you to 4GB files. I got MacDrive for my PC, so now I format my externals as "Mac OS Extended" and my PC easily reads them (MacDrive works seamlessly with Windows Explorer). If I ever have to bring my external HDD somewhere, I bring a Flash Drive with MacDrive (and my serial#) just in case.

I don't believe duel has entered beta testing yet.

I can't imagine that there's a huge motivating force driving this product. Seriously, outside of a few legacy devices and us P2 users, there's little point to an Expresscard to PCMCIA adapter. I'm skeptical if this thing will ever come to market... Or if it does, it will be a little too late. I'm curious what Panasonic is expecting to do since they seem intent on continuing with the P2 format. Are they going to provide more options and hardware for interfacing with P2 media? PCMCIA cards on notebooks are all but history... Now that Apple and most new PC notebook makers have gone to ExpressCard. Panasonic's P2 Drive is an OK solution... Actually it's a great solution, but they need to do some price adjusting there -- like cut the price by at least half.

I have a laptop with a PCMCIA card slot, will it read my P2 cards?

Yes, but you'll have to install the P2 driver software first.

I'm aware of several people beta testing the card now.

Whether it will be offered remains to be seen.

Look at this:

http://www.delkin.com/products/adapters/expresscard34/

That's a CompactFlash reader; it has no applicability for the HVX or P2.

i saw this and started to post it right here before i took a second look. easy to see how you could make that mistake though, it's rather deceiving