P2 to SD down load questions

jajack71

jajack71

Well-known member
I just purchased 2 Scan Disk PCMIA sleeve that can take various SD formats. In my case I also purchased 2 SDHC 32GB 10 speed rating. I need to download the software that allows these cards to perform just like my 16gb P2 card.

I know this works because another uses photographer in m market uses them. I cant remember what the process was to do this. If anyone has done this and knows the process I await some answers. Thanks for you time.
 
I second that....Never heard of using non P2 cards... I think you are confused with using SDHC cards on Sony's EX Cameras.

But if there is a hack, please let us know!
 
My 500 has SD slot I can record to. The Scan Disk sleeve hold an SD cards up to 64gb. I can slide the SD card into the ScanDisk sleeve which is the exact size as my P2 card. I guess what I'm asking is if anyone has heard about using this kind of method ?
 
you might be able to put proxies on the card in the SD card slot...but i don't think you can do full-rez. i'd suggest to RTFM, but your question is not very clear.
 
It is possible to record P2 to non-P2 cards in standard definition DVCPro only. Not possible in HD. I personally have not done it but know others who have on HPX170's.
 
P2 Questions

I'm trying to meet up with him this week-end. I will let you guys know what happens.

Thanks for all of the feedback.
 
I've never heard that you could record using an adapter in a P2 camera like you can on any SxS camera. My understanding is that any SD card slot on a P2 camera was for scene files... etc. Nothing about recoring full resolution DVCPro HD video, or even DVCPro video.

If possible, please, please, please share all details.

Though the realist in me says I'm not going to believe it until I see it.

So far all I'm hearing in this thread is people that have heard of other people that have gotten it to work. Aka... I have a bridge to sell you.
 
You are correct about the SD card slots on P2 cameras being for scene files and proxy recording only.

What's being suggested is you can put an adapter in the actual P2 slot and record full DVCPro SD to a SDHC card.
 
zac love said:
I've never heard that you could record using an adapter in a P2 camera like you can on any SxS camera.
Click to expand...

Sony didn't announce this capability until it was already being widely used. It seriously cut into the number of SxS cards they sold, so I'm guessing Panasonic will hold the "its impossible" line as well if they can.

I believe the Sony hack was originally done by some guy who physically chopped up his SD cards to make it work, and originally the doors wouldn't close. plus I believe it would not record variable frame rates. Once it became known more clean versions became available, and I think will record all modes now. Not sure I want to be the first to make it work, but will certainly try it if someone else can show me how.
 
That would be interesting... But my understanding(correct me if I'm wrong) of the way P2 cards work is that each P2 card basically houses four SD cards(or the equivalent) with a RAID controller and writes to all cards at once to be able to meet the bandwidth/speed requirements to be able to write/dump that much data at once, at least for HD.
 
tl;dr - If you could use an SD card to P2 adapter, I'm sure we'd see a lot of it.

2 Hungry Dogs said:
Sony didn't announce this capability until it was already being widely used. It seriously cut into the number of SxS cards they sold, so I'm guessing Panasonic will hold the "its impossible" line as well if they can.
Click to expand...

From what I've been told (by very official people on the internet ;) is that the SxS / Express cards are built upon USB, so a SxS to SDHC adapter is fairly easy to do & the potential always existed. Sony's firmware upgrades have just made it more reliable & they should be commended for going that direction instead of updating firmware that killed the option.

P2 on the other hand isn't built in such a way that it will run off of generic adapters the same way SxS does. I'm assuming there are relations of the P2 architecture to why only some PCM-CIA to Express card adapters work with P2 cards & others don't.

Panasonic can say it is impossible, but consider these three things: 1. How expensive P2 cards are; 2. how many HVX cameras are out there (many owned by cash strapped film students); 3. How cheap adapters & SDHC cards are.

If this was possible today, people would be doing it today & a lot of people would be doing it.

In my simple mind, I think it is possible to use SDHC cards in a P2 slot, but I think we need Panasonic to update the firmware to make it possible, or we'd need an adapter which has the hardware specifically created with P2 infrastructure in mind.

(Please note, I'm not an engineer, so my understandings & explanations are probably horrific to people who actually make computer & electronic things. My apologies.)



Run&Gun said:
But my understanding(correct me if I'm wrong) of the way P2 cards work is that each P2 card basically houses four SD cards(or the equivalent) with a RAID controller
Click to expand...

Again from what I've read, that was only the case for the first generation 4GB cards. After that P2 cards are straight up proprietary flash media cards.

I'd be happy to watch someone open up their P2 cards to see which is true, so if anyone has some they'd like to sacrifice, please let us know!


Again if it is possible to use an adapter in any shape, way or form, please share & prove me wrong.
 
One thing not being mentioned is card write speed. Even if you could use an adapter to record P2HD, you'd still need a card with a write rating of 100MBs or higher. Currently, there are no SDHC cards capable of this and only a select few CompactFlash cards that do it, although they cost as much as P2 cards making it ridiculous to go this route. Shooting SD is completely different.
 
AJA Ki Pro Mini, Sound Devices Pix & Convergent Designs Nano Flash all can record onto CF cards at higher bit rates than P2HD. So any CF card that those companies have blessed would be able to work with P2HD.

While you might not be able to get a SDHC card that can do 100Mbps (note there is a BIG difference between 100Mb - megabit & 100MB - megabyte), I'm sure we'll see some SDHC cards in the near future that can handle those speeds.

For today we have plenty of cards that have been proven to do 35Mbps in the EX cameras. If you those cards can safely record at 50Mbps then we could easily record 100Mbps if someone built an adapter that holds 2 SDHC cards in a Raid 0 configuration.

Even better would be an adapter with built in error correction that can record to 3 SDHC cards. With this it'd be possible to have one card fail & not lose any data.

But with how long it took for Panasonic to release the AJ-PCD2GPJ USB P2 card reader, I don't have much faith in seeing any type of P2 adapter.
 
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