This "How To" page describes how to build your own Budget FOUR slot P2 card reader, we utilized for our tests a Pre-loved PCI slot based Macintosh Dual 800 Quicksilver and a 1.25 Mirror Door Dual,  plus Four SIIG PC card readers. we estimate you can source up to four card readers and an old Mac for under $400US.

These PCMCIA (Cardbus) Readers are now very difficult to source, but they can be found with some persistence. The chipset on the SIIG reader worked flawlessly on our PCI based Quicksilver and Mirror Door Mac's running under Tiger 10.4.8.

SIIG web page

http://www.siig.com/ViewProduct.aspx?pn=JJ-PC1M12-S1

We have limited stock of this card for purchase if you can't source one  

We have tested some other brands of similar design readers but have found this SIIG to be the best.

Firstly get hold of an old Quicksilver or Mirror Door Mac, install up to four P2 readers in the PCI slots

 

Load up a fresh System HDD of Tiger (we suggest 10.4.8) , the OS will recognize the Card readers, then install the Mac Panasonic P2 Cardbus driver from

http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/p2-hd/downloads-and-updates.asp

or another great source of P2 downloads

http://panasonic.sixbullets.net/

 

Your now ready to use your four slot P2 readers, we connected two 1TB external HDD's via firewire, transfers are easy and fast, you can also use USB if you wish. alternately you can set up raided drives with-in the Mac tower if you wish, your only limited by your resourcefulness.

P2 cards are easily accessible from all rear slots, as seen below all P2 card icons appear on the desktop for easy access.

Edit directly from the P2 cards using FCP 5.1.4 or just dump vision to the HDD's, either way this solution is cheap and very reliable when used with Mac OS Tiger 10.4.8, in my opinion it's a very solid stable set-up.

You don't have to use all four card readers, use as many or as few as you want or as many as you can get hold of.

there are many PC to PCI Card readers on the market, But, only a few work well with the Mac OS.

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WINDOWS P2 card Reader

There is another rear entry PC card that has been tested by us in a WINDOWS PC and that is the ELAN P111, simply follow the prompts to install the driver form the XP or vista OS. then make sure you install the Panasonic P2 card windows driver.

ELAN Link

ELAN make quality products so you can buy with confidence.

you can also network your windows box to a Mac via gigabit ethernet and transfer files that way.

Barry Green has a good "how To" connect via ethernet on DVXuser forum.

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