Transfering P2 and SD to External HD in the Field

[ben1257sb]

I will be going on a 9 day river trip. On that trip, we will be shooting a documentary on my Panasoinc HVX and my Canon 5D. For my video guys out there, I know you all know it would be far too expensive to purchase enough P2 cards for my trip. I might be able to purchase enough SD cards for my trip but I am trying to figure out a way to transfer my P2 media to an external hard drive. That sounds easier and cheaper.

Batteries will be scarce on this river trip so a laptop conversion might not work. Is there a device that exists that will transfer P2 media straight to an external HD without needing a laptop?

I'm not experienced in this realm of filmmaking and I know something like this must exist. How do the people from Discovery and History channel pull it off?

Any suggestions?

 

[yoak]

There are units that download SD cards and P2 cards straight onto an internal and removable hard drive. I looked into them and they used to be very expensive. If I remember correctly it was around the same price as a MacBook Air. The units are great as the can run on both small batteries and car chargers, but I found it too expensive at the time and chugged along my MacBook pro instead. Ideally you should use a software like Shotput Pro hat lets you copy to 2 different drives simultaneously AND it checks he copies for any errors. It costs $99 I think