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Filed under: Cameras •Editing •Hardware •

Sony’s Mac SxS driver doesn’t play well with the Duel Systems Adapter

Sony distributes an SxS card driver with the PMW-EX1 camcorder. If you install it on your MacBook Pro running 10.4, you won’t be able to read P2 cards using the Duel Systems Adapter. Fortunately, Sony’s uninstaller works well, so you can install the driver to work with the PMW-EX1’s SxS cards, then uninstall it to work with Panasonic P2 cards again.

I tested the SxS driver on a 2.33 GHz 15” MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.11 and Duel System DuelAdapter driver version 1.0.6. After installing Sony’s SxS driver, version 1.0 (distributed with the PMW-EX1 camcorder), I was able to read SxS cards. I was also able to insert the Duel Systems Adapter, but sticking a P2 card into it didn’t mount the card; Activity Monitor showed “kernel task” taking up 100% CPU time, but the card never appeared on the desktop nor in Disk Manager.

Pulling the card out caused kernel_task to quiet down. Removing the Duel Systems Adapter caused a gray-screen kernel panic.

Sony provides an SxS Device Driver Uninstaller in the same disk image as the installer. Running it and rebooting the machine cleanly removed the SxS driver, and I was once again able to read P2 cards using the Duel Adapter, and removing the Duel Adapter didn’t crash the Mac.

If you have the need to read both SxS and P2 cards on the same MacBook Pro, I suggest keeping to Sony disk image handy. Install the driver to work with SxS and uninstall it when done (both steps require a reboot). That way you can bounce between the Sony and Panasonic workflows as your projects require.

I have no idea if the same issues exist on 10.5. Anyone brave enough to try, and report back?

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