When Panasonic first showed the PCD35 at NAB 2008, in was in a glass case with an eSata interface, but when the product shipped in 2009, the only interface offered was PCI-Express (PCIe). Not that PCIe is not fast, but it required a special host card and did not work in a laptop.
I purchased this device, in order to speed up my P2 offloads in the edit suite, but really needed it in the field too. I was aware that Magma Industries offered a PCIe expansion box for laptops, but it seemed too cumbersome and costly to carry in the field.
I started to wonder though, if the Express Card that Magma offered would connect directly to the PCD35. The connection looked the same, and it was a PCIe interface.
Magma sells the host card by itself for $299. I was ready to pull the trigger when I noticed a similar card from Matrox for the MXO2. The MXO2 also sports a PCIe interface, and their host card is only $99.
I quickly added the Matrox PCIe card to my shopping cart and clicked checkout. A couple of days later, the card arrived and my moment of truth was here.
I downloaded the PCD35 drivers onto my laptop, connected all of the cabling to the devices, shut down the laptop, inserted the card, loaded the slots and restarted with my fingers crossed. Upon reboot, I was rewarded with 5 P2 cards on my desktop.
