Buying SD cards - where, what type, comparisons, price
 

Hi,

Just bought a little back up cheapy camera, the Panasonic HDC SD5.

I am looking at buying the little SD cards to record onto.

I have a few questions for all the brilliant minds in this forum... (what a suck i am)

1. Good brands, what are they?
2. Where can I get the cheapest legitimate cards from?
3. Do I need to get the SD cards that have the HD. I am after something that works well for a good price, so basically what are my options?
4. Any other advice or thoughts?

5. What are the best type of chips to eat while i sit here drinking my beer?

cheers,

ant...

Hi Just saw this type online. for $54 US.

Kingston 8GB Class 6 Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card

How do these compare to the new HD SD cards?
Sounds like a reasonable price and they say that they have a lifetime warranty. Is this brand any good, or should I steer clear?

cheers,

ant... again...

For where-to-buy in the U.S., as a matter of forum policy I will firmly direct all inquiries to our site sponsors: www.dvinfo.net/sponsors

For Oceania / AustralAsia, I don't yet have any dealers directly supporting the site. Please post links to legitimate walk-in brick & mortar stores only, or large and established online retailers. No fly-by-night Ebay operations please. Thanks in advance,

For brands of flash memory cards (including SD and SDHC), Kingston and SanDisk are both very well established.

So the kingston Class 6 sdhc cards will perform well with the Panasonic HDC SD5?

I hope so as that is what I am thinking of purchasing.

cheers,

anthony...

Hi all,

sorry to be asking the same question again, but here goes...

In regards to the panasonic SD5.

When purchasing a SDHC card.

Can I use "class 2" type cards, or do I need to use "class 4", or even "class 6", or there is a new "HD card"????

Obviously I need them to work without fault in the camera, but if I can get away with a lower class comfortably there are large financial savings.

I realise the higher the class the more MBs per second that the cards will cope with, but I am not sure that maybe even the lowest class is plenty quick enough to work well.

I need to purchase these cards in the very near future, so if there are any gurus out there that could make this a bit clearer, I would be very appreciative...

Once again, I only want to skimp when there is no reason to over spend, not if it will sacrifice the final product.

thanks again.


ant...

I have had an SD5 for a couple months, and it works fine on some "cheapie" 2G cards from Toshiba, PNY, and Sandisc. I recently added 4G class 6 A-Data ($18.95), and Transcend 8G class 6 ($37 including shipping). Prices vary wildly, so keep looking for sales!

hi david,

thanks for the advice!!

I've been looking for more cards for the HDC-SD5 also for a trip later this year, however the Panasonic Class 6 8GB, & 4GB I have as backup will do for now.
Sandisk have recently announced an SDHC Video memory card
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Cata...o_HD_SDHC.aspx
which seems to fit the required 13mb/s rating for full 1080i recording.
Its cheaper than the UltraIII cards (20mb/s) which would be fine.
I think the UltraII's at about 10mb/s would cause a problem.

Pricing will only drop ;-)

I just ordered one of the Transcend 8GB class 6 cards for 29.99, with free shipping, from chiefvalue.com (same company as newegg.com).

http://www.chiefvalue.com/product-_-...00052622010060

EventDV just did a review of a bunch of cards:
http://techthoughts.org/2008/03/14/c...-test-results/

Oops, just noticed these are CF cards, not SD. Still, might give you a general idea about speed and reliability...

That's the review Marshall Levy wrote. You might want to take a look at this thread, where it's discussed a little:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=116431

I have an SD5. I got my A-Data 16GB SDHC cards from www.newegg.com. I love that little card! It can hold 2.75 hours (172 minutes) of AVCHD video while the SD5 battery can only run for 80 minutes.