Finally Found a Local Source for CD Qualified Sandisk CF Card Media !

[Mark Job]

After roaming the Internet and phoning around town for several days I finally found a local reseller for the CD qualified Flash media. There is this impressive photography boutique on St; Hubert Street in Montreal called L.L. Lozeau. This place is like a high end digital still and video camera emporium. This store has the most expensive collection of Canon HDV camcorders, as well as Sony EX series cameras, plus extra lenses, and numerous accessories that I have ever seen. There was easily $100 Grand of Canon and Sony products in the front case alone ! I have never seen such high end merchandise in a retail store presented in such amounts or in this manner. The only thing missing in this place was the armed guards. I don't think I saw one lens, video camera or camera accessory under $1,800.00 ! This is the only place I found which carries the full Sandisk high end line of CF media.

I purchased 2 x Sandisk Extreme III 32 GB cards and I was able to pick up 1 x 16 GB Extreme IV media. (I wanted to purchase four Extreme III 32 GB cards and four 16 GB Extreme IV cards, but I ran out of production cash). The Extreme III 32 GB media goes for a $375.00 Canadian and the 16 GB Extreme IV media is the same price. It is unfortunate Sandisk does not produce a 32 GB density version of the EXtreme IV card. Perhaps there is a technical reason for this. (??) This media is so damn expensive that I think it would actually pay to be able to obtain 4 x 64 GB density flash media and have done with ever having to purchase flash media again. At least with CF cards, they can be used over and over again, so the somewhat steep initial investment is returned quickly.

Hey Mike or Dan what the heck is in these cards which makes them so expensive ? Is it the Nand memmory or is it the controller circuit used inside of them ? Is there a proprietary technology in the Sandisk cards which is not in any other brand of CF media perhaps ?

Upon exiting the store I was a very happy man with the necessary Flash media required. I walked right into a live French Language CBC Television reportage across the street from Lozeau. I waited for the reporter to complete her on air appearance, then approached the camera operator. The operator was shooting with a Sony BetaCam SX HD camera in SD mode for live TV. I asked the camera guy if he ever heard of SSDR's like the Flash XDR and he replied in the negative. I pulled out my flash media to show him there were devices out on the market which captured what he just shot onto these cards in full SD or HD 10 bit 4:2:2 video with TC and multi-channel audio. The camera man's reaction was that he really wanted to see such a device. I then told him to go Google Flash XDR. I also showed the salesman in the store what the Flash XDR looks like on their Internet connected PC, and they gave me the impression they wanted to start selling them. I was glad we were able to find a local source for the qualifying Flash media to use in the Flash XDR,