Lexar rolls out 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB ExpressCard SSDs

[Bill Koehler]

Price Drop!
No offense, but the P2 guys can't be happy with this...

Lexar is rolling out ExpressCard memory.
Checkout this link:

http://lexar.pricegrabber.com/search...tnum=EX16GB431

[Harm Millaard]

With competition heating up and prices dropping, one wonders about the looming death of P2.......

Makes the upcoming EX even more interesting than it already was.

[Mark Kenfield]

So will these cards work with the XDCAM EX? I get the impression that XDCAM EX works with any Expresscards, so although SxS is going to be Sony/Sandisks version, regular expresscards should work as well

[Bill Koehler]

This link goes to a short blurb on SxS and its relation to ExpressCard.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0704/07...cardformat.asp

[Thomas Smet]

(this is for 1080 material. Of course you can fit more video when using 720p 24p on P2 cards but then you end up comparing 720p video to 1080 video which doesn't really count.)

16GB card at $885.00 = 16 minutes of P2 footage
4 cards = 64 minutes
4 cards = $3,540.00
$3,540.00 for 64 minutes of HD on P2 cards.

16GB card at $190.00 = 48 minutes of XDCAM HD 35mbit footage
2 cards = 96 minutes or more then enough for the 64 minutes of recording time.
2 cards = $380.00
$380.00 for 96 minutes of HD on Express cards. This is almost at 1/10th the cost! If you wanted to figure out the cost for only the first 64 minutes worth of storage then it is actually more like $254.00 or well above 1/10th the cost.

(I'm not sure if 48 minutes is the exact figure for XDCAM HD 35mbit on a 16GB card but it is pretty close. Even if it is slightly lower like 40 minutes that is still a fraction of the cost of using 1080 P2 footage.)

[Tom Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Mark Kenfield

So will these cards work with the XDCAM EX? I get the impression that XDCAM EX works with any Expresscards, so although SxS is going to be Sony/Sandisks version, regular expresscards should work as well

I don't think the Lexar ExpressCard SSD will work with the XDCAM EX.

ExpressCard devices can either use USB or PCIe. Sony's SxS flash memory cards use PCIe. While Lexar doesn't explicitly say which interface their memory cards use, it looks like it is USB. See http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar_e...6gb_12492.html

Tom

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaughan

I don't think the Lexar ExpressCard SSD will work with the XDCAM EX.

ExpressCard devices can either use USB or PCIe. Sony's SxS flash memory cards use PCIe. While Lexar doesn't explicitly say which interface their memory cards use, it looks like it is USB. See http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar_e...6gb_12492.html

Tom

Well we will have to see. Physically the cards are the same. The card will fit into the slot. 480 mbits USB is also more then fast enough for 35mbit XDCAM footage so that wouldn't be a problem either. As long as the EX camera can recognize a storage device as a storage device it may have no problem working. Of course not a single person on this forum can know for sure or not until the camera comes out.

[Bill Koehler]

Mr. Tom Vaughan, I do believe you are correct.
My enthusiasm ran away with me.

I have included a number of links to products below, for
plugging in USB based ExpressCard form factor memory
cards. They expressly state that PCIe based products
will NOT be recognized.

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1121
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1131
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1132

And we also know that the SxS specification is shooting for
throughput of 800 Mbit/sec. This rules out that it would be
USB based.

I do think having two sets of products with the same physical
form factor, plugging into the same physical slot, but in fact
using two different electrical interfaces is going to be cause
for some confusion. As we have been having here.

[Harm Millaard]

I think the most important point is that you already see a number of companies announcing ExpressCard storage, even if not all of them will use the ePCIe interface. Competition is heating up and prices will continue to fall. At the end of the year there will be a number of suppliers who will deliver SxS compatible cards for prices that will threaten the proprietary format of the P2 cards. A further threat to P2 is the fact that current day notebooks are fitted with ExpressCard slots and the P2 compatible slots are massively being abandoned. A third threat to P2 is availability. Let's say you are somewhere in back country and find you need another P2 card. ExpressCards can be found in a lot of computer stores, but for P2 you have to find a well stocked Panasonic dealer.

All in all, I think that P2's days are numbered.

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

Mr. Tom Vaughan, I do believe you are correct.
My enthusiasm ran away with me.

I have included a number of links to products below, for
plugging in USB based ExpressCard form factor memory
cards. They expressly state that PCIe based products
will NOT be recognized.

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1121
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1131
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1132

And we also know that the SxS specification is shooting for
throughput of 800 Mbit/sec. This rules out that it would be
USB based.

I do think having two sets of products with the same physical
form factor, plugging into the same physical slot, but in fact
using two different electrical interfaces is going to be cause
for some confusion. As we have been having here.

Those devices are totally different because they convert the signal. They are designed to use the USB style cards with a USB port or older PCI card slot. They say they will not work with PCIE devices because the devices are not designed to read them and they would becomes a huge bottleneck. All those devices are just so people can easilly use the USB style PCIE shaped cards with older laptops or desktops.

The SONY EX camera is already a PCIE device so it already has the max bandwidth and interface. Again the cards are exactly the same shape and interface and the only difference is the speed. While it may be hard to make a newer faster device work on a slower older interface the opposite is usually much easier. Using a slower card in the EX could in fact work (although like I said earlier nobody can know for sure until they stick one inside and try it out.) The only difference is that the card would transfer video to your laptop at a much slower speed. the 480mbits/s is more then enough to write and read 35mbits/s XDCAMHD footage in realtime which is all that really matters when shooting.

The SxS cards are faster but this will only really matter when you want to transfer the video to another storage device. The SxS cards could maybe copy the card over in half the amount of time but to some people that may not be a big deal.

It all really depends on how the SONY EX views the cards. If the SxS cards are formatted in a special way then perhaps the camera can only view them as valid devices. If the camera views a card just as a storage device then it shouldn't really matter. We will not really know though until somebody physically sticks one of these cards into the camera to see if it will work. I also wouldn't really take the word from a company either as to if it will work. Being officially supported and actually working with no problems are two different things.

Finally, most of the cost of these cards is actually the flash media itself. I really do not see that much of a reason for SxS cards to cost that much more then the Expresscards. The only thing that changes is the interface transfer speed and considering Expresscard devices can cost $50.00 I doubt the interface itself will cost that much more to add to the SxS cards.

(Edit)

One last thing. The current USB bandwidth devices are designed to be plugged into Express card slots and be used as storage devices. Since the SONY EX is a Express card slot it makes sense that it also should be able to read the cards since the cards would be read by a laptop express card slot. It all comes down to if the SONY EX OS will be limited to work with only a certain type of card or if it will just view a storage device as a storage device.

[Robert Morane]

In fairness to HDV, a sony HVD 63 minutes tape is ..around $9.00.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Finally, most of the cost of these cards is actually the flash media itself. I really do not see that much of a reason for SxS cards to cost that much more then the Expresscards. The only thing that changes is the interface transfer speed and considering Expresscard devices can cost $50.00 I doubt the interface itself will cost that much more to add to the SxS cards.

.

I agree completely with you on this one.
But on the other hand, just check out what P2 costs.
And the reason for that is...because Panasonic can IMO.