Problems with Transcend SDHC Cards
 

I recently bought an EX1 with the Hoodman SxS adapters and Transcend 16GB Class 6 SDHC cards. I have 8 sets. It is not operating reliably. I get very frequent Media Restore errors. Sometimes after every shot. The red light stays on about 8 seconds after I've stopped recording. So it seems to me that the SDHC card is not operating fast enough.

Did I get a bad batch of SDHC cards (I got 8 of them) from Amazon? I ordered 4 plain cards and 4 with a USB adapter, so they couldn't have been sequentially produced.

Any help would be appreciated. I'm about to ditch the whole SDHC thing for lack of reliability.

You MUST wait until that red light goes off. It's still writing the TOC and it's normal for it to take a few seconds to turn green.

I guess you know each SDHC card has a serial number printed on it. Go to the Transcend web site and register them so you are covered under their warranty. This will also make sure you have real Transcend cards and not fakes. - That would be my first step. If they continue to give you problems maybe Transcend would replace them since they should be able to accept the data rate that this camera outputs when shooting a standard frame rate.

I marked each card with an easy to see number and I also put number each card holder so potential issues could resolved by recording which card and holder combination had a problem and then change the card or holder to determine where the problem might be.

I had one problem Transcend 16GB card out of my eight. I no longer use that one with the EX3.

The delay after stopping recording is at least 8 seconds. I do wait for it to turn green. Sometimes it cuts off in the middle of recording though.

It has happened with at least 4 of them so far. I checked a few serial numbers and they seem legit. The other thing I noticed is they seemed to work the first time I used them. Then after transfering to Final Cut they start to exhibit the problem. Could it be something OS X puts on the card when you mount it? A .DS_Store file?

I tried formatting one and that didn't make a difference. Maybe I need to format it twice or three times before using it again. Also, I've been recording 1080 30P. Should that format create any problems?

Do you mean wait to eject or wait to record again?

The one way I've found that I can reliably recreate the problem is by recording, stopping the recording, and start recording again before the red light turns green. Every time this results in the second clip being lost and a media restore error. Sometimes the media restore error happens immediately on stopping the second recording. Sometimes it happens during recording a third clip or at the end of the third clip.

Wait to record or eject. If you try to record before that light goes green you will get an error and will damage the TOC needing a media restore.

If you eject you will damage the TOC.

The red light means the card is still being written. It does take a few seconds for the buffer to finish writing after stopping a record.

That seems strange to me.
I get a consistant 3 sec delay no matter if Sandisk or Transcend SDHC, or Sony SxS.
Are you shooting long takes, or more like 10-20 sec shots?
Do you get the 8 sec delay with SxS cards as well?
If it's happening on short takes on SxS cards, I would be suspicious it's a camera problem rather than a card problem.
Certainly 30p, 60i, 720, 1080, etc. should not be an issue re the problem you are having.

I have been using 10 MxR + 16gb Transcend class 6 cards since early this year without any problems at all. The short wait for the TOC to complete is not a problem as long as you know about waiting for the LED to change from red to green. I either continuously run or use SxS cards if I think a situation needs short fast shots. I was fortunate to find this site before buying an EX1 and so know the "rules" for shooting with SDHC approved media. Thanks to all who give their time to further our knowledge.

An 8-10 second write delay is too long and prone to user error. That delay has been the source of most of my problems, but I'm not sure it's the complete problem. I also had a case of a truncated clip that cut off halfway through.

Does everyone else have this long of a delay? When I use SxS cards the delay is more like 3 seconds. Also I can start recording again before the light turns green without problem in that situation.

I tested the speed of the Transcend card in a USB adapter on my Mac and it's write speed always ends up around 10 MB/sec. So it doesn't seem to be a problem with write speed of the SDHC card.

I'm ordered an MxR card from Australia and will test that when it arrives to see if I get a shorter write delay. I'm also going to order a Hoodman SDHC card when they come available. It's SxS until I'm convinced SDHC is reliable. Better start saving for the $1600 for 2 32GB SxS cards.

I'm pretty sure Hoodman only guarantees their adaptors when used with Hoodman cards.

I use Hoodman cards & adaptors and I've never had an issue. Of course, I was pretty anal about only putting Sony tapes in my old cameras, too. Never had an issue with them, either.

I hope you get your problem resolved. It sucks having issues that drive you crazy like that.

Also my firmware is 1.12_0534. Does anyone else have that version while getting 3 sec. write delays?

Brett,

I bought Hoodman cards and they work flawlessly. After hitting stop, the light stays red for about 5 seconds. So I bought some Transcend cards from Amazon, they are legit cards, I checked the website. Both the ones I bought take 11 seconds for the light to turn green after hitting stop!!! Plus I get write errors quite frequently. I ALWAYS make sure the light is green before hitting play. These are the Class 6 Transcend cards direct from AMAZON, not a 3rd party vendor. I bought them about 3 weeks ago. Maybe they have changed since the reports over a year ago? Many have no issues, my recent order is not much good I'm afraid.

I know they are double the price, but I will only buy Hoodman cards from now on! They have worked flawlessly in the Hoodman SxSxSDHC adapter.

I also recently updated my Firmware, so I'm not sure if it's something to do with that or not?
However, the Trandscends are NOT trustworthy for me. I'll maybe use them for backup and writing from card to card in the field, that is all.

I bought some of my Transcend cards from Amazon and some from Newegg. All work flawlessly in my Kensington adapters.

Now I guess it is possible that recent ones have changed internally, but have you considered that maybe the Transcend cards don't work as well in the Hoodman adapter as opposed to another adapter as others have suggested?

John

This is exactly my situation. I ordered the Transcend cards right around the same time. Unfortunately, Hoodman had been out of stock of SDHC cards for a long time. But I just ordered one from them. They were also very helpful on the phone. Once I get it I'll test it out and I also ordered an MxR card to see if the Transcends work with that. I'll report back when I try everything out.

The take home lesson is DO NOT try to use newer Transcend cards with Hoodman adapters. It does not work reliably.

Very possible! As a matter of fact, I hope it is that reason. Then I can get an MxR adapter and use the transcends I bought. I read post after post on here saying all the adapters are the same, but maybe they aren't? All I know is this combo (hoodman adaptor/Transcend card) doesn't work reliably at all. I look forward to your findings Brett!

John, How long does the light stay red after you hit stop with the Transcends and MxR adapters? It seems to be a good indicator of problems as both Brett and I are getting +10 seconds?