IBC 2014: SanDisk Rolls Out High Speed High Capacity Cards | Videomaker.com (http://www.videomaker.com/videonews/2014/09/ibc-2014-sandisk-rolls-out-high-speed-high-capacity-cards)

Just saw this online. SanDisk 512gb SD memory cards for $799!

Imagine losing one---Ouch.

I wonder in 5 years, will these 512 cards be available at the price we pay for a 64gb.

I can imagine police departments using these so those vehicle and on-body cameras can record all day long.

I prefer smaller cards. I don't want a single card failure (or loss) to kill a large amount of work.

I can remember 512MB cards.

Actually, I can remember back in the 1990s hearing about how there was this new type of RAM that actually held its data when the power had been switched off. Those were the days.

Andrew

I remember a computer with a massive 30Mb hard drive... 8088 processor, and some piddly amount or memory... and of course 1.2Mb floppy... perspective...

I was surprised they announced two leaps in capacity at once - since 128gb SD cards were the biggest so far (am I wrong), I would expect announcing 256GB model would be wow people enough. Maybe they just want to rub their technological advances in their competitor's faces ;)

It is interesting to me that if I ever wanted to invest in a new camera--- and the choice is something that records to memory cards or a SSD, I'd probably learn towards the SSD.

A 240 gig solid state drive is running around $125. Compared to the 512gig SD card costing $800.

That math is probably wrong, but looking at fast SD cards, the 64gigs ones are pricey too.

I can imagine police departments using these so those vehicle and on-body cameras can record all day long.
You don't need anything as large, though obviously it depends on bitrate.

If we assume even 8Mbs (pretty high for this sort of application), that's 1MBs, so with 60x60x24 seconds in a day, if my maths is right it works out around 85GB for an entire days worth (24 hours) - so 64 GB should be fine for a working day - up to about 18 hours.

Assuming the 8Mbs figure, it does mean one of these cards could run a continuous 6 days, 24 hours a day!

64G SDXC cards can be had around $35, 128G around $60... the bigger ones will come down in time, they ALWAYS do... bigger, better, faster, that's how this digital age works!

These cards really target the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera recording cDNG.

A 256GB card records about 72 minutes cDNG
The 64GB card only holds about 18 minutes which was frustratingly short.

Specifically mentioned in the original press release.
http://www.sandisk.com/about-sandisk/press-room/press-releases/2014/sandisk-premieres-worlds-highest-capacity-sd-card-for-high-performance-video-and-photo-capture/

"The new 512GB SanDisk Extreme PRO UHS-I card offers incredible speed and capacity,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Our Pocket Cinema Camera customers shoot in every type of circumstance and location, and get amazing wide dynamic range RAW images capturing the brightest highlights and darkest shadows at the same time. The additional capacity of the SanDisk Extreme PRO UHS-I card will extend the creative freedom for our customers shooting in RAW and open up the ability to use wide dynamic range RAW files with even more productions.”

I prefer smaller cards. I don't want a single card failure (or loss) to kill a large amount of work.

Timeless ! I remember the same arguments made against 32 MB cards. Overall, I have lost more work and time when more cards are involved. I don't totally buy that more work is lost with a larger card. I use larger camera cards to take more pictures and store them as RAW + full JPG. With video cards, I up the bit rate on my Nanoflash from 50 MBits/second to 220-280 MBits/second. Overall, the video hours recorded are similar.

With a smaller card, I'd take fewer redundant pictures/video. Also, I'd "chimp" more in the effort to keep the card empty, thus increasing the risk of deleting a useful file and distracting myself from shooting.

There is a very real risk of losing work as a flash card fills up. Flash memory goes nuts as it near capacity with huge write delays.

Since the grand resistance against 1 Mbyte, then 1 GByte, soon 1 TByte, cards, flash cards have improved error correction and are shipped with error and file recovery software. Flash card micro controllers are more reliable and run time-tested whitening algorithms.

Assuming the 8Mbs figure, it does mean one of these cards could run a continuous 6 days, 24 hours a day!

That probably pushes daily maintenance to weekly maintenance. Imagine all of the transactions needed to maintain the cameras for a fleet of police cars. The cards pay for themselves quickly.

Timeless ! I remember the same arguments made against 32 MB cards. Overall, I have lost more work and time when more cards are involved. I don't totally buy that more work is lost with a larger card.

We had typically used 4 GB cards and had a 32 GB card on one project. It died. Killed the project as key people needed to travel and we couldn't reshoot that much stuff. That still stings.

Of course, losing even a small card could take away a money shot. Small or large, give me reliability!

Anyway, my comment isn't theoretical. It's based on a particularly bad experience.

I can see why many insurers require redundant recording!

That probably pushes daily maintenance to weekly maintenance. Imagine all of the transactions needed to maintain the cameras for a fleet of police cars. The cards pay for themselves quickly.

The Columbus OH Police Department wirelessly upload video from the squad cars to a central server at the end of each shift when the patrol card returns to the "garage". Recently there server became full, and 2 weeks worth of video went into the bit-bin (That means it was lost forever)

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/09/05/dash-cam-data-lost-because-of-overload.html

When I got into computing we talked about memory in kb - low kb, And I remember one system that had a grand total of 80 words of storage on a spinning drum with 15 decimal digits per word. Programs were on paper tape or wired on plugboards. I debugged with a battery and a lamp and a couple of alligator clips.

The LTO Consortium just announced the capacity roadmap for the next 4 generations. 16 TB on a 4" square cartridge should be available in evaluation quantities in just about 1 year. And the just published roadmap shows 120TB in the same 4" cartridge in about 8 -10 years.

In 1983 IBM did a survey trying to find customers who had a TB or more of data. We found a few - the US gov't, American and United Airlines, General Motors (the entire corporation) etc.