Very true. But surely NOTHING can ever be truly 100% reliable, even when life may depend on it? (Though you may then hope it gets very close to it! :-) ) At some point small reliability improvements just don't justify large extra cost.

That said, I suspect even cheap memory may be more reliable than other parts of the system, such as batteries. I've also had occasional problems with brand new, high quality tapes in the past and I'd expect even lower spec solid state cards to be more reliable than tape.

That's good then, but it probably won't be as cost-effective as using memory card formats which are produced in larger volumes. I suppose having a more specialized format which is designed to high standards makes sense up to a point, but I don't see professional photographers worrying about this much - other than to buy good brand-name memory cards. Here's hoping the XDCAM EX will be sufficiently flexible as far as what memory it will accept.

As far as reliability is concerned, nothing's perfect -- so it will be interesting to see if the EX can record simultaneously to both flash memory and something like a Firestore drive. I'd rather pay separately for redundant recording than pay large amounts for a slightly more reliable memory card.

Just another thought.

It may be possible to write to both cards at the same time?

No-one's thought of that. Two copies at the same time?

Cheers Vaughan

Quote Just another thought.

It may be possible to write to both cards at the same time?

No-one's thought of that. Two copies at the same time?

Cheers Vaughan[/QUOTE]



Yes I did mention this proposal in another thread:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=99817

I film loads of high end weddings and reliability and error-free media is of utmost importance. Hence I had suggested the possibility of writing simultenously on two cards...much like a RAID 1 scenario.

Brian