Cost of the SXS card reader....
 

Well, I might as well ask it now....

Why does the SXS card reader cost so much........

Four letters...

$ O N Y

;0)

Truth is, no-one else makes them (at the moment) so early adopters will be footing a large part of the R&D costs until demand and production meet each other on more equal terms.

On the other hand try to get a minidv or hdv deck for less.

Of course, depening on your workflow you can always use the USB port on the camera. It's not like you're wearing out heads.

Doesn't SxS fit in a standard ExpressCard slot? If the reader costs more than a couple hundred dollars, why not just buy a cheap laptop with one of those slots in it?

The SXS card will plug directly into a MacBookPro or Sony Vaio (not sure which models). I don't think those are cheap laptops though.

MacBook, for example, does NOT have ExpressCard slot.

I think the card readers will be the convenience of loading into a desktop NLE without the camera. Unless one has more cards than needed on a shoot, I can't see too many situations where you're sending the camera out on shoot while someone offloads other cards at "the office." That day may come though.

On set it is nice to have the choice of express card or USB 2.0 some DIT's are using the express card slot on their mac for Sata cards.

my Dell M90 has an express slot seemingly which I now know of now that I need one...lol

So looks like I am set so.

The Macbook Pro has a 34 card slot dosen't it need a 54 card slot?

34 card slot

SxS cards are 34.

Thanks Craig

Just google-bumped into this...

http://onlinestore.siig.com/shopexd.asp?id=863

Only question is whether SxS cards are "USB-based" or "PCI-e based" cards(?) If the former, then at $40 this represents a genuine saving of $200+ over the Sony reader!

EDIT: I suspect the latter is true judging from some specs for the reader that I've checked over at http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/publi...productID=4287

At least that would explain the price delta.

So does that mean the "USB based" versions are not compatible, or is the transfer rate slower?

extract from the "More Details" link for the cheaper reader:

http://www.siig.com/ViewProduct.aspx?pn=JU-000012-S1

"Important: This adapter only works with USB-based ExpressCard devices. PCI Express-based ExpressCard devices will not be detected. Please check with your device’s manufacturer if you are not certain"

My guess is that it's a bus/pin compatibility problem which Sony have overcome with their pricier device.