32 Gb Sony SxS cards
 

I spoke to a Sony official at the Video Forum exhibition in London last Friday who informed me that the 32 gig cards are not expected out until September 08.

I didn't ask about availability in the US. Has anybody heard from an official source?

Man, that's a long way off!!! :(

It's just like their Blu-Ray movies/8x+ burners. It just seems it takes Sony forever to get the stuff out to us. However, we know the reason...

Guess, this way they will sell more 8 & 16 gig cards knowing we will also buy the 32 gig cards later when they come out.

Of course the price point of the 32 gig cards will probably be well over $1000 US. I sure hope they allow 3rd party vendors to offer some more reasonably priced cards.

Ahhh, to be rich one day! ;)

To be honest, I actually like the idea of somewhat smaller media. If I'm shooting 25-30 minutes on an 8gb card and 50-60 minutes on the 16gb card, that's already a lot of footage to get lost if something happened to the card.

I can't imagine something happening to 100-120 minutes of footage on a 32 gb card. Definitely more convenient...but scary.

Maybe I'm just superstitious!

There is another issue with the 32GB cards (which might not be an issue to most but anyway)... I shoot a lot of fast paced event videos where usually the shots are no longer than 7 seconds. These are then further shortened in the final edited video for a punchy effect.

Now if one remembers that any SxS card cannot record more than 600 shots, then one might run a risk that, on a 32GB card, the 600 shot limit is reached before the time record limit is reached (of about 100 minutes of HQ HD footage) - if such short shot filming is going to be performed.

If, for argument's sake, I shoot all clips at exactly 7 seconds each, then after 1 hour 10 minutes the card will report as being full (even though there should have been a further 30minutes of filming to go). That's because 600shots x 7 seconds will give 70 minutes of filming (if my maths is good!). Maybe this is just theoretical and in a real scenario there will be a mix of long and short shots. However the possibility exists.

"To be honest, I actually like the idea of somewhat smaller media."

Fully agree. Same issue with photographs.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket :)

Paul

Wow! I didn't know that.

So the cards are limited by space and/or # of image slots?

Gotta keep that in mind because I shoot lots of 30 sec shots throughout the day!

Is it the same 600 limit for all cards (8 & 16)?

Well page 32 of the manual states:

..."Approx 600 clips can be recorded on one SxS memory card at maximum. If the number of recorded clips reaches the limit, the remaining time indication becomes "0" and the message "Media Full" is displayed."

I'm assuming that size of card (whether 8 or 16 or 32GB) does not come into it - it is a limit of the card recording itself. XDCAM discs are much worse - I've read that it is a 300 shot limit!!

In my opinion this is a set back since I never heard of any such nonesense in professional CF cards - the memory size of the CF cards dictates the capacity and not the number of photos taken!

Can you really see yourself being affected by that? If I had to sit down and review 600 7 - 10 second clips from a single card I think a few gigs of unused space would be the last of my worries :)

Hmmm...Paul you're right. But on the other hand, why should there be a limit to the number of clips recorded?

I've had days/situations where I shoot nothing but short b-roll shots on a disc, and the most I've ever had on a disc is about 125.

In almost 18 months of owning the 350, it's never been an issue. I can't imagine for 99% of users it would have be an issue at 600.

Sony has said that a firmware update is required before the EX-1 would support 32GB SxS cards. In addition to 32GB support, Sony indicated that additional features would be added, but would not say what features would be added.

So, it's possible, but not a given, that the 600 shot limit found on the 8Gb & 16GB cards could be expanded to a higher number. However, we'll have to just wait until Sony releases the official list of improvements to know for sure.


Sincerely,

Bob Diaz

A 16-gig card provides about 55 minutes of shooting time. For me that's more than what I used to get from a small DVCam tape (40 minutes) and covers my own needs.

I would prefer to distribute whatever risks there might be and use multiple 16-gig cards.

Smaller Cards
 

I also like the idea of using the smaller cards. One reason is that a fully loaded 8G SxS card fits very nicely on a DL-DVD. The disks and burners are much cheaper then Blu-Ray and I am more apt to have enough material at any given time to fill an 8G DL-DVD for the archive then 32G for the Blu-Ray.

Another thing beyond limiting the amount of data that can be lost (which I also worry about), but also limiting to cost of losing any one card. As much as these cards cost or will cost, the hurt of losing one 8G card over one 32G card (things happen on location) will be much easier to accept.

The plus I see to using the 32G cards will be in not needing to have a laptop with you to off load your footage everywhere you go. If I take a 2-3 trip to go shoot some B-Roll, I can deal with editing back in the studio. While out in the field, having the fewest number of cards to maximize storage to eliminate the need for a laptop could make the difference between easy and a major pain.

Just my thoughts,

David Schmerin
www.GotFootageHD.com

My EX-1 samples can be downloaded from ftp://vegas:demo@download.gotfootage.com

One thing to look forward to with the introduction of larger cards...

When Panasonic introduced larger cards, the price per GB dropped. In the same way, when Sony introduces the 32 GB SxS card, I'd expect the price of the 16 GB & 8 GB cards to drop too.


Bob Diaz

Bob thats exactly what i was going to say :)

Im all for 32GB coming out soon, so i can afford 2x 16GB :)

But I can see the advantages of both for sure