Lexar Memory?
 

I spoke with a Sony tech today who told me that putting this card into the camera wouldn't hurt it, (camera or card) however, while it may work, it was not "Sony Certified". Not sure what exactly that meant.
http://www.nextag.com/Lexar-Media-16...63/prices-html

So, my question is, has anyone tried? Do these inexpensive cards work?
I am very tempted to try one, but thought I'd ask first. Thoughts?
Best, Craig

If you do try it let us know how it goes, that's certainly a very attractive price for 16Gb.

We have a 4Gb card from lexmar. It doesn't work, the camera says wrong media format. And the SxS USB Reader doesn't even blink its leds trying to read it.

I would say that the 8 and 16gb don't work either.

We wanted to use it to save our camera settings on since we have 14 Cameras and needed a cheap card to copy settings from.

/Andy

Thank You!!!!
 

I really appreciate that feedback...wow, that would have been a costly mistake for me. Thanks again.
Best, Craig

We are going to talk to Sony about this since we don't want to us a expensive 8gb SxS card only for storing settings. But I guess the answer will be that there are no plans for other cards for now.

One way of saving settings would be to save it on a SxS card and then move it to a computer, if I remember correct there will be a special folder on the card for saved settings.

But I guess you wanted to use it for recording.

I read that all non Sony cards had been locked out by firmware for now. Maybe they will work if this lock gets removed with a firmware update. My dealer is now listing the Sandisk cards for the EX1, so something must be happening.

Yeah but those Sandisk card wont be cheap either.

They are around 20% cheaper than the Sony's.

Who's your dealer Paul?

Hi Steve, I don't think I can mention them due to forum rules and them not being a sponsor, but lets just say I'll leave it as a 'puzzle' for you so solve :)

I've tested 8 Gb Transcend (cost £40) and it does not work of course. I find this a bit of a cheat as far as Sony are concerned. They advertised the EX1 as using a cheap, non proprietry "off the shelf" flash card "available in the high street" I'm going to check this documentation carefully, as misrepresentation may well be at work here - it may be time for something legal ??

Paul

I agree, but from what I've read the firmware "lock" was put on because of problems with generic cards.

I understand it to be a technical issue, even though the ExpressCard standard has a specific (fast) interface, some (cheaper?) manufacturers use slower memory in the cards. Data transfer rates may then be insufficient to capture the data.

George.

its like a color printer. the toner is the biggest income for the manufacture

"I understand it to be a technical issue, even though the ExpressCard standard has a specific (fast) interface, some (cheaper?) manufacturers use slower memory in the cards. Data transfer rates may then be insufficient to capture the data."



No doubt George. Agree. Actually from what i've studied about flash media, there is quite a difference in both speed, consistency, manufacturing quality between various media.

Speed is obviously very big. Consider how expensive cache memory is in a computer vs. regular memory - typically about 5X faster though

You can buy 2 GB of RAM for $50 bucks or spend $500 and typically you pay large amounts of money for small increments of reliability and speed

16 GB @ $850 - means $50/GB - twice the price of the cheapest RAM.
Still not bad. You have to account for any onboard electronics, cache and manufacturing QA costs.

The camera and media are aimed at different markets. That kind of money for media is nothing for people who shoot medium to high budget productions. Actually even small budget isn't bad. Just consider the few thousand you're spending on cards - the equivalent of spending some $'s on a new deck

Except this time you won't have to buy any tapes - ever.

Paul

Not totally related, but thought I'd throw out there that I purchased an 8gb card from B&H for a nice savings and it was delivered in perfect condition with the original packaging. As though it were new. I'm not sure if there's any used media on B&H now, but I can vouch for it in terms of quality and it saved me 30-40% of the cost of the new one.

Aparently it is not just the speed of the components used.

The ExpressCard interface/connection supports both USB and PCI Express and although hosts (ie. camera) must support both to comply, the cards may support either (or both).

It stands to reason that 'budget' cards only implement the USB interface, essentially being a fancy USB Stick. It should be no surprise that that doesn't cut it for use in the EX1.

So although they look the same on the outside only cards implementing the (5+x faster) PCI Express interface and that have a high enough datarate can (and should) be used in the camera.

I don't think Sony will support/approve "limited use" cards that don't meet the full requirements, as was suggested elsewhere in the forum, at a lower price. But the price will drop as it does for any other memory technology.

I believe using ExpressCard is a (big!) plus as this is a non-proprietary standard and "anyone" can manufacture these cards, so that is good for competetion. As long as they meet the requirements Sony should (and hopefully will) support the use of these cards.

The Sandisk branded SxS cards available in Europe can aparently already be used in the EX1, so there's a start.

George.

It is a start, but Sony knows that the time to be proprietary is now, when people are buying the camera.

One needs enough memory to operate and since this is supposed to be a one time purchase, it stands to reason that the purchase of some extra Sony cards with the camera are margins the company is counting on.

Solid state is a nice position for the manufacturers as it forces the consumer to pay it forward (buying memory up front) compared to paying it as you go (buying tape).

And of course people are going to lose, break, run over ect... these expensive items and need to replace them.

Not trying to be cynical, I just think this is an important revenue stream in terms of paying for camera R & D that Sony does not want to miss out on.

On the subject of saving the setup files...
The first time you save your setup, a folder is written on the SxS card. The actual setup file is buried in that folder, several levels down with the .suf suffix. It's an ASCII file that can be editted and saved to a computer hard drive. I routinely make copies of my SUF file, change the name to indicate which one it is, and store them on my laptop.

Considering we need a high-performance storage system, current pricing is fairly in line with, for example the 40MB/s Sandisk Ultra IV which is $249 for an 8GB card. Sure the SxS is twice as expensive, but that is to be expected due to the more complicated interface with higher transferrates and this being a smaller target market.

The CompacFlash interface is spec'd upto 133MB/sec, the ExpressCard PCI Express is a dual-simplex (both directions, not at the same time) 2.5 Gbps differential serial link solution. That means SxS cards can be ~2.5x as fast.

Speed-wise these 'mainstream' high-speed CF cards should also work, but may not support some features (hot-swappability?) and IMHO are less future-proof. SxS is spec'd by Sony for 400Mbps (Acording to Alexander Ibrahim here: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=812338) which borders on the Ultra IV CF specs. Unfortunately you pay more to be on the cutting edge.

At some point, when there is enough of a market/niche, we'll get compatible products for the SxS cards and better prices all around.

George.

P.S. I don't think memory cards are that big of a revenue stream for Sony. This is a coop with Sandisk for a reason. Sure they will have a markup on the Sony branded items, but it's not like tapes (or ink cartridges) which create recurring revenue.

Just as a follow-up, Lexar has published their sustained write speeds at 150 KB/S (15 MB/S) and the Sandisk cards are 100 MB/S.

So the Sandisk spec'd cards are roughly 6.66 times faster than the Lexar cards per published write speeds (which is what we would be concerned with).