Okay, I found some earlier related posts which I've copied and pasted into this thread... so far it looks like the original query probably came from Oyvind Stokkan, and was answered by Alister, Steven, Brian and obviously many others... at any rate I think we've now got the entire thing consolidated into one long (very long) discussion.

What is the Guinness record for the longest message board thread? :)

Chris, thanks for consolidating the threads - I was tracking "FAST SDHC Memory for the EX1" separately, and I'm sure people who just discover this info will appreciate having everything under one roof.

Ack... don't take us off-topic, Alex... please...

But since you've asked, I've always understood that the largest forum on the internet, Gaia Online, with 15 million members and 1.4 billion posts, has the longest thread in existence, something like 5.6 million posts to one single thread... but I've never seen it. Only heard about it. It used to be located at http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/chat...nal/t.1488895/ but now that link is a dead-end for me.

Here's a big one, though, from a site that's using the same forum software as we are: http://www.donmurphy.net/board/showthread.php?t=3789 -- it has more than 11,680 pages and 292,000 posts. That's what I call a long thread.

We've had several discussions here over the years that have stretched out to 1,000+ posts, and that's with careful maintenance, keeping the thing on-topic and focused while pruning out the chatter and meta-discussion (such as "gee this is a long thread LOL" -- I take great pride in deleting that noise). Which is what this has become now, so please take the subject up in our TOTEM forum and let's leave this thread for the matter at hand. Thanks in advance,

Just received 2 more IOC-9750 adapters.

And now I agree with Brian and others - they *are* dicey.

You really have to play with them, popping in and out of cam, for the combo to be recognized. (I use Sandisk Extreme III 16Gb card, btw.)

In my personal opinion, since they actually do work with a bit of fumbling, and at the $8 price, they are still worth it. About $70 for 16Gb = 58min of footage, versus SxS card's retail cost of $750, or rental cost of $125/day (!).


...or, stop penny-pinching and buy Kensington adapter already :)

Note that I currently have only 1 card, so I never tried adapters in both A-B slots simultaneously. (Why did I need 3 adapters then? For when I'd rent a second EX1, I'd buy 2 more Sandisk cards, likely Ultra IIs 16Gb, and together with my one SxS I'd be all set for 2hrs recording time on each EX1.)

As longs as you do not remove the SDHC cards, two Kensington expresscards in the EX works just like two SxS (without overcrank of course).

Just eject the kensington like you would the SxS card.

If you like and you're using only one Kensington, you can leave the Kensington in and remove the SDHC card.

And cam always recognizes the combo?

If yes, then Kensington seems to be the only *reliable* adapter as of now...

I've not a great deal of experience with them, but, the Kensington and a Transcend 16Gb card are working for me. Transcend class 6, 16Gb for $37 at a well known computer parts vendor.

Transcend class 6, 16Gb are less than half the price of Sandisk Ultra II - and they seem to work without errors.

why do most of you prefer the Sandisk-cards?

Me and my colloeague have been using the Transcend cards, no problems at all.
I suspect most people use the sandisk because of the branded name, more well known than transcend.

However, do a google for "fake sandisk" and see how much comes up, then google "fake transcend" and see how little comes up.

I've been using the transcend/kensington with no problems, so if it ain't broke why try and fix it, i'm sticking with this combo for now, until a tried and tested push/push adaptor comes out.

Paul.

Paul and Stephen,

I'm using the SDHC solution in my EX3. My card is the Extreme III 16GB. I'm shooting 720 30p.

I played for about four hours yesterday with this solution and overcrank. I was NEVER able to get it to fail overcranked to 52 or less. At 54, it would error within 15 minutes. At 60, it would error within five or ten minutes.

I tried numerous short clips, long clips, etc. I was able to record overcranked to 52 without any issues, filling up my SD card twice (58 minutes each time!)

It seems I'm getting slightly better results than I've read. Is it the EX3? The SD Extreme III? My particular Kensington reader? I was going to purchase some Ultra II's, but I'm thinking about sticking with my current setup.

Do you have any ideas on how I can test this more rigorously?

Thanks,

Sonnet has just announced a hi-speed expresscard that holds 2 CF cards here:
http://www.sonnettech.com/news/ibc2008/index.html (thanks Mike Schell)
While you wouldn't be able to close the door on the EX, it would, potentially, enable you to use CF cards in the EX.

I am looking for a portable storage solution, not archiving, and wonder if CF or SDHC is the way to go. I think this is still on topic, and not a hijack.

I will be on location for six weeks in Tibet and I need a small storage solution for the raw BVAP folders. I will have my Macbook Pro with me, but I am trying to avoid carrying hard drives. I thought about a blu ray burner, but SDHC is about the same cost as a blu ray disc.

I shoot on SxS - I have six of these, but CF or SDHC could be a cheap temporary storage solution - does anyone know how rugged and stable they are?

you may want to consider adding a new 500gb samsung spinpoint HDD to your macbook pro.
i saw one yesterday for $138, and it only takes about an hour to upgrade one yourself.

you could also get an Other World Computing on the go enclosure for cheap, and add the 500gb drive to that. they come in usb 2 and bus powered FW800. They are small and portable, easily stashable in a carry on, or backpack.

Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC

For dumping SDHC cards, I can use my 500GB Seagate Free Agent Go Drive. It's only 5 x 3-1/8 x 1/2 inches.

If you are really against this, you could check try a Multimedia Storage Viewer from a company like Vosonic or WolverineData. They won't play back your HD files, sadly, but they should be effective for temporary storage.

They do read SDHC cards, but I'm noticing that they use FAT on the drive - they may be limited to 2GB chunks (not good) - I'll check on this...

OH NO!,

Based upon your original recommendation regarding the Cables Unlimited cards I just received four of them from Buy.com yesterday.

In terms of the $5.00 rebate, the rebate form says Limit one rebate per address(except Rhode Island, limit two rebates per address).

That aside, do you think I should return them all unopened and get the Kensington Card readers?

And also, what do you mean by the statement that they work with a "bit of fumbling"? What kind of fumbling? Too much fumbling to pay attention to shooting?

John

John: in my experience, when camera recognizes IOC combo, it works just fine.

It is however unpleasant to see the camera Not recognizing the combo sometimes. It will take a couple cycles of taking adapter out of cam and re-inserting it, or powering cam down then up again; for the combo to be recognized.

I would never recommend this kind of play during the live shoot; instead, allocate 2 minutes for this before the shoot.

It's more like, set it and forget it kind of thing - if you have a long shoot like an interview or a concert, just have the cam recognize the combo, and roll. I've never seen the combo fail *after* it was recognized by the cam. (Unless you power the cam down - then you'll have to repeat the procedure, or not - it's a crap shoot.)

After an hour (for 16Gb card capacity), provide a minute or two of downtime for changing the combos, in case the cam requires re-inserting them to be recognized.

Again: this does NOT look like an acceptable procedure to me if you were planning on changing the IOCxS combos live while camera was still recording.

Kensington adapter (that I do not own yet) apparently does not give this grief, albeit at 3x the IOC Buy'com's price (if you never even count the IOC rebate.)

I can recommend Shotput software with 1 external USB hard drive - tiny one like WD Passport of capacity that you need.

Then just use Shotput to offload the footage to both your Mac's HDD and USB drive simultaneously.

Shotput also verifies the data, and you'll have your footage in 2 separate locations, which is virtually loss-proof.

I use this setup on location with PC-based Shotput, and am happy with the results. It takes just a bit longer to offload to 2 locations simultaneously, vs one location.

just got my Kensington 7-in-1 media reader and Sandisk Ultra 2 16GB SDHC card, pop it into EX1, nothing happened, EX1 not seeing the card reader. Took it out and pop it into my Sony Vaio, detected it as G drive, although my SDHC card is inserted it still asked me to 'insert a disk into removable drive'. Tried to do a format from my Vaio, it say 'no disk in drive G'

tried with my other Transcend 4GB SDHC class 6 card, same observation.

Damm , waited so long for my setup and this is the outcome. Do you think I got a faulty Kensington card?

Silly question but do you have the latest firmware ? V1.11.
I'm using transcend and kensington, not a single problem yet.

Paul.

Yes, mine were upgraded to 1.11_0531

I have been following this thread from day 1 that's why I went ahead to buy the Keningston card reader.

Hmm... Maybe defective Kensington?
I own four that work fine.

Paul... is this the transcend card you use?

If yes, I'll order and test it with my IOC adapters for now...

Also, how long does it take you to offload the full card to your computer?

Thanks

some guys have all the luck. not me :-(

I am sending back the card.

Yes that's the card i use.
With the usb reader it offloads about 4x speed, about the same as the sony sxs reader.

I buy my cards from an ebay shop which just happens to be about 1 mile from my house, so i don't actually buy them from ebay but i just wander in the shop and buy them.

The shop is called "shop4usb". I wouldn't usually advise anyone to buy memory cards from ebay but i can vouch for this shop/these cards, and the guys who run it, all genuine.
I pay £25 for the 16gb transcend or £30 with the included reader.

Paul.

I don't mean to sound impatient, but I think this may have gotten buried. Does anyone know why I'd be getting better results or how I can test more thoroughly?

Thanks,

My Kensington/ Extreme III 30MB/s SDHC will only over overcrank 24P at 45FPS. At 50FPS it fails.
If you're getting a bit more, I'm not sure why. But either way, with the ability to overcrank to 40FPS without an error, this info gives us a peace of mind that we can run HQ modes without an issue.

Sorry if you answered this before... what maximum fps rate can you overcrank your transcend 16gb card to in EX1 without errors?

(I'm getting very stable 40fps with my IOC/Sandisk Extreme III combo...)

At least at this point, I have a feeling we will not be able to get the full 60FPS overcrank regardless on what SDHC / expresscard combo.

Alister, has an expresscard reader in his PC that is capable of USB protocol.
He tested the Kensington/SDHC card (I can't remember which SDHC card), he was at over 15MB/s datarate. The same datarate seen using the SDHC card reader in his PC.

Overcranking 60FPS at 24P is approx. 12.5MB/s, so the bottleneck appears to be the EX.
Sony might of crippled the USB data transfer, or something or another.

Again, this may explain why their own PHU-60K (USB drive) barely runs HQ modes and will not work for overcrank.

Yes, I just want to see what headroom do we have with Transcend cards, which I personally have not tested yet.

Alex, I have both the Transcend 16GB and the Sandisk Ultra II 15MB/sec 16GB cards.

Here's my results:

Transcend: Reliable up to 38FPS at 720P
Sandisk Ultra II: Reliable up to 40FPS at 720P

I have a Mac program called XBench that benchmarks drives:

Transcend:

Disk Test 1.51
Sequential 17.28
Uncached Write 14.67 9.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 14.87 8.42 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 14.88 4.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 34.63 17.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 0.79
Uncached Write 0.21 0.02 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 3.73 1.20 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 500.69 3.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 92.84 17.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Sandisk Ultra:

Disk Test 1.81
Sequential 17.79
Uncached Write 15.44 9.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 22.12 12.52 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 11.73 3.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 33.67 16.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 0.95
Uncached Write 0.25 0.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 4.76 1.52 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 428.95 3.04 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 82.26 15.26 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Conclusion: Sandisk is a faster card and is 5% faster in the EX1 than the Transcend. I'm keeping my Ultra, I'll use it as the first go-to SDHC card (until I get my 32MB Ultra), then I'll use my Transcends if I need to.

Thanks for the detailed reply Alex. I guess I'll keep them. All four of them only cost around $45 after the $5 rebate. It doesn't pay to return them. I'll mess with it and see how it goes. If I can get the camera to recognize two 16GB cards in both slots I should be good for most shoots. Then there is always an intermission to mess with it again if I have to. Let us know how the Transcend card works in this adapter after you get it.

Thanks,

John

I wonder if there isn't a difference between the EX1 USB host and the EX3 USB host. I just shot an event today and did it all at 720 30p overcranked to 52. It was over 45 minutes, I started and stopped as well as let it run. I never got an error.

Chris I have complied all the data in a PDF file. I want you to Proof it before I uploaded to the forum. I will send you a link so you can down load i it. I will revise the PDF when new data is available.

Many thanks Brian; you can either send it to me as an email attachment or just send me the link. Much appreciated,

Wow - and here I was all set to buy a tape HDV cam set up until i stumbled across this.

And a quick check here to see the topic in full flight - so it seems the ideal set up now would be 6 or 8 16gb cards, two Kensington readers and one or two 8gig SxS cards for when you need reliable overcranking.

My only concern at this stage is the post by John Woo claiming a set up that appears to work with everyone else does not work for him...I would HATE to drop $10k on a set up only to find myself in a similar situation as John.

John you mentioned you were sending the cards back - are you planning to try this all out again?

Honestly, at this stage of the game, I'd wait on the 32GB cards. I just ordered 2 Kensington adapters and 1 16GB card this week. I am going to try to wait on the 32GB cards next month. If they don't show, I'll order 2 more 16GB cards and another adapter. I don't intend to swap the SDHC cards in and out. I'll just buy one adapter for every SDHC card. It's a bit more robust that way, I avoid the issues of running two adapters at the same time (which I will surely be doing), and I'll worry less.

Having 3.5 hours 1920x1080 24p of recording at my disposal for under $500 is absolutely AMAZING. That is less than 1/3 of what it cost me to do a Firestore on my DVX. This pushed my EX1 purchase from being a good thing, to the best thing since sliced bread.

Perrone, yes that's not a bad idea just buying a Kensington for every SDHC card.
You're right, when the Ultra II 32GB 15MB/s SDHC cards come out in a month or two, for under $200 USD you can buy the Kensigton and the 32GB SDHC card!

Unreal..

Being new to all this, I'm a tad confused.

From the two post above, from Perrone and Steven, I get the impression that it isn't a good idea to have two Kensington adaptors and use multiple SDHC cards. Is that correct? If so, why is that a problem?

Thanks!

The only thing with the 32gb cards is they are a lot more $ per gb than the 16. You always pay a premium for the top of the line capacity storage medium. Also in the event of a card failure (yes, remote as the chances are, even sandisk's can fail) you would only loose 50mins rather than 100 minutes.

Besides isnt it a continuous roll - swap one out while the other one is recording so I still think the 16gb is the way to go. But each their own.

My only other concern for not using SxS is in fragmentation. I can remember Sony saying the benefit of SxS is if you do a lot of takes - then review - then delete some - then continue with the same SxS card - the files will become fragmented and the speed of the SxS prevents write errors due to this fragmentation?

I honestly cant see myself working this way but it might be an issue if you do. Guess you just make sure you have more than enough storage so you don’t have to delete takes on location.

Hi,

I havent read all the messages in this thread so sorry if this has been mentioned. But could someone give a link to a place to buy the Kensington adapter and 16GB cards within Europe?

Thanks!

Sami