Don't trust it?
Why are you relying on overcranking with SDHC.

The ONLY reason we used overcrank was to determine the amount of datarate headroom we have over HQ mode (max is 5MB/s). When you overcrank at 40FPS (24P), this is approx. 8.3MB/s. This gives us decent headroom for error free HQ mode recording.
When you are hanging around 40FPS overcranking 24P you are very close to the top datarate which could error at any time.

If you need to overcrank, throw in your SxS card.
By the way, I've been using SDHC for two months everyday and have never seen one error. I own four Kensingtons.

yep, by the time my kensingtons wear out I'm sure the SxS cards will be cheap enough not to care anymore.

I received the UNITEK card, bought on ebay Australia, which Marek said worked, and it does.

So that means there are three cards that work, Kensington, the one from the Philippines and now the Unitek.

Now for the non-brand sdhc cards....

Yes, with new cards hitting the market all the time, it's only a matter of time when we find a card that allows the memory door to close on the EX1.

Is anyone brave enough to try disassembling an SD card and seeing if the components can be permanently fixed into a Kensington card reader? might be worth a try if you are brave.

Dan

I did, no good, there is no room at all to shave it off,
I sliced couple of cards (will post pics tonight) sandisk and panasonic, there is very thin plastic border around the board, maybe 1 mm, no more than that;
so I guess will have to keep the door open :), but for the price of the combo I'm OK with that,
cheers

I don't have an EX1. But, for the sake of my compadres with doors that don't close, I did some tests on a 64MB card (tiny!) that I had. There is a metal frame (EDIT - I was seeing the edges of the circuit board) that prevents additional shaving, but I did this with a small x-acto blade. Here are the results. I appears to gain about 1.5mm-2mm - how much do you need?

Once again, I find myself in need of an EX1 for testing. I'm working on designing a shoulder/tripod mount for one of those as well, but without one in my hands, I'm kinda stuck. Would someone like to give me one?

Looks like what you shaved off there would be enough I think. Maybe someone else will test it. I have no need to close the door and I have no spare cards to try it with anyway.

-P

Who in FL (Tampa?) has an EX1 to test this card?

Folks, don't do it.

I just tried shaving the Transcend card off.

Yes, plastic is too thin, you need to shave a bit of the circuit board inside.

I was betting that there's nothing at the very edge of the board, so I kept shaving until the combo fit with the door closed.

I bet wrong. The card stopped working. Duh...

Bottom line: can't fit the card with the door closed on EX1.

I'd imagine going the other route, such as shortening the Kensington adapter itself, would work better. (I ain't trying it myself, kids! :)

There seems to be no need for such a long adapter body to accommodate the tiny SDHC card.

What Kensington needs to do
 

What Kensington needs to do (or sandisk) is make an SSD card with the innards of a sandisk SDHC and the outtards of a Kensington reader. We know it works. How many would you buy at $60-70 each?

Duh.

Not sure I'd buy any.

Frankly, I'm not against working with SD cards - I can keep track of the little buggers by using a nice card holder and labelling them. Also, I like the added flexibility that I can remove the SD card and slide it into my card reader on the front of my workstation or the SD card slot on my notebook. I think I may just keep buying $40 16GB cards, and eventually maybe a couple 32GB cards.

Solution: LARGER CAMERA DOOR
 

No-one will gonna do that, facing just lots of legal problems, patent claims and so forth.
What would be the benefit for the manufacturer? More business? How much to justify the hazzle involved?


Why not go the other way round and build larger camera door? That must be cheaper
then any other solution, fit SxS cards as well as SDHC solutions and would not interfere with Sony's patents :-)

I'm willing to bet we find a new expresscard SDHC reader that allows the EX1 memory door to close in the next few months.

As it stands now, there are already a few that allow it to close. They just are erratic and error.
Also, many could care less the door closes. Some even buy the Sony PHU-60K for a LOT more. This also does not allow the door to close.

Anyone tried these on the EX1?
A-Data E704 32GB Dual Interface Flash Drive - USB 2.0 and ExpressCard! A-Data 70CBEC0016

Ethan, it'll look great if these flash drives

- have high enough bandwidth
- are reliable
- and hopefully, fit in so EX1 door would close

Anyone knows the specs? Geeks web page does not seem to say much.

Frys has those Adata SSD cards (w/ USB port) all the way up to 32GB.

A month ago I tried the 16GB version. The EX1 gave an incompatible media error.

Well I promised to report back on this. It's still early days but everything is working fine. Did a lot of 1920x1080 (25p) filming today with SDHC and just used a SxS for some 60fps slow motion (1280x720) stuff. I did not try and push over-cranked clips onto SDHC as this will surely risk a data error if I went close to an approx 50fps limit or above as well reported by others. Just reviewed all clips on MBP etc. etc., everything working exactly as expected. So far, so good! Very happy!!!! I will test the over-cranking limit on SDHC when I get time (on non-critical stuff) and report that soon.

Glad to hear its working for you Andy.

I've opened up an AFT Express adapter, in which the SDHC fits snuggly and the door of the EX1 closes - next I'm gonna trash a Kensington and see if I can marry them - not sure I have the tiny soldering gear needed!!

Still using 8 SDHC combo's daily, no errors and I'm getting close to pulling the silly door right off.

Paul

Paul, let us know how that project pans out.
I located this resource for the push/push media a while back. Maybe you can make use of it.

How hard was it to open the AFT up?

I have not tried. Gives us an idea how.

Finally got around to ordering the kensington/sandisk, should be here in a week.


me so excited

This is an image of the two cards private parts! The Kensington is above and the AFT below. It is simple to see why the Kensington cannot accept the SDHC fully in, it has more sophisticated electronics than the AFT.

Whilst the AFT accepts the card, it doesn't work - even giving errors when copying files from a card to my laptop through the express card slot.

For those who are concerned: No cards where subject to cruelty during these tests and both cards still function as normal.


Paul

So based on your internal image of the Kensington, it uses a Genesys Logic USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader Controller GL827

Genesys Logic

So if we can find an expresscard card that offers this controller and has a push/push media connector, this may be the "magic" combo.

This weekend I was shooting a drag race out at the sand dunes. In a rush I forgot to switch to my SXS card and I was shooting 720 30P in 60p slow motion mode. That is the highest bitrate setting isn't it?

Anyway, I shot a few races before I realized I was using the SDHC combo... worked fine for the short races.. 600ft with a top speed of about 70mph. (uphill in the sand)

Tested my EX3 with Kensington 7-in-1 and Sandisk 16GB Ultra out this morning at different frame rates in 720p. Waved the camera around for 5 minutes in a "busy" room so lots of fast motion of complex detail

45 fps - fine
48 fps - fine
50 fps - media error after about 3 minutes on one occassion, fine for 5 minutes second time.
52 fps - media error after about 20 seconds on both occassions
55 fps - media error after about 5 seconds
60 fps - media error almost instantly.

This seems to confirm MOST of the experiences of others except my SDHC is maybe slightly on the lower end of performance. Want to swap cards with me Erik!!!! :-)

(EDIT: To clarify regarding Ted's comment below I'm in PAL land and the camera was set at 720 25p video format and then overcranked as described)

You must of been lucky.. lol

You were shooting 30P, right?

I've discovered different (lesser) results shooting 24P.

In 30P, I can shoot reliably at 52 - a full hour or starts and stops with no errors. In 24P, I can shoot at 41, but at 42 I get errors after about 25 minutes or so.

This makes sense, as the frames are "smaller" in 30P since 30 of them must fit into the same 35 Mbps stream as 24 frames do in 24P.

30P OC'd to 52 is recording at about 1.74x
41 OC'd frames at 24P is recording at about 1.74x

35 Mbps content overcranked 1.74x is about 60Mbps

The EX3 (and presumably EX1) hits a wall after this. You might say overcranking is "Gone in 60 Mbps" if you were into obscure movie reference puns.

ummm something must be going on then.. I just recorded about 30 seconds in 720X30p at 60fps overcranking using the kensington and 16gb Ultra II and it worked fine... shaking the camera like crazy too.

I am uploading some video right not for a project... but later this week I will make a video of my EX3 with only the kensington combo doing some overcranking for you guys.

EDIT: just filmed the TV (so there would be movement) for 3 minutes straight.. no errors. 60fps slow motion.

Mine arrived. It works great. I recorded some HQ 1080 24p and played it back in the camera with no problems. But for some reason, when I took the SD card out of the adapter and put it in my laptop nothing happened. My laptop can't see it. But it can see all my other scan disk SD cards. Any ideas why? Is it because it is formatted for the SxS system (the camera asked me to format it before I could use it)? I was hoping I would be able to off load my footage by inserting the SD card into my laptop as I don't have an express 34 slot, just 54. Although I heard you can also buy an adapter to read 34 cards in a 54 slot. Has anybody tried that, especially with the SDHC combo? Thanks.

Question 1: Which laptop are you working with?
Question 2: Is the SxS driver installed?

Stick an ExpressCard into a PCMCIA slot adapter? Would not do it ... just another chance to fail.
Hint:Think of Murphy's law ;-)

Because the card is not an SD card, it's an SDHC card, there is a difference, my laptop and pc both have an SD slot but none of them see the SDHC card.

I use the USB>SDHC adaptor for offloading on my desktop, or for the laptop either the USB>SDHC or leave the SDHC card in the kensington and then shove both in the express card slot.

Paul.

Using an Acer 1714SMi. It reads any other SD cards I insert into it.
Yes, SxS driver and clip browser installed and I can see cards if I plug the camera.

About the 54 to 34 adapter I have heard of people who use it with success.
Thanks.

Aha! That explains it.
Well, I only have a express card 54 slot (the bigger ones). Do you think it's worth it to buy a 54>34 adapter? Sounds more useful than a USB>SDHC adapter since with the express 54>34 I could also off load the original SxS cards.Thanks.

I can't give you an honest answer to that Michael, i've never used a 54>34 adaptor.
I don't really use my sony card any more, i use the transcend SDHC all the time now so i only use the SDHC>USB reader.
It offloads in about 4x speed.

Paul.

Michael, your laptop's SD slot may not understand SDHC cards.

Mine doesn't.

I offload my 16Gb Sandisk or Transcend cards by keeping them in the ExpressCard adapter (laptop does have a very well-working ExpressCard slot.)

Thanks. Which SDHC>USB reader do you recommend?
I still need to use my SxS as I do a lot of slow motion.

Thanks Alex.

Michael, i got my SDHC reader with the transcend cards which i use.
I paid £25 for 16gb card or £30 with a reader.
The reader is about the size of my thumb, doesn't require any mains power like the sony reader, and no driver is needed, it's just plug and play usb.
I got mine from an ebay shop which happens to be about 2 miles from my house, so i go and pay cash for them.
The ebay shop is called "shop4usb".
Me and 2 other EX1 users have all got our cards and readers from there, none of us have had any problems.

What you can do is copy the slo-mo from the sxs card to the SDHC card in camera, then offload with the USB>SDHC reader, that way you don't need the express card slot or 34/54 adaptor or anything.

Paul.

Michael,

Most of those accept both size cards. Peek into the slot or look in the laptop manual.

John

yes, a PCIe 54 slot will accept a 34 sized card without an adapter. the internal electrical contacts are identical. only the outer slot width is changed.