Sony wants to make money off the media. Camcorders have always been devices to sell tape. As an EX1 owner, though, I am miffed that there is zero value added at a significant price increase in the ExpressCard format considering ClipBrowser must be involved for conversion for AVID and WinXP Sony Vegas users. I'm pleasantly surprised that Sony doesn't charge for ClipBrowser.

The message is that once solid state cards get below a certain price, users can treat them like tape for archive purposes, or at least keep the rushes on them for a few weeks until a project is completed. Hence, instead of selling a couple of SxS cards per user, SDHC cards may get sold in similar quantities to tape in the past - money is still being made from media.

The message is do Sony make to want one lot of profit of (say) $100 on two cards at the initial camera sale, or make $5 here, $5 next week etc as users keep on buying cheaper cards?

The message must also be that whilst SDHC is working now, there must be a certain unease that future cards won't be compatible - I would feel happier using a Sony certified system. So please, please, Mr Sony, introduce an ExpressCard that fits natively into an EX, is comparable in price to the SDHC cards that are being used, with comparable performance, and then you may find that these media profits go directly to you instead of Sandisk or Transcend. You'll also find that it makes your cameras even more sellable compared to those of your rivals.

Evan,
eXpansys here in Australia have confirmed that they have Kensington cards in their inventory in the USA. The will be down here is a few weeks, large numbers of them.
95% of production is going to Australia!

Hi Bob, that's good but the other adapters are way cheaper and do the same thing with the Sandisk 16gb 11's! (apart from maybe slightly longer)

Expanse has the Kensington at AU 82.99 (plus postage) which is okay] but the other brand cost me around AU52.00 including postage for 2! Although it took around 10 days to get. I have ordered another 2.

Evan

i just shot a lenghty 2 hour event with two SDHC cards. worked perfect! before iI left
I got neds message about the Kensington being discontinued, so I bought two more of them
from ONsale.com for $29! might want to see if they still have any.

Your arguments are admirable, and I agree. However, Sony has clearly taken steps to package ordinary flash media into a proprietary container so that they can sell an extra $2k/camera at an incredible profit margin. Panasonic preceded Sony, but they asked for even more. Sony got the message. Selling proprietary media works. This is even better than tape as Sony customers only have to choose from Sony and Sandisk for SxS.

If either company decided to open up their currently closed media audience, they would probably charge an additional $2k/camera. The funny thing is that EX1 users are probably happy to pay more for the camera than pay top dollar for flash media that is sold for less elsewhere. We're used to paying a premium for tape - witness the $10-15 tapes for Sony's HDV recorders and way more for their XDCAM optical media. I suppose we object to paying $2K for two hours of recording media that is archived to hard disk.

I don't see archiving on flash media in the near future as hard disks are the way to go. I just bought a 1 TB Samsung HD for $100. We want will ask for 100-400 MBps, 4:2:2 video, then 1080p60 and 1080p300. Then 4K resolution. Will it end? No.

SIIG tech support responded that the newer "12 in 1" card supports SDHC.

Meanwhile, good to know that onsale.com still has some Kensington 7 in 1-- and for $29 at that.

No they don't. The legend sign says they cannot confirm stock, and buyers should call in to try and place orders for this item.

I don't think it's accurate to describe SxS or P2 as "ordinary flash media" - their performance is far greater (800Mbs for SxS) than such as the UltraII or ExtremeIII ranges, and this performance you have to pay for, just as the ExtremeIV CF range costs much more than ExtremeIII.

But what this thread proves beyond doubt is that the SxS or P2 levels of performance just aren't necessary nowadays for ordinary high quality recording. The faster ranges have their place - overcranking, or when high speed downloading are essential - but for most people, for most normal use - their performance (and cost) are unnecessary. Ferraris have their place, but for day to day motoring that level of performance isn't necessary, and for most people the choice is a more down to earth car or take the bus. Same with SxS/P2 v SDHC cards here.

And surely Sony could still have the proprietary nature, even if it sold lower performance (and cheaper) cards? Equivalent to the way we have UltraII and ExtremeIV ranges with CF cards?

Shoot, download to hard drive, reuse card immediately may be fine for some, but for a lot of people an ability to shoot, hand media straight to client, is highly desirable. Equally, even if the media isn't kept on the card indefinately, there may be a lot to be gained from being able to keep it there for a few weeks in some circumstances.

It's horses for courses, but I believe hard drives don't like to be left unused for long periods, much less of an issue with solid state. Using solid state as archival material was out of the viable question with P2 or SxS, with UltraII SDHC it's feasible, and I don't believe there is any technical reason why an "UltraII SxS" is not possible. That should be the message to Sony, both for the sake of users, and also themselves. (An "UltraII P2" I don't believe is technically feasible.)

That would also depend on whether you want to use all the features on the camera. Using SD or SDHC cards limits you to USB transfer speeds, whereas the sxs offers the full data speed of 800mbs. You will need this to crank the speed.

Having fought Sony's corner, I do agree that the sxs memory cards are well overpriced at the moment, but should drop next year, or in the near future.

apacer
 

Tryed out apacer sdhc 16 GB.got one restore media message.I think apacer have too 6mbs data rate as transcend?What You guys think ..is it safer to use sandisk ultra 2 because its much faster?(15mbs) As i understand Transcend works too very well and it's too 6mbs.

Best Regards

Raul

In fact, transfer speeds are greater than USB if you connect your SDHC combo to your laptop express slot: 16gb SxS takes 7 - 8 mins, SDHC 11 - 12 mins, SDHC through USB 16 - 20 mins.

SDHC is great, just keep the media plugged into the card and treat it as "one" like an SxS.

Paul

It's anybody's guess, but I don't think they will ever drop by a large amount because my sense is that Express34 memory cards are not ever going to become mainstream. They've been around for 2 years or so, and if anything, except for Sony's SXS brand, they seem to have flatlined.

Are we looking at the next Betamax then? That format was also technically better than VHS, but alas no one else adopted it for mainstream viewing.

I just don't see what would make it catch on with the mainstream. It's large, expensive and they get adequate cost/perfomance with SDHC in their point and shoot cameras, ipods, cell phones, they seem happy with USB flash drives which are all over the place.

Expresscard has it's place, as a bus interface for networking hubs, but I don't see it catching on for memory cards. Hope I'm wrong. Just my $0.02

The greatest advantage to me is in a pinch I can go to any number of stores and pick up a card if need be. I can edit from the SDHC cards and I can buy 15 hrs of the highest quality recording for the price of 1-16GB SxS card, transfer time is not an issue when you do that.

Mike

OK I just ordered 2 of the adapters that Evan mentioned earlier. They are cheap and the Kensington adapters seem to be in really short supply. My question is what seems to be the best cards. Are the Transend cards better/faster than the Sandisk UltraIIs. I am shooting some long interviews in about 3 weeks so I need to figure this out pretty quick.

Any other cards that anyone has a positive experience with?

Thanks
Robert C. Fisher

Hi Robert, I use the Sandisk 16Gb M11's and they work fine. (58 mins each and around 50 FPS overcrank but I use my sxs for that)

Evan

I just bought the "SIIG ExpressCard 12-in-1 R/W" card and I get an "Unknown Media - Please Change" error when the ExpressCard is inserted into the PMW-EX1. I get the error whether an SDHC card is inserted into the SIIG ExpressCard, or whether the ExpressCard is inserted without media. So, looks like the SIIG card doesn't work

Do not forget that if you are shooting SP or HQ without over cranking the Lexar 8 Gb cards are good and you do not need an adapter and you can close the door on the EX1.
I know some people had some issues with the earlier Lexar version. Maybe it is time to try them out one more time since the Kensignton adapters are not available?

Robert, just get this Transcend card, it's as good as Sandisk.

For overcranking, stay with SxS.

Just placed an order for 2 Kensingtons from Expansys in Australia.. not cheap.. but amazon wont ship them to NZ and i havent got an american address to send too..

Jose, which Lexar are you talking about? Care to give an item number? Thx. P.

I purchased two Kensington cards from Amazon UK + 2 Transcend 16gb cards - the Kensington 7 in 1 retails for £13.56. BTW. does anyone know what the 7 in 1 actually means, as far as I can see only two card types will fit in (SD & SDHC)

Amazon.co.uk: Kensington 7-in-1 Media Reader for ExpressCard slot - Card reader - 7 in 1 ( Memory Stick, MS PRO, MMC, SD, xD ) - ExpressCard: Kensington: Electronics & Photo

Kensington cards ...
 

I paid $90 for 2 cards ... I consider that pretty good compared to SXS. The difference is huge!!!

my onsale.com came up backordered. this really sucks. I am wondering if Sony had anything to do with this?

I only suggested Sony as a pitiful attempt at humor.

The reality here is the product is one that has very limited usefulness and probably only began to sell when we discovered SDHC.

Most folks using SDHC cards in their digital cameras would transfer either directly from the camera or use a simple USB card reader. The market for a card reader for ExpressCard notebooks is indeed very limited.

Next product to test is the SIIG 12-in-1 adapter. Note the 11-in-1 which is PCIe. The 12-in-1 is USB and can be ordered directly from SIIG.

Ned - I tested the SIIG 12-in-1 adapter and it is not recognized by the EX1 (reports "unknown media"), so it doesn't work.

Transcend
 

Hi!Can somebody confirm how much possible to overcrank with transcend 16gb cards?As i understand sandisk almost 15mbs and overcranking possible near 50fps.I tryed apacer sdhc and it give me little over 30 fps.i guess its not very safe to use it for HQ recordings.

Best Regard

Raul

You can get around 40fps - but its NOT garanteed - always use the SxS card that came with the camera for such things. I assume you mean Transcend SDHC class 6 and not SSD cards?

Paul

Peter,

This is the card from Lexar that I purchase and never had any issues shooting HD or SP quality. However, I am shooting with the EX3.

EX8GB431 Lexar 8 GB ExpressCard, Backup Memory for Desktop & Notebook Computers

These are the numbers on the back of my Lexar 8GB SSD card:

Lexar EX8GB-5001 Rev D
32064-8GBC-2407

Lexar Media Inc 2007

I'd like to know if this is the same/different as yours - mine came from the UK about 10 months ago and does not work reliably in any mode with the EX1.

More to the point is that the data rates for my 8GB Lexar are:
sequential read:24.7 seq. write 6.97
random read:23.92 random write: 1.36
random4k read:5.41 random 4k write 0.015

If you trawl thru this thread you'll find all the information refering to data rates on a large number of cards. This one of mine is simply not fast enough. The test was done the Crystaldiskmark soft which we've all used to get some parity in the tests.


Paul

I got mine a couple of months ago. I am not sure what the numbers are since I removed the back sticker because it was tight sliding the card in and out of the camera. I am not sure if there is another way to find out the revision number?

Guess not, but if you could run a test with CrystalDiskMark:

Download CrystalDiskMark 2.2.0 - A small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive - Softpedia

with the Lexar SSD card in a laptop express card slot, then the numbers will tell us what's happening.


Paul

Has anyone used the Sandisk SDAD109A11 Digital Media Memory Card to Express Slot Adapter in conjunction with the Sandisk Ultra II 16GB cards? Do they work well?
I am about to order some.

Transcend
 

Thank you guys.Seems that sandisk ultra 2 little faster than transcend.as mentioned before its possible to overcrank almost 50fps with sandisk.Of course overcranking must be performed with SXS but i think the maximum overcranking speeds on these kxs's show's how reliable it can be.

cheers

Raul

Thanks for the replies. I may order one each to test. My job is to shoot at 1080p30 HQ so it looks like either card will support that data rate. It's funny that the Transcend, C6, is rated faster than the Sandisk at C4. I think in the future I will purchase the Sandisk Ext IV cards since they are rated at 30MB/s. How close does the actual data rate come to that in both read and write?

Maybe there should be a spreadsheet for all of the cards tested and adapters just to keep it all strait.

Mine says:
Lexar EX8GB-715 :-(

The adorama price is phantastiic

thx for the infos.

Paul, Sorry! I do not have a laptop but I will check to see if any of my friends has one with a Express card slot. I just have a Mac Pro.

This morning I received an email from Amazon stating that my order for the Kensington card has been canceled.

I also called Kensington, and they aren't selling the card any more.

Anyone know of a source for these cards that has 'em in stock?