SDHC cards
 

Just thought I would start a new thread as the original seems to have expanded beyond a reasonable size.

I am surprised that no one seems to be questioning why Sony charges so much for a 16gb card. I know it has a faster data transfer speed and higher specs. but this is no reason why the card should be so over priced. Here in the UK I can buy a 16gb Transcend card for £20 and the 7 in 1 card for £14 - total £34. The Sony 16 gb card is approx £585. In my view this is a rip off to the customers who are supporting them with their camera purchase.

Sony are not the only company ripping off the consumer, it would seem that anything with the word "digital" in it will be subject to a higher price, and guess what we all seem to cough up the extra cash each time. Maybe this global money crisis will bring us and the manufacturers back down to the real world again.

two days was trying to find kensington , the only place was amazon UK, but they don't ship to Canada,
just bought siig 11 in 1 on ebay, as soon as I'll get it will test and let you know,
cheers

I tried a SIIG - not sure if it was the 11-in-1 model, but it did not work. Neither does the SanDisk adapter (but it does work to transfer SDHC cards to the laptop).

Look, if Amazon is positively out of Kensington, then you can get an emergency substitute that is not as trouble-free, unfortunately, but it does work.

It's Cables Unlimited adapter

Problem with that is, camera does not always recognize it as easily and readily as it did with Kensington. So CU adapter requires fiddling - reinserting in tinto the slot... rebooting the cam... until it sees the adapter.

Now, once it sees it, and you don't take it out or switch the camera off, everything works fine, in my experience.

Use at your own risk blah blah...

Vincent
Maybe... a big maybe.
Did you check out the prices of the latest Panasonic 64GB P2 card?
Costs more than many of the cameras we talk about here.
Kinda like the cost of gas - whatever the market will bear...
And the price of cars - if you saw the news shows/docs about all those new cars arriving every day and just sitting there...
Maybe if nobody actually bought the cards, instead of talking about not buying them, then there would be a special price/discount sale?
Until the stock got sold, of course...

We are happy with Sony because they deliver exceptional quality cameras for affordable prices. Many thought it unbelievable that a camera under 15-20K could bring what the EX1 brought.
It appears that the high cost of the card is supposed to make up for the relative low price of the camera. It's in a sense what film was to the Polaroid camera, ink to the printer.

Someone found a way around the S&S cards. Sony not happy. I probably would not have bought the cam without this alternative. I'm happy. Sony sells more cameras. They're happy. Eventually prices will drop for the S&S cards. We will start buying them. And we all lived happily everafter.

No doubt the price of cards will drop eventually, but it nearly put me off purchasing the EX3, I had considered the Z7 as an alternative. However, a quick hands on experience told me that the EX3 was the camera I wanted. I will pay the £585 for a single 16gb card, just so I can use the Q&S feature, but will use the Transcend cards for other work.

The EX3/EX1 does offer exceptional value for money and I guess the extra £585 will be recovered on just one job.

Also Vincent do remember that provided you don't lose your SxS card(s), you should have MANY years of service from it/them. The initial purchase price will be all but a distant memory. I have 3 x 32Gb cards with a 4th coming next week and I have already been cycling them over and over. 116 mins per card in 1080i50 setting.

Extending on that, I back up to 2 drives (always from Clip Browser) and on my bigger jobs, have my clients purchase a big WD MB 800fw or Lacie TI external HDD to put the edit on to so we can revisit at a later date. I use those drives to copy the original SxS recordings as well so I can keep my backup costs to a reasonable level.

That being said, I picked up 2 new 750Gb Seagates for the US equivalent of about $55.00.

The 704 is MLC where 702 model is faster (and more expensive) SLC...
specs were hard to find so I emailed A-DATA:
"E701and E702 read / write speed is 30MB / 13MB,
E703 and E704 read / write speed is 13MB / 5MB."

I have no idea what the sustained write speed of 702 is, but specification's 13mb is pretty close of 15mb class 4 SDHC specification. So if anyone have easy access to some 702s or 701s please test them... they just might work.

David, I do agree with you that the Sony cards should provide years of trouble free service, at least I would hope they do. My point was that they are expensive for what they are, I can't blame people for wanting to try out "cheaper" alternatives. However, I know from my own experience, that footage lost due to faulty tape, or in the case of the EX1/EX3 using cheaper cards, can be far more expensive than a good quality card. My clients will want to see footage rather than an apology for lost clips.

Based on your sound advice, I will bite the bullett and add a couple of Sony cards to my kit - I know I will not regret it in the long run.

Thanks

I have tried and reported over a month ago the 16GB version A-DATA does not work in the EX1

Which version? atleast both 702 and 704 have 16gb. And as I previously stated they have large speed difference. 704 won't work for sure but 702 sails exactly at the limits.

I had a hope that the "new" SDHC thread would summarize the old one. For example, buy this card and this adapter. Plus a listing of any shortcomings or issues involved with using SDHC cards. I really didn't want to read through all 1000+ postings on the other thread. Surely there is a consensus opinion by now of what works well and what doesn't work.

Kensington 7-1 Express Reader/Sandisk 16gb Ultra IIs/ Extreme IIIs / Transcend 16gb class 6. (8gb versions of these cards also work fine.) These are the ones I use without trouble on an EX1 with the new 1.11 firmware upgrade. Do not rely on overcranking, use your real SxS cards for that. Easy Peasy. I think this is the gist of the long thread unless anyone knows better!

Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo's also work in the Kensington adapter and I have received a tip-off that the following combination also works:
Sony VGP-MCA20 5-in-1 Memory Card Adapter with Sony MSHX8G PRO-HG Duo HX 8 GB.

I have not tried this combo myself, but have been told it works with the same restrictions as with SD cards BUT the door on the EX1 will close over this combo.