Sandisk 16gb 3 cards $94.95 after $90.00 rebate
 

Sandisk 16gb 3 cards $94.95 after $90.00 mail in rebate rebate

3XSDSDRH016GA11 SanDisk 16GB Ultra II Secure Digital High Capacity, SDHC, Memory Card, 15MB/Sec Read/Write Speed - Pack of 3

Sandisk Class all over the place
 

If you look at the 4th image from left the Sandisk card is a Class 2. Apparently Class2 Sandisk Cards do not work for MxR, etc. I also downloaded the rebate form and the picture only shows 16GB Class 2 Card which does not work with the EX's. Sandisk has completely lost my trust. They are messing with the card class system and seem to have created their own system and creating paranoia around the MxR systems. I have stuck with Transcends cards (8GB & 16GB Class 6) close to 100 hours of XDCAM HD footage so far and no problems whatsoever! I would steer clear of Sandisk. I had to return tons of cards from various well known and trusted stores because the pictures show Class 4 (these cards work) and the info says Class 4 and they send me Class 2's. CLASSIC bait & switch technique. Buyer Beware, steer clear of Sandisks!

I'm using two Sandisk 32GB Ultra II Class 2 cards in MxR and they work fine. I've been using them since January without issue.

It's the Ultra II Class 4 cards that people are having problems with.

The SanDisk class 2 cards do work and vary well they are actually faster than most of the higher rated cards out there. I have been using the 16gb for about 9 months . Class 2 will not work on the JVC Gy-Hm-100. I also use the Transcend 32gb Class 6 and the SanDisk 32gb classII.

My EX1 is finally in for the firmware upgrade, so I'm ready to buy some cheaper cards! I plan to get the Hoodman combo (I do this for a living and like their reliability claims, plus they are still LOADS cheaper than Sony SxS cards!), but I also want to try some transcend cards for family stuff. Does anyone know if they will fit in the Hoodman adaptor and still allow you to close the door on the EX?

Yes on both counts. Transcend class 6 16gb work very well.

MxR and Hoodman adaptersa are all coming from same manufacturer so there is no difference.

Awesome news! Thanks for the info.

Error Error Error
 

I just received an MXR adaptor and then bought a 16gb Transend Class 6. I verified the serial number and it is an authentic card from the Trancend website. Problem is though is that after I record 4-5 clips (short or long) it comes up with "media needs to be restored" I then have to take it out and insert it again to restore it. Constantly happens, this is not an intermittent problem. I am not overcranking, just shooting 1080 24 HQ. Does anyone have any suggestions? BTW, I am using an EX3.

Thank-you,
Brian

I had posted else where here that I bought eight Transcend 16GB SDHC and one of them does exactly what you describe - no matter how many re-formats - and it will do to every time. It will also fail if I stick it in my Mac and try to copy big files to it. It is defective. I would try to return it or use Transcends "Life Time Guarantee"

Same problem here as Brian, I have two new 16gb transcend cards one works fine but other fails after about 4 to 5 clips (restore media message). Tried restore/ reformat but still same problem. Have returned this one to supplier. Hopefully this is not going to become a common problem.

As a future EX1 owner, this little thread just saved me over $1000! Had no idea there was an alternative to the over-priced Sony cards (what from Sony isn't ).

I have some comments after reading this investigative and educational thread:

First, I didn't find Jamie's comments insulting at all. He asked a legitimate question that was based in the conversation. It might have been a tough question, but wasn't one just for reaction or ill-spirited. I thank you for asking it.

Secondly, after reading everyone's comments theres just no way that I could trust a Sandisk for Professional use. I have many Sandisk cards for my consumer point and shoot camera which i'm very happy with. Many great drunken madness pics have been captured with them. But to many people are having issues with class 4 & 6 that I wouldn't touch them on a professional shoot.

It would be great to have a representative from Transcend addressing the failure issues but without that, personally, I'm leaning heavily towards Hoodman. For $50, that piece of mind and insurance is cheap! If I lost data from a shoot, the cost in gathering a crew back, resecuring a location, bringing actors back would make me seem like dumbo for trying to save a messily $50 ( after already saving $500 by not buying an SxS card).

And thanks to those that sent emails and made calls and reported back with your findings. Greatly Appreciated!

Thats my 2 cents.

Nice sales pitch from Lou, but..... What I would like to see 2 things. First of all how the data on card failure was collected? Second question would be what is Hoodman's card failure ratio? All electronic equipment suffers from failure, regarding of the brand. What I am interested in, is how Hoodman can support it's claim of fail free cards?
Seems to me there was a lot of hot air blowing in this sales pitch. 25K pictures, 3% failure and so. Would be helpful to see the raw data, rather then "urban legends".
BTW all upper end Nikon and Canon (accepted by stock agencies) write to CF not SD cards. Therefor there is hardly any point of mentioning still photography as it uses different product all together.

First - This has already come up once before in this thread. Please refrain from this kind of language on this forum, especially when referring to comments by a dealer about his equipment. Dealers fund these forums. Their input is extremely valuable. Its wise to always take it with a grain of salt but there are respectful ways to voice your doubts.


Second - After reading of all the Transcend and Sandisk problems on this thread, I've decided to take a chance on the Hoodman combo. Time will tell whether they really are more reliable , but $50 is a small price to pay for peace of mind . Also the Hoodman Turnkey comes with a plastic holder and USB adapter which narrows the cost difference.

Lenny Levy

I don't see the value in the hoodman cards. You can get a 32gb SxS card for $860. To match that with the hoodman, you need two 16s, at $100 ea, plus one or two adapters, at $50 ea- total of 250-300, or 1/3 the price of the SxS. Considering the risk you're taking with unsupported media, the lower performance, and loss of workflow efficiency (offloading sdhc takes forever), it just doesn't add up to me unless you're talking about bigger savings. With reliable Transcend cards at $40 ea (including a usb reader), I've been using them as backup, whenever I run out of my SxS. But if it was only a 3:1 savings, I'd buy more SxS.

Well, it depends on how reliable the hoodman's turn out to be, how much the $ difference is to you and what your workflow is.

Its still a significant savings to me, and frankly I don't really want cards that record for 2 hours so perhaps the trade off is better on 16G.

I spoke to soon. After reviewing all the info, and threads and pages I too couldn't justify Hoodmans price, 60% more then Transcend. They may have a few more hick ups but I observed that if its gonna fail, you'll know right away. And my deciscion was made easier by there website adds sales tax AND shipping one combo runs $13 ! Wow! Must be amazing quality control there too. Ended up buying a Hoodman SxS adapter from B&H (no tax, upgraded shipping was a whooping .50) and bought 2 transcend cards with free shipping from another online retailer.

Total price, including tax and shipping for 1 Sxs Adaptor, 2 16gb sdhc cards and 2 usb readers was $136.50. Really wanted to buy from Hoodman, appreciated there response here but couldn't account for their claims and thus the higher price.

Leonard, first of all I find the sales pitch from Hoodman offensive. Promoting a product by putting competitor's product down, using unsupported data is not the way to promote yourself. I asked a couple of very legit questions- how the data was gathered and what is Hoodman's failure ratio? I used SanDisc for years (CF) and I never had a failure. I looked up customer's feedback on sites like B&H, newegg and a couple of others. While there are some instances of cards not working Sandisc or Transcend were rated positively by vast majority. I could not find a single customer review, outside of Hoodman's web page! I have my doubts that the company sold more then a few thousands of cards. So the claim of zero failure is rather strange.
BTW, the only reason advertisers use this site, as a lot of people read it. It's a symbiotic relationship, not one way street, as you present it.


Good for you. Personally I think 50 bucks is a lot of money. But honestly, I would never use unsupported media in EX. That's the reason I went with JVC.

Robert,
There are rules on this forum and I have seen posts deleted a number of times for exactly the kind of remarks you posted, (particularely for remarks about Sony that were probably deserved.) It behooves all of us to simply keep the discussion polite.

If you found Lou's statements suspect you have every right to critique them, I'm just suggesting that it should be done politely. I've often started to post something then thought better of it and re-written my comments. These forums are wonderfully valuable, but they can degenerate easily. I have seen manufacturers and knowledgeable people leave other sites because of rude personal attacks.

Re: Sandisk and Transcend failures , I've been worried by exactly what I've read here. I also scoured the web looking for other comments and didn't find too much. I called local camera stores as well and had mixed responses - though my own local store echoed what Lou said. I'm also skeptical that the Hoodman cards are failure proof but I made my own judgement.

You have every right to make yours and argue the point here if you wish. The point is just to do it without insulting people.

BTW my Hoodman card arrived this morning and it didn't have the plastic cover for the adapter card I was expecting. The person I spoke to misunderstood me. So now I have to buy a cover from the Abel Cine site. That's something Hoodman should offer.

I just posted a user video review of the Hoodman SxSxSDHC turnkey kit. Since I am a newbie to using these workaround cards I think it will be informative for anyone thinking about heading in that direction.

Hoodman SxSxSDHC Sony EX1/EX3 Adaptor Review on Vimeo

Lenny--I wrote to Hoodman a few weeks ago and asked whether the sxs adapter came in a plastic case and they said it did. Are you saying it does not, or just that there was a mis-communication in how you ordered?

I just got mine and there is a plastic case for the SDHC card, but not for the adapter. I thought they said yes also but it wasn't in my box.

Update - I just called them and they are sending it right out to me - in fact overnighting it as I need to go out of town.

Sounds like they have old packaging without the cover and I got that one - jut a guess.

The cases don't actually come inside the adaptor packaging. They are just put in the shipping box like a regular item. At least that's how mine came.

There have been a couple of instances I've read about where people have said their Transcend cards haven't worked properly right out of the box, and presumably they have had those cards replaced with properly functioning ones. No one should use an sdhc card in the field without testing it first. But I don't think anyone has made any claims about a functional Transcend card going bad, and I don't think anyone has claimed to have lost any footage from one. Obviously someone has to be the first, but I haven't seen any evidence that convinces me Hoodman is more reliable. And with a 150% price premium, I think the onus is on them to prove their value.

Look guys, we probably pretty much have as much information as we're going to get on this and we all have to decide what it means to us.

I went with Hoodman because bad cards out of the box spooks me and makes me worry about other cards going bad later. To me its not reassuring to hear that they only go bad at the beginning. Granted there are far fewer hoodman cards in circulation. If I start hearing about bad hoodman cards I'll change my mind. I'm not eager to spend more money.

I still do find it hard to imagine that Hoodman would charge twice as much unless they were spending something extra on quality, sounds like a bad business model - but maybe I'm a fool. Time will tell.

If others want to stick with the other cards I respect that reasoning. One thing for sure is that this thread has been very informative and I want to thank all the people who have contributed.

I'm with you on that. Still pretty amazed how the whole sdhc hack came together on these forums.

Here's a new wrinkle that will make you hoodman skeptics smile - My brand new hoodman adapter is getting stuck in my Macbook Pro expresscard slot. After a while I discovered that if I push down on the edge of the card while pressing it in ( if that makes any sense) it will release. However it is still disconcerting. I have a borrowed M&R adapter that doesn't do this at all and no other expresscard has ever done this.

If I run my finger along the front of the card (the side where the label is) up to the edge where the SDHC card enters there is a little lip which is higher than the one on the M&R card ( does that make sense?) It looks like this is where it gets caught in the expresscard slot.

Hoodman gets theirs from M&M so you can't blame them but is this typical of these adapters or is something wrong with mine?

I had the same problem with my MxR cards. The problem was the labels. I took them off and no more getting stuck in my Macbook Pro.

The label - wow last thing i would have thought. Thanks

I noticed a few days ago the ATP ProMax SD/SHDC 16GB Class 6 cards at AUD 99.

Link to the ATP Electronics site:

ATP ELECTRONICS, INC.

I can't say how these will perform compared to the Sandisk or the Hoodman but ATP seem to consider their products a cut above the average with a 5 year warranty and a dust / waterproof rating.

Sorry if this question has already been addressed, but has anyone used the Hoodman adapter with the Transcend SDHC cards? Do they work well?

John

They'll be fine- same as the MxR adapters, with a different label.

Update on my sticking Hoodman adapter - I took off the label and that helped though its still touchier than other expresscards. Worked fine all weekend though.

Good news is I emailed Hoodman Friday about it and got a call from Lou's partner this morning trying to trouble shoot it. They are sending a replacement card already.

Can't knock that service.

Maybe the Hoodman label's are just a bit thicker. The adapters are identical products.

Hoodman just sent me a replacement that works fine so it looks like an anomaly

I have twelve Transcends with the adapters. I've shot close to 15 hours per card so far with no problems at all. I'd recommend them.

I've been shooting with two 16GB Transcends, MxR readers. No problems. Am thrilled.

I have two weddings a month and working only with MXR and transcend 16gb, no problems

Do you guys have a different adapter for each SDHC card or do you change SDHC cards in just a few adapters?

Are there problems using just one adapter with many SDHC cards (aside form download speed being slower in a USB adapter)?

I have an adapter for each card as I would not trust the SDHC connection strip for a lot of use. Also as others have said when out in the field the human error factor needs to be reduced as much as possible.