Hoodman S X S adapter
 

has anybody used the Hoodman adapter with SDHC cards other than the ones Hoodman makes? I know this topic has been discussed on some 90 plus page threads but I didn't see much talk about the Hoodman. Most of the info is a year old now. Wondering if anybody had some updates.

shoot HQ? yes? no? frame rates? some threads say "60p ok" others say "no way"

just wanted to see if we can get some short answers with the latest info posted.

Thanks
Steve

Hoodman adaptor is supplied by MxM which is made by the same manufacturer of MxR.
Basically they're all one in the same AFAIK.

Generally SDHC cards are "risky business" when it comes to overcranking. It seems to vary on a card by card basis even from the same manufacturer.

All HQ settings use the same data rate. Overcranking uses higher data rate. 720p60 should work any any good card. 720p24/60 will likely fail on any SDHC card used with Sony EX due to the high data rate needed and the limitation of Sony's implementation.

Good info...wasn't sure who made them for Hoodman. What's intersting is that Hoodman is charging way more for their SDHC cards than say the Transcend cards. It would be good to get a list of SDHC cards that people have tested and have tested with success.


16gig class 6 SDHC Hoodman $100 at B and H

Delkin Devices
16GB PRO Secure Digital (SDHC) Card $40 at B and H

$60 is a BIG diff.

Of course there's a range of "abilities" with SDHC but Hoodman's cards aren't outside or above that range. I do think Hoodman charges more for SDHC because they're holding their supplier to tighter specs and doing more rigorous QC.

We have a wide filed of testers here at DVINFO though. I have my own testing procedure which has worked for me so far (not that I have a lot of SDHC cards). I also want 32GB rather than 16GB cards.

We do need to recompile a list of what works though since I'm seeing reports all over the place of non Sandisk or Transcend cards people are having good luck with.

For me, I can buy 32GB cards for what Hoodman charges for 16GB. I can torture test the cards.

BTW I can't help but feel all this hand wringing is due to Sony's controller. I don't think we're seeing issues with the JVC HM series which uses EX XDCAM and SDHC built in.

great point about JVC's use of SDHC....same exact codec.....does the smaller chip size factor into this equation?

The codec doesn't care about that. It's all about the codec and the card i/o controller, buffer, etc.

Unless I see/hear otherwise, JVC "proves" that all (nearly all) Class 6 SDHC cards can handle XDCAM EX.

SDHC cards have controllers which interact with the camera's controllers (in very lay terms) and this is where the issue is with Sony. Apparently Sony is sensitive to the card controllers. This is probably why my 32GB Sandisk Ultra II Class 2 cards work reliably . . . yet "faster" Class 4 may not, yet many Class 6 do not.

There are SDHC cards which aren't recognized at all so it seems.
There are SDHC cards in which one will get Media Errors at some point and, to my eye, it looks like it's the handling of buffer fill/dump speed. This may also be why Sony never implemented a pre-record cache . . . whereas JVC has about 3 seconds available. Mind you Sony doesn't even have that pre-record cache with the supper fast SxS cards (compared to SDHC). This leads me to believe Sony ran into controller issues that were apparently problematic.

I'm not sure how "symbiotic" the Sony JVC "partnership" is but one would hope Sony would implement the JVC controller solution and even it were a few hundred dollars for a Sony authorized mod, many of us would pay for it. We may well see SDHC support in the EX cameras . . . which doesn't help us at the moment though.

SDHC class 6 working cards
 

maybe people can post their latest results for "cards that work" and "cards that don't work"

the info from the last "century long thread" is a year old.
anybody have updates to share?

Using Hoodman in Israel
 

For what it's worth I'm using the Hoodman and their 16gig cards in my EX-1 at the moment, shooting on location in Israel. All my footage is at 1080i/60 and nary a problem. I was curious about using other Class 6 cards, so I purchased a SDHC at a camera shop in Jerusalem. The brand was Praktica (not sure of its origin) and tried it in the Hoodman adaptor. It failed. For now, I sticking with Hoodman's cards.

Our company just bought the memory adapter from hoodman as well. We're using the SDHC 16GB, class 6 chip. We found that 1920x1080 30p, 24p work fine for extended periods of shooting up to 1 hour on the 16GB.

Haven't tried the under and over-crank modes.. yet.

I have had NO LUCK using brand new Transcends with my Hoodman adapter. Beware!
This thread is a few weeks old, but the new Transcends cards are taking close to 11 seconds to write after hitting stop, plus I get frequent error messages.

Read here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...dhc-cards.html

I'll second that. I bought 8 Transcend cards a couple months ago that are all collecting dust on the shelf. I replaced them with Hoodman cards.

Transcend, it seems, is a bit of a gamble right now.

all Hoodman setup...
 

for those that have the Hoodman adapter and Hoodman card media. What formats work? and what doesn't?

On the Transcend card label, is there a red or green horisontal stripe on the label? From what I've read, the red stripe is the multi-layer cell (MLC) technology that is slower, fewer write cycles but cheaper. 11 seconds is a long time, and apparently, the faster the write performance, the lower the chance for errors.

For video recording, I'd put my money in the fastest (not necessarily highest capacity) cards money can buy. The hope is to buy a Single Layer Cell (SLC) product, but it's difficult to tell these days. If the card is cheap or the capacity is huge, it's probably the lower quality (slower, less relisable) Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) flash products.

As I've posted elsewhere...

The OLD red stripe transcend cards work just fine. I have 8 that all test out OK up to about 40fps.
The new red stripe transcends failed miserably. I ordered 4 of them and all gave media errors quickly. Sent them all back.
There is a NEWER red stripe transcend coming imminently that is supposed to be OK.
There are green stripe transcends that are also supposed to be OK. Beware you might order green stripe and get red stripe. You might order red stripe thinking you are getting GOOD red stripe but MIGHT get bad red stripe. Nice going transcend!

I just bought 4 of the new Sandisk Extreme 30mbps cards. All work fine. I get a green light 4 seconds after stopping recording.

If someone wants to start a new SDHC card report thread, I'll post what I have experienced there...

Since these SDHC threads are so long, it's worthwhile to read your digest. I see about four seconds in MxR adapter for either my Transcend 16 GB Green stripe or Sandisk Extreme III 30MB 16GB. I'm waiting for some new, faster SDHCs in hopes that they would relieve the errors caused by starting/stopping recording when the green light has not yet illuminated. Sandisk, we're wating for the 45 or 60 MB/sec editions.

Here is a reply from MxM to my questions submitted via email in December 2009.

"Is your MxM physically different from your original MxR design?" ... MxM
and MxR were the same up to about June/July 2009. From August we were
shipping a new design with a new IC chipset. We've had our card improved in
relation to 32GB memory card compatibility whereas the previous MxM and MxR
only worked with 16GB memory cards and Transcend 32GB class 6.

Yes it is now physically and electronically different to the original MxR.
We have tested the new lockable MxM and Hoodmans for months before the
release to ensure compatibility with different memory cards including 32GB.
The new IC chipset is able to see far more 32GB than before and a little
faster than the original MxR card <rest of line deleted by request of MxM>.


"One fellow stated that original MxR worked only with Transcend cards. Is
that true?" ... No. The original MxR worked with many 16GB memory cards,
SanDisk, ATP Pro, Silicon Power but not with 32GB (only Transcend 32GB).
Perhaps that's where the confusion starts.

As we do testing and production with the memory cards and adapters by hand,
we have been able to identify the best memory card for digital video such as
ATP Pro, where we could actually liaise with the manufacturer in Taipei, and
fine tune the firmware for Sony's EX/EX3 and now EX1R.

In regards to your error "The error is Media Restore, but the EX1 does not
complete a card format successfully." Unfortunately in this situation you
have to scenarios.
1. The memory card is faulty which can be easily checked by using a
different adapter. If this memory card works in another adapter, you know
then the memory card is fine.
2. The adapter has stopped working but check it with another memory
card.
Sometimes when the manufacturer of memory cards keep changing their
firmware, the camera will have issues reading and writing into the memory
card. Consequently the controller on the memory card will have a similar
issue.
Therefore, Sony has recognized these shortfalls and with the new memory
stick adapter, they will only recommend one type of memory stick. It is
easier for them to control the adapter and one memory sticking knowing the
firmware and the manufacturing will be consistent and they can trace the
problem easier if there are any present. But, this scenario will be costly
for the end user. At the moment we have the same situation where ATP Pro has
been the most reliable memory card, almost durability wise on level with SxS
Pro. I'm sure there will be more memory on the market with the same
manufacturing standards.

We done a lot of tests with different memory, adapters and so on, and we've
identified several reasons for memory cards to fail:
A. fragility of firmware;
B. manufacturing of memory cards with cheap components which do not
withstand the test of time;
C. user error and mishandling.

As well, we'd like to emphasize in our tests, we use SanDisk, ATP Pro,
Hoodman Raw, Transcend. Occasionally on cheaper memory, eg SanDisk class 4
and Transcend class 6 only at 32GB level, we get a media error but no cards
or adapter has ever failed on us, in our tests. The 2 major things I avoid
are:

* We don't use SxS Pro cards during testing; so the tests we've done
are on USB 2.0 based interface only.
* When we use SxS Pro we use the Slot A for SxS Pro cards (PCIe
interface) and Slot B for MxM cards (USB interface). So if we use SxS in
Slot B, then we will use MxM in Slot A (vice versa).
We have encountered problems when we use SxS and MxM with memory
cards in the same slot one after another.
They run on different voltage and they really confuse Sony's camera
logic.

"Also, I notice that SanDisk Extreme III 16GB 30MB/sec is pictured in the
group pictures of SDHC cards but is not included in your list of
approved/tested SDHC cards. Please tell." This is an omission by error. We
have tested these and they work fine. We will amend our website and thank
you for pointing this out to us.

We notice as well there are a lot of companies bringing new memory out in
the market where they claim improvement in HD recording. Hopefully, they
have recognized that the firmware for HD recording is not the same as the
firmware for still photography. Also the internal components will be of a
higher standard.

Please understand there is a reason why; for example, Transcend 16GB class 6
costs approx. US$30, and SanDisk Extreme III costs approx. US$80 - $100 and
ATP Pro costs US$60 - US$80, the reason being the components they use in the
manufacturing is for budget for memory cards and accordingly for
professional memory cards.

We hope this is of assistance and don't hesitate to contact us again for any
information.

Kind regards,
Marek and Maggie
MxM Express
(02) 9798 8986
0416 275 389 (cell)
info@mxmexpress.com
MxM Express

I have no doubt the newer MxM cards are a major improvement given the reports I'm reading but I'd point out that I'm using one of the earliest MxR cards (ordered in the first day of release or so) with a Sandisk 32GB Ultra II Class 2 (YES CLASS 2) purchased January '09 and have had no media restore issues.