Sony SxS cards versus SDHC Class 6 cards
 

In another forum some people are saying that we should never use SDHC cards because less reliable than the expensive SxS cards and they keep using solely the expensive Sony SxS cards. When I told that that it is rather stupid, and waste of money, to by these expensive SxS cards when good SDHC cards such as Transcend can do the job (I had myself a problem with SxS cards and never had problem with the Transcend cards) I am qualified as having a stupid reasoning (claiming that buying a $800 SxS card instead of $45 SDHC is nothing compared with the cost of the Sony EX1 camera).
What is your opinion on this ?

My opinion is to use whatever works for you. Some people swear by SxS, others by SDHC. Some people like Transcend cards, whereas I've been burnt by them and prefer ATP Pro cards.

When the cheaper SxS comes out the popularity of SDHC may fade. But at the moment the SDHC card solutions are useful in a number of circumstances.

The key is to extensively test your cards before you go on a shoot. The SDHC cards need to be fast (i.e able to clear the red light to green in approx 5 seconds) and you need to have done 2 or 3 run throughs and tested the transfers. Then and only then would I consider using such a card for a shoot.

SxS is better quality memory, no question. But often the people who enjoy berating SDHC users seem to be people who've tied up thousands of pounds/dollars in SxS cards and are perhaps suffering some sour grapes.

Use whatever works for you.

Thanks for your comments.
In fact I made a 2 week trip to Arizona last April bringing with me 10 SDHC Transcend cards and had no problem with them. very practical to pring since the use less space in a small box than the SxS cards.
Funny enough, it was after having a problem with an SxS card in which the video files saved were corrupted - could not find them in the card - that i decided to go with SDHC cards and I am very happy with them.

I use both SxS and SHDC in Kensington Adapters all the time for commercial work. The only time I ever had an issue was an isolated case with one of my three 8GB SxS cards about a year ago (probably something I did rather than it's fault). Never had an issue with either medium type ever since.

My four 16GB SHDC cards (one Transcend, 3 Sandisk) permanently "live" in their own dedicated Kensington adapters as 4 self-contained "combos", i.e. I just use them in the same way I use the SxS cards/sticks in my EX3. Obviously, SxS get used for any overcranking 50-60 fps 720p type stuff (I never risk attempting that on the SHDC/Kensingtons for the well know reasons about typical maximum frame rates you can get). For the record it was close to 50 fps area when I last tested them 12 months ago (i.e. before the risk of a media error message would come up).

I thoroughly tested and filled each "combo" before it got put in the kit bag and used for any paying work - VERY IMPORTANT!!! (as already mentioned above)

One year on I'm very, very happy knowing the money I must have saved to have this extra 64GB! :-)

One other thing to consider. I always off-load footage at home/hotel after the panic of the shoot is over. I'm sure there are people out there in XDCAM EX land who have screwed up (e.g. accidentally erasing critical raw footage yet to be off loaded etc.) ESPECIALLY if they are trying to do all of that mid-shoot to re-use cards immediately, a big risk if limited SxS card recording space available. The risk of error doing that is far higher, in my opinion, than the SDHC/SxS debate and then there is all the unnecessary stress that comes with doing that! Much better to have lots of SDHC media available so you can do this in a very calm and methodical way, well removed from all distractions...(OK, I'll admit I've done it with a beer in hand more than once!).

My advice is use a combination of both types and you've then got maximum flexibility at minimium stress/cost. The only down side is that they off-load slower than the SxS...but you can't have it all ways!

This is the exact reason why I decided to go SDHC. I had been burned a couple of times being on set and having to dump a card mid shoot only to later find out the data wrangler only got half the footage somehow or another, most likely due to some kind of distraction as Andy mentioned... The first time, I chalked it up to bad luck. The second time, I decided something needed to be done. So instead of running two 8gb SxS cards, I sold one of them and bought 2 16gb SDHC w/MxR (I was still in Film School at the time and definitely didn't have the money for SxS). I kept one SxS for high framrate stuff. I have never looked back. Not once have I had any kind of card failure and having 40gb of cards has always been ample for me to not need to dump the cards on set. Now, I offload them when I get home in a much more relaxed atmosphere and definitely with a nice cold beer! Cheers!

I have been using a Sandisc brand Ultra II 16 gig SDHC card as my primary recording medium for over a year. Not a single error or fault. I have the 8 gig SXS as a back up for extra space but rarely need it.

I transfer the data by removing Ultra II and inserting it into my PC.

Well, I was going to post how pleased I was with my decision to pay more and get the supposedly better Hoodman 16GB SDHC cards (and adapters) to augment my SXS cards, but I just had one fail on me. At first the EX3 wouldn't recognize the card and a prompt asked me to change it. So I put it in the other slot. Still didn't work. Shut everything down, removed and re-inserted the card. Didn't work. Put a different card in the adapter. Still didn't work. Put an SXS card in the slot. Works fine. Put another Hoodman adapter and card in the slot. Worked fine. Put the other one back in, got the "replace" message again. Then, to ad insult to injury, when I removed the card from the adapter (yes, it clicked and popped out slightly, like it's supposed to), the little plastic end of the card came off. I'm not happy about this, Hoodman. I paid extra for your "higher quality control standards." I'm calling you Monday.

I agree that the risk of mistake while offloading during a shoot far outweighs the "advantage" of SxS reliability. Remember it's the ENTIRE WORKFLOW that must be reliable and that includes human error.

Sure if someone can buy a stack of SxS cards or at least multiple 32GB SxS then that's certainly solid. The reality is given we're shooting with EX1 or EX3 and not F900 means we're dealing with smaller budgets and smaller crews.

Right now one can buy a 32GB SDHC card for 100-150$ (US) compared to about $845 for the same size SxS card. It'll be interesting to see what price point the new less expensive SxS cards are. If they follow the A series vs E series P2 pricing, the less expensive cards are only around 30% less. That would bring $845 down to just under $600 which isn't even remotely close to $150.

Small world....one of my Hoodman's would not format...and I did what you did...and after wasting 1 hour messing with it, I called Hoodman and talked to Bob and he said to mail it in and he would replace it free of charge. So I mailed it off and should get the new one on Monday or Tuesday. He was really surprised the card had failed and wanted the card back to take "a look" at it. I got two cards 3 weeks ago and tested them out, with no problems.
The other card I used on a shoot this past Tuesday and I had no problems with it.... I will keep you posted.

Mystery failure
 

I've never trusted my SDHC cards and here's why. I just finished 5 days of shooting on location using 4 8-gig SxS cards and 1 16-gig SxS card borrowed from a friend. I filled up all the 8-gig cards every day and needed the 16-gig card once on the final day (yesterday). I offloaded all the files every night before the next days' shoot.

Today, I took out my two 16-gig Transcend (red stripe) cards mounted in MxR adapters to shoot some test shots. One of them mounted fine but the other one is not being recognized by the camera and is giving an "Unknown Media....Please Change" warning. I tried switching slots in the camera (no change), formatting the card in my Mac as FAT32 (no change) and tried moving the failing Transcend card to the other MxR adapter (no change). This was never a problem before as I tested both of these cards and adapters extensively when I first got them. They were never intended to be my primary recording media and I'm SO happy I didn't have to rely on this card during the week-long shoot.

Any ideas about why this card would stop working despite never having any problems before? I never EVER want to have to depend on these cheap cards and this is the reason why. I wish I was made of money and could afford to buy a pile of SxS cards, but that's not happening right now.

I've been shooting happily for a year on my SDHC cards (Sandisk Class 4) and never missed a beat. I keep my SxS 8GB card on hand for overcrank or emergencies, but I've probably not used it more than a couple times.

Clearly, not everyone has had this experience, especially the non Sandisk users it seems. That's really a shame.

I have never had a problem with either the Transcend or the Sandisk cards. Not even once. But I have only used my six Kensington adapters with them. Maybe the problem is the MxR adapters and the Trascend cards.

John

Oh, I'm sure Hoodman will do the right thing by me. And the fact is I've never had this problem before. But I think it's safe to say I'll have trouble trusting them from now on.

I used to use SDHC and "save" the SxS for overcranking opportunities but I now use the SxS cards I have first, like Andy Wilkinson, and then move to SDHC. Shooters probably know when they go out if they are going to be doing slomo stuff and can adjust their card usage accordingly.

SxS cards are friendlier in shooting and in post, if only by a small margin but the benefits reduce risk in a industry where the opportunities for screwups are significant.

SxS cards are getting cheaper. Last time I checked, about a month ago, 32GB cards were selling in the 800 to 900 dollar range at B&H. That's 2 hours on one card. What prevents me from getting them is a card is a bit more than a Dedolight or some other tool that will have a signifcant improvement in the quality of work I do, so I am going to have to be flush when I go and drop the money for more SxS cards but I intend to do so.

I disagree that SxS is friendlier in post. When I shoot SxS I *MUST* have my laptop to dump the expresscards. When I shoot on SDHC, I can just put them in my adapter plugged into my laptop, or any other machine with a USB connector and go from there.

I can grab extra SDHC cards anywhere if we have capacity issues on a remote shoot. 16GB units are hovering around $38, and 32GB for about 88. For less than $200 I have 4 hours of uninterrupted HD shooting. Nothing else even comes close.

Because I use a desktop machine as my editing station I bought a Sony SxS card reader that plugs into a USB port. It is faster than doing SDHC over USB. A 16GB SxS card takes just under half an hour whereas an SDHC takes about 40 minutes.

Regardless, you do not have to have a laptop to injest SxS. The SxS card reader although an extra expense, I would highly recommend as a tool in the arsenal.

Perrone, I agree with you whole heartedly on the cost/value proposition of SDHC cards. I picked up a bunch of Sandisk 16GB cards for $30 each last winter (northern hemisphere) along with Kensington and Delkiin readers. They are great, almost free... stickin' it to the man and all that. But... SxS are better in most respects. Cost is not one of them.

I used to record exclusively with SDHC and I have had zero problems with them but with quicker injest and little hesitation between takes (waiting for the SDHC to catch up), fumbling with tiny cards in a hurried editing environment, I will take SxS. If you have them use them I say unless there is a workflow impediment that makes SDHC a better choice.

It takes you 40 minutes to offload a 16 gig SDHC card? I've never had it take more than 10 or 15 minutes for a full card.

I use the clip browser to convert the video straight to MXF from the card... maybe that is why it is faster?

To add a new dimension to the debate, then a whole new workflow may have been opened up by Sony adding the "copy all clips" feature to the EX1R (and presumably the PMW350?). Hence shoot to SxS, then dump to an SDHC card in camera when it's full.

Most of the issues I've heard about with SDHC cards seem to come back to them not being tested adequately before use when first bought. And most of the remainder seem to be whilst shooting - rather than having finished a shoot OK, then finding a card problem later.

Using the camera to dump in this way should avoid those problems, since the transfer should just happen at the max speed the card can handle. If it's on the slow side, the transfer just takes longer - very different to real time recording.

I've also heard horror stories (first-hand) of material lost through downloading human error - once with SxS, twice with P2. So I fully agree that when you consider risk, it's a mistake to neglect the human factor and only worry about hardware reliability.

At least with an SxS camera you have the choice what media to use. (A 3-way choice now with the Sony adaptor and Memory Stick.) With P2 you don't get the option.

This isn't a question of not trusting SDHC, your case is a question of not trusting Transcend. Some time after Transcend started printing red stripes on their cards instead of green it seems something changed in the manufacturing process.

How long does it take your cards to clear a red light to green? If it's more than about 5 seconds just bin them without hesitation. Even if they aren't taking that long the fact you've had these errors indicates there's probably still a problem somewhere with them.

Do you mean that you strongly recomment to never remove the SDHC card from the adpater and buy as many adapters as I have cards ? Wll... sfar I leave the adapters permanently in the EX1 slots and remove and insert the SDHC cards to/from the slots of the adapters without removing the adapters. I found that very practical. But do you imply that this way of doing things is not advisable ?

Hi again.

I personally leave the small fiddly SDHC cards within my Kensington Adapters permanently and pull the whole "combo" out (i.e. just like if it was an SxS card). It's just my way of doing it as once I've fully tested a SDHC card and it's dedicated Kensington adapter I prefer to keep the unit together.

On the EX3, as is well known, you have more "headroom room" than on the EX1 (still not enough though!) to easily access the sticks and also close the door with KxS/KxT etc. but I guess there is no problem just pulling the SDHC cards - but they do seem a little fragile to me...I guess whichever way seems best to you. It's just one set of contacts versus another getting used at the end of the day.

Got to go, the new Dr Who episode is about to start on BBC 1 :-)

When you buy a Hoodman SDHC card you get a USB adapter with it. One can't use the adapter without taking the little card out of the SXS adapter.

Hi Marcus. My average time with both of these cards was about 5 seconds. I went out shooting today with the "good" card with no problems, but that other one is dead...dead...dead. ;-)

I'm using the E-Films e-LCR without any problems with Transcend 32GB cards. I have bought one adapter per card and never remove the cards from the adapter. In order to read out the whole combo, I use a cheap Delock 61575 expresscard to usb adapter (warning, this adapter doesn't work with SxS cards, only with the e-LCR and similiar card readers). Prior to using this combo, I did a thorough write and read check of the card using the Linux badblocks command in order to make sure cards are fine. Also generally if time permits, I am copying important scenes from one card to the other one, but as already said a firmware update to permit copying of multiple files would be nice.

one card - one adapter is my policy so that I can easily identify any problems. Have been using Transcend 16gb class 6 since February 2009 and am pleased to say I have had no problems. I think the current thinking is that the latest batches of Transcends are now unreliable and that ATP Pro is the make to go for as there have been no negative reports AFAIK.

Marcus, how are your tests going with the ATP Pro cards?
What card reader are you using in your camera with these cards?
Have you tried them with the Kensington Card reader?

Thanks in advance.

I'm using MxR adaptors into the PC Express slot on the Macbook. I prefer to both write and read from an MxR rather than take the SDHC out because part of what I need to test in my case is the MxR and ATP combo.

I've tested 3 cards, and have now shot on all 3 of them. I have a 4th but haven't had the time yet to test it.

Of course there's no guarentee they won't go bad on me in 3 months but I feel I've tested as best as I can at this stage. The only way we'll really know is if people start using them.

Thanks Marcus, yes, your right, the more tests the better.

I have enough SxS cards to get me through the most, if not all of a wedding but I might send for one from Amazon and use one of my Kensington Card readers.

Thanks Marcus, keep up the good work.

I have a couple of Kensington adaptors but have never used them. The new adaptors from MxM that prevent you from removing the SDHC card in combination with the ATP Pro cards feel very solid and I've got the adaptors almost too hot to handle on a recent shoot.

There is an issue with the SDHC cards in that the contact dimensions are a bit rubbery. With some cards the contacts only just make contact with the adaptors. Removing the chance of the SDHC card moving at all plus improving the speed of the chips in the adaptors makes the MxM adaptors a good buy from my experience.

I can't say they're better as I've never had a problem with any of this kit, all I can say is the latest offering feels more solid. The older design caused me to pop a SDHC card out when I hadn't intended to. The camera seems a little more responsive as well. Thumbnails coming up quicker etc. Sorry that's a very subjective evaluation and should not be taken as gospel.

Thanks Bob, I suppose getting the MxM adaptor would do any harm.

I fully agree with what Bob said. I've been only using MxM (two combos with Sandisk 16 GB, one combo with ATP Pro 32GB), and I never EVER had a single error message.

BTW, the slot light changes from red to green within some 3-4 secs; it's longer than with SxS, but my EX1 will never try to start recording too early, anyway.

Marcus, I just noticed the ATP cards in Amazon are showing a green label unlike the ones you link to with blue labels. Wonder if there is a difference in them.

I have no idea if there is a difference. But keep in mind when I got mine from Amazon there was no picture at all! This is the first time the listing has had a picture.

The description however remains the same. Go figure.

I can't guarantee anything but given the description hasn't changed I don't see why they wouldn't be OK. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the cards that turn up have blue labels.

Thanks Marcus, that was quick:)

Yes, I checked the spec of the card too and it looked the same to me, I was trying to get a link to the seller to email them and ask.

Thanks Marcus.

Marcus, did another search on Amazon and there was a ATP card with a blue label but it was a bit more expensive.

Can I ask, what colour of label was on the cards you got from Amazon.

Thanks in advance.

My cards are blue. See my blog entry here which includes a photo of a card:

Media2u Corporate Video Production Blog

The link on that page takes you to the Amazon page where I got my card from.

When I wrote the blog entry last week the Amazon listing had no photo on the page. It now shows a green card.

*But* as far as Amazon is concerned, this is the same card as I purchased. The page tells me I last purchased one of these cards on the 1st of October. The cards I purchased from this listing are blue.

Are you sure you aren't looking at another ATP product such as their CompactFlash? I've nearly accidentally purchased one of those myself!

Thanks again Marcus, the link from your blog took me to the Amazon site and it was then I noticed it was a green coloured card.
Strange :) I'll see when it arrives.

The Blue label ATP card does say "ATP Waterproof / Dustproof 16GB ProMAX Compact Flash Card (150x) 22.5MB/sec"

Thanks for your help.

UPDATE: I just spoke with Jean from Hoodman. They are sending a replacement today.

Your were right Marcus, It arrived with a blue label.

I got myself an MXM adaptor as well.

Thanks for the advice.

That's good news. I guess Amazon just threw in any old image as previously there was no image at all.