CompactFlash Announces XQD card format based on PCI-E interface

[Jack Zhang]

CompactFlash Announces XQD Medium For High-Performance Cameras | TechCrunch

I believe P2 and SxS are in for some true competition now. The big players may have to adapt to the format and keep their proprietary formats only as legacy formats.

[Tim Polster]

I don't know. P2 and SxS are a definite part of the revenue stream for Panasonic & Sony. They have had to yield the mid to low segment and I don't think they will give up the high level segment too easily.

From my point of view, 100mbps+ is best for short shoots. I am quite happy with 50mbps for longer record times as the file sizes are more manageable while still having 4:2:2 color. This new format has a lot of uses and will compete more with SSDs & specialty recording than main market in-camera recording imho. Modern CF cards are plenty fast enough for in-camera usage in pro cameras.

We had all hoped to see plenty of cameras using CF cards and only Canon offered two. SD cards won the battle because the codec, AVCHD won the war for the prosumer cameras. I would think external recorders will be the first to adopt.

[Jack Zhang]

It's Megabytes/second, not Megabits/second. It's just short of being able to record uncompressed HD 8bit 4:2:2.

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

I don't know. P2 and SxS are a definite part of the revenue stream for Panasonic & Sony.

More for Panasonic than Sony. Sony has been accepting of SDHC cards in the EX1 & EX3, the proof is by them offering their own SxS adapter & free firmware updates that make recording to SDHC cards more reliable.

The first P2 cards were actually 4 1GB SD cards on a RAID that fit into a PCM-CIA slot. There are many people that would like to use SDHC cards instead of P2 cards in their P2 cameras & I think the main reason why Panasonic hasn't released a SDHC to P2 adapter (or even 4 SDHC on a RAID to P2) is because Panasonic has chosen not to.


The biggest thing I see standing in the way of XQD is legacy of CF & SD cards.

If Sony releases a EX3r that records to XQD instead of SxS, & I already have a EX3, I'm probably not going to be thrilled that each cameras records to something different.


The second biggest hurdle it'll have to get by is proving it is worth the switch. SDHC cards are already plenty fast enough for AVCHD, so XQD might not give me incentive to change horses mid stride.

Off board recorders could really be the best place for these cards. AJA, Convergent Design, Sound Devices, Atomos, etc. might all change their design with their next round of recorders in 2-3 years to support XQD.

[Tim Polster]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

It's Megabytes/second, not Megabits/second. It's just short of being able to record uncompressed HD 8bit 4:2:2.

I realize that Jack. My comments were based upon megabytes. Having a faster recording medium is not going to change mainstream camera codecs very quickly. Most camera users do not want anything close to uncompressed file sizes. Great for the ultra high end but it will have to be cheaper than SSDs to take market share.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

I think the main reason why Panasonic hasn't released a SDHC to P2 adapter (or even 4 SDHC on a RAID to P2) is because Panasonic has chosen not to.

Difficult to say for certain, but my suspicion is more likely technical, it's far more difficult for Panasonic with P2 and their codecs.

First reason is quite simply down to data rates. Codecs rather than hardware. For Panasonic, their prime codecs (both DVCProHD and AVC-Intra) have fundamentally been 100Mbs, for Sony we're really looking at 35Mbs. SD card performance is rapidly improving, but for the last couple of years even 35Mbs has been not far off the limit with reliability via an adaptor - I doubt you'd have any luck at all with 100Mbs.

Second reason (I think) is more fundamental. The actual memory is only part of a P2 card - there is also electronics to do "housekeeping", which is not present in an SDHC card. Hence to use SDHC in a P2 camera the adaptor would need to be more complex than in the case of SxS. (For SxS I believe most of the "housekeeping" electronics is in the camera - fundamentally a better way of doing it than P2. The real problem with P2 is that it was ahead of it's time, and has locked Panasonic into legacy issues.)

I see Panasonic keeping with P2 for a while for their higher end cameras, and they're already using SD with the lower AVCCAM range. It's in the middle ground there seems to be a conflict, the type of camera such as the 250. It can't be long before newer SDXC cards are capable of 100Mbs recording reliably, and once that's the case, then what's the point of making a camera at the 250 price point work with P2? I don't see the 2/3" broadcast range moving to SDXC, but it makes a lot of sense for anything in the £3-5,000 range.

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

I believe P2 and SxS are in for some true competition now. The big players may have to adapt to the format and keep their proprietary formats only as legacy formats.

Big players don't have to do anything.... that's one of the perks of being a big player.

[Jack Zhang]

OK, sure, it's not going to wipe out their major formats, but like the SDHC case proved, alternatives could be in play now.