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 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=kensington%20k33407us&tag=mo7iescom-20&index=electronics&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) 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 (http://affiliate.buy.com/gateway.aspx?adid=17662&aid=10578140&pid=2971847&sURL=http%3A//www.buy.com/prod/Cables_Unlimited_Card_Reader_ExpressCard_34mm_RS_MMC_microSD_MMCplus_MMCmobile_miniSD_Card_Memory_St ick_xD_Pictu/q/loc/273/205073826.html)

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...

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.

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.

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.

Anyone tried these on the EX1?
A-Data E704 32GB Dual Interface Flash Drive - USB 2.0 and ExpressCard! A-Data 70CBEC0016 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=70CBEC0016&cat=DMC&cpc=APM)

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.

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've been using a Kensington 7-in-1 Media Reader and a SanDisk Ultra II 16GB/15MB SDHC Card that gives standard 30p in good order. I have 2 of these cards with 2 sandisk cards. Most footage gets recorded on these cards with under cranked footage being recorded on an 8 SXS card from the original purchase of an EX3. So far so good at 40 gigs of recording media. I have not had any problems!!!

Anyone tried the Sonnet adapter?

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.
I don't feel it is overpriced for what it is - the comparison needs to be the higher end SDHC/CF cards, and even then I don't think it's possible to get such with anything like the speed charecteristics of an SxS card. And reliably making a memory card to that spec I can well believe costs a lot of money.

But the real thing that the use of SDHC cards has shown up is that for most people, most of the time, that level of performance simply is not necessary. The real question should be why it's not simply possible to also buy a lower spec, lower priced card, in the same way as you can buy different categories of Compact Flash memory.

SxS cards are properly referred to as "SxS Pro", what many would like Sony to market would be a parallel range of "SxS Basic". Much lower speed (same as class 6 SDHC, say), but much lower price, yet still capable of basic recording at data rates of 50Mbs and below.

My suspicion is the money they'd lose through lost sales of the Pro cards would be more than made up by higher volume sales of the Basic cards, and more camera sales. (And therefore more card sales, and....)

In the (recent) past, Sony and Panasonic have publicly maintained that high cost cards such as P2 and SxS were necessary for recording high quality video. SDHC has proved that is no longer true. Has anybody been able to publicly pose this question to a senior representative?

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.



That's what I plan to do with my cheaper Sandisk and Transcend cards. Use them over and over.

John

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!

Yes, I think thats the idea of this thread. Working combination.

Apiotek 24 in 1 Express Card Adapter EC-CR24 does NOT work with EX1 - "please change media" error.

Paul

Anyone tried the Sonnet adapter?

Alister, Yes I did because their engineering is top notch.

Multimedia Memory Card Reader & Writer ExpressCard/34 (MMRW-E34)
FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 (FWUSB2-E34)

Both these card were NOT recognized by my EX3.

Chris can I post the link of all the data complied from this thread?
I will do update the spread sheet tomr.

Hi Brian, here it is:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/138485-summary-sdhc-substitute-sxs-cards.html

But what we really need is an article that we can host directly in DV Info Net's articles collection.

Just thought I would start a new thread as the original seems to have expanded beyond a reasonable size.Sorry, Vincent -- trust me, what is worse than trying to follow a long thread is trying to follow multiple threads. My experience, having been at this for eight years is that it's better to keep everything under one roof.

I had a hope that the "new" SDHC thread would summarize the old one.This is a work in progress which will probably need some additions and
corrections, but here it is (many thanks to Alex Raskin and Jay Gladwell):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/138485-summary-sdhc-substitute-sxs-cards.html

Sorry, Vincent -- trust me, what is worse than trying to follow a long thread is trying to follow multiple threads. My experience, having been at this for eight years is that it's better to keep everything under one roof.


Fair enough Chris, but at 1074 posts under one thread I think your readers are going to find it hard to find the relevant information.

Hey Chris, thanks for the sticky. I'm sure it'll help people who are just discovering this thread (and trend.)

I'd like to acknowledge all great people here who pioneered this technique, and particularly Steven Thomas, Alister Chapman, Brian Rhodes for all the time and money invested in experimentation and contributions to this thread.

Many thanks to all.

CHRIS I wrote an article over a month ago I sent it to you via email with the link it was a PDF file with all data compliled.

Brian, can you please send it to me again -- I just looked through my email and could not find it. Please use this address: chris at dvinfo dot net -- I'll be sure to look out for it. Thanks in advance,

... at 1074 posts under one thread I think your readers are going to find it hard to find the relevant information.You have a good point. I've added a link with the "summary
sticky" to the first post... maybe that will help some folks.

Your Sticky Post says it all, thanks x

You have a good point. I've added a link with the "summary
sticky" to the first post... maybe that will help some folks.

The problem with the "Sticky" now is that the Kensington Card readers are no longer available and there is no worthwhile substitution as of yet. So anyone new is out of luck with this entire thing right now.

John

I'm working on that as well... talking to another company about an Express card adapter based on that same controller but a bit shorter to allow for a closed door on the EX1... more to follow as it develops,

talking to another company about an Express card adapter based on that same controller but a bit shorter

That'd be fantastic!

In the meantime, I was able to order 2 Kensington adapters from the link in the sticky just today.

So apparently the stock is still there, albeit spotty.

I'm working on that as well... talking to another company about an Express card adapter based on that same controller but a bit shorter to allow for a closed door on the EX1... more to follow as it develops,

I have also been working with a company in China to produce an adapter, still waiting to get a quote.

I contacted Kensington US in October talked to a marketing Rep about making an adapter that would allow you to closed the door on the EX1.
I also ask did they notice an increase in sells on the Kensington adapter for the months of SEP and Oct. She said it’s not a big selling item and at the time it was not on the web site, but the bar code was still active. She also informed me that there budget for this year was almost gone, that’s probably why the adapters are not in stock

Can anyone confirm this definitely works with the EX3?

Thanks

Hmmm..
There are a lot of talented people on this forum.
We have a world of resources!

We will have a working solution (including EX1 memory door close) soon!

I have been in touch with Kensington (UK) today and have been informed that the 7 in 1 card reader is still in production.

So anyone tried A-DATA E-702 Expresscards?
A-DATA support gave me this information: E702 read / write speed is 30MB / 13MB

This is very close to SDHC ultra II speed.

PS. If you have tested some A-DATA cards, make sure before you comment that they don't work, that the one you've tried is 702 since 703 and 704 are only half of 702s speed.

i am living in switzerland and got 11 adapter, so i can make a kit including

1 kensington adapter + pelican case 0910 + up to 4x 16Gb sandisk ultra II SD (the one you can cut).
the pelican case can hold 8 SD card or 4 SD + one adapter.

price without shipment would be around $300 with 4 SD.
unfortunately , shipment overseas would probably represent a significative amount of the total price (at least 30$)

Can anyone confirm this definitely works with the EX3?

The Kensington adapter and SDHC card works very well in the EX3 and the door closes ... luckily!!

These are the numbers on the back of my Lexar 8GB SSD card:

Lexar EX8GB-5001 Rev D
32064-8GBC-2407

Lexar Media Inc 2007

I'd like to know if this is the same/different as yours - mine came from the UK about 10 months ago and does not work reliably in any mode with the EX1.

More to the point is that the data rates for my 8GB Lexar are:
sequential read:24.7 seq. write 6.97
random read:23.92 random write: 1.36
random4k read:5.41 random 4k write 0.015

If you trawl thru this thread you'll find all the information refering to data rates on a large number of cards. This one of mine is simply not fast enough. The test was done the Crystaldiskmark soft which we've all used to get some parity in the tests.


Paul

I just picked up one of these, REV-A seems to work fine. 10 minutes of HQ 1080/60i was no problem, neither was 10 minutes of HQ 1080/24p.

Overcranking HQ1080/p24 to 30 frames caused it to error out after a minute and a half. I did download the above benchmarking program, but couldn't get it to see the Lexar 8GB on the laptop.

EX1 Firmware V1.11

$59.98

So anyone tried A-DATA E-702 Expresscards?
A-DATA support gave me this information: E702 read / write speed is 30MB / 13MB

This is very close to SDHC ultra II speed.

PS. If you have tested some A-DATA cards, make sure before you comment that they don't work, that the one you've tried is 702 since 703 and 704 are only half of 702s speed.

I can now CONFIRM the 702 is the model I bought and returned to Frys Electronics.
It had the Mini USB port on it and according to A-Data only the High Speed 702 & 704 have the mini usb port.
A-DATA Technology (http://www.adata-group.com/EN/product_show.php?ProductNo=AE72ZZZ)

Again, It does NOT work and gives a media incompatible error.
This is not a speed related error. I have tried MANY SDHC cards that work, but are not fast enough for sustained HQ mode.

As you all seem desperate for card readers, I will again post that this card reader "successfully" works in my EX3 with Sandisk 16gb Ultra 2's although the door doesn't quite close.
Laptop ExpressCard SD SDHC MS MMC Express Card Reader - eBay (item 360109668380 end time Nov-26-08 19:05:19 PST) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Laptop-ExpressCard-SD-SDHC-MS-MMC-Express-Card-Reader_W0QQitemZ360109668380QQihZ023QQcategoryZ96913QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l12 62)
I can't believe there hasn't been more comment on these readers as they are a "real" alternative to the Kensington's!

Cheers, Evan

Thanks, Evan. I ordered a pair last week when you first mentioned them. I still have to get my EX1 upgraded to firmware 1.11 for these to work, right?

Hi Gints, I only have a EX3 so I don't know but I would think so after you upgrade your firmware.

Evan

... this card reader "successfully" works in my EX3 ...
I can't believe there hasn't been more comment on these readers...

Hey Evan, I've ordered and will, hopefully, receive mine soon.

We'll see how they stack up against good ol' Kensingtons :)

Evan, thanks for your posts. After my Kensington order failed, I ordered a couple of the "generics" also. I'll report when they arrive.

There appears to be good stock of cards in the UK, maybe I should start an export agency. Ha Ha!

Paul

Hi Gints, I only have a EX3 so I don't know but I would think so after you upgrade your firmware.
Evan

Thanks, Evan. I know many wrote that you needed the firmware upgrade to 1.11, but since so many people were posting without mentioning the upgrade, I thought I might be lucky with my EX1. My Kensington arrived today. I tried it with a Sandisk Extreme III 16GB , but the EX1 showed the message "unrecognized media". Both card slots were greyed out in the Format menu item.