Ross,
First off I want you to know how much I appreciate your dedication to making this possible.

Your MxR reader fits great into the EX1 and EX3 cameras I have, it is the SDHC cards fitting tight into the MxR just to clarify what I was commenting on. The SDHC cards I have are the TRANSCEND 16 GIG (CLASS 6) SDHC and they are the only cards I have tried into your MxR reader. 4 of the 6 MxR readers I have are fit very snugly and when I eject the cards they will not fully eject the SDHC cards. I even found I could push on the SDHC cards while inside the Camera and I could remove them. I was really just commenting so others would secure the SDHC cards properly into the MxR before inserting it into the camera.

It is great to hear you choose higher quality materials for this product.

Thanks again for producing it.

Michael Palmer

100999 on the Ex1
This s/n looks like beginning of EX1 production. My camera has s/n S0101 107050. It explains no battery drainage.
Thank you for letting me know.

The first camera I had (Dec '07) was replaced in Feb '08 with s/n 103861 and it exhibited the battery drain issue. My experience was much as Michael describes.

I generally don't leave the battery attached to the camera but there have been times when I noticed the train even during long transit from location to location during the day when I was less inclined to take the battery off.

That and once leaving the batter on overnight was enough to convince me this was an accident waiting to happen. I did not want to start buying additional batteries to cover a fault in the camera.

Ironically when I brought the camera in to Teaneck NJ for the firmware upgrade and battery issue dealt with, the Sony person who took the camera mentioned they had a huge backlog of cameras coming in for the firmware upgrade but very few mentioned the battery drain issue. Meanwhile the camera was being held up about two weeks due to a backorder on the circuit board used to fix the battery issue.

Hence, I waited for Sony to do the firmware upgrade so I'll probably start testing cards at the end of the week.

Michael's post does bring up something interesting about the tolerances of the cards. I wonder if there's a difference between Transcend and Sandisk SDHC cards. Maybe all this is why Sony bailed on 3rd party card certification. Maybe this is the argument for an all in one (prebuilt) card but I think Ross brought up that issue with regards to the economy of scale (SDHC cards needed to purchase).

OCZ 16GB Slate Series Express card - OCZEXPSLT16G - www.microdirect.co.uk (http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(39584)OCZ-16GB-Slate-Series-Express-card.aspx?source=MDnewsletter)




Paul.

The adaptor and the Express flash card worked wothout problems in my EX-1.1

What adaptor and what flashcard?

I don't understand this but the Sandisk Ultra II 15MB/s class 4 cards are now class 2.
I purchased a dozen of them at BestBuy Canada only to find out that they are all class 2.
I had purchased some from B&H and BestBuy a couple of months ago and they where all class 4. But now B&H shows a thumbnail with a class 2 card: SanDisk | 16GB Ultra II Secure Digital (SDHC) | SDSDRH-016GR (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/541404-REG/SanDisk_SDSDRH_016GR_16GB_Ultra_II_Secure.html#accessories)

Anyhow, I opened one and tested it and it works pretty well. I was also able to shoot 720 24p slow motion at 48fps without any errors. I also filled up the card, while deleting a few clips once in a while and it seems to be as reliable as the class 4 cards. I used it with my Kensington adapter, should be getting my MxR Expresscard Reader soon!

I thought it was mentioned that the speed of the Ultra II's actually exceeded the Class 4 that they were branded with. It seemed that they left it at Class 4 for to help differentiate it from the Extreme III's. I wonder if, with the huge popularity of the Ultra II's (thanks to all of us!), if marketing didn't decide to give them a demotion.

Wouldn't be the first time marketing departments changed strategy to correct sales and sway popular opinion.

Just a thought, since I had my 'conspiracy theorist' hat on!

This is the right Sandisk Ultra II (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=B0012W7HQK&tag=mo7iescom-20&index=electronics&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) card, works fine.

Also 2x cheaper than in Robert's link.

And here's 32GB version which I bought
Amazon.com: SanDisk Ultra II SDHC 32GB Card: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-SDHC-32GB-Card/dp/B00194101O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1231342391&sr=1-1)
Granted it's much more expensive.
Note the dealer is J&R which I live near so I picked it up in person.
I just can't resist the thought of four hours of recording with no thought to change cards. It means not having to go into my pockets or camera bag in dark locations.

And here's 32GB version which I bought
Amazon.com: SanDisk Ultra II SDHC 32GB Card: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-SDHC-32GB-Card/dp/B00194101O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1231342391&sr=1-1)
Granted it's much more expensive.
Note the dealer is J&R which I live near so I picked it up in person.
I just can't resist the thought of four hours of recording with no thought to change cards. It means not having to go into my pockets or camera bag in dark locations.

Hi Craig,
Did you thoroughly tested it with MxR?

Hi Craig,
Did you thoroughly tested it with MxR?


I tested them with the MxR filled two cards 118min on ecah one no problems.

I still have a few tests I want to run but so far so good.

As Brian notes the basic "fill up the card" test works.

It can take some time to try all the tests one might have in mind if one has some tests based on capacity and it takes you nearly 2 hours to hit the max on these cards.

I do have some avenues I'd like to explore though.

Hi Craig,
Did you thoroughly tested it with MxR?

Was it in HQ 1920 x 1080 60p fps too?

Was it in HQ 1920 x 1080 60p fps too?

There is no 1080/60p, only 720/60p.

Was it in HQ 1920 x 1080 60p fps too?

I ran 1080 30p for the full 118 minute singlr clip test. Flawless!

Keith

and all HQ frame sizes and frame rates are 35mbps. Overcrank is the exception. It can be much higher and that's when the cards will give you Media Error at some point.

My Overcrank tests.

720p24/60 error at 15 seconds
720p24/48 error at 26 seconds
720p24/45 error at 29 seconds
720p24/44 recorded for 2 minutes and did not get an error. This seems to be the threshold for this card.

Note the times are "camera" time, not stopwatch time. Given that 720p24/60 is 2.5x real time it took 6 seconds for the camera to record 15 seconds. Given that 24/48 is 2x it took 13 seconds to record those 26 seconds. If you watch the duration counter you'll notice it's moving faster than real time when you overcrank.

Since 24/44 is 1.833x real time and the resultant video would play back at 35mbps one might guess the record data rate is 64.167mbps sustained. It's actually VBR so maybe there's a little headroom (or would fast motion force an error?).

Note at NO TIME did Media Error corrupt the clip. It reported the error while the buffer dumped the clip to the card (watch how long the red light over the card takes to go green/ready again) and I was then able to record again.

Basically when we examine write speeds it seems to be coupled to the buffer in that when, over time, the buffer fills to its max before the writing is done it results in Media Error. So it's really sort of write speed vs buffer filling to capacity. That's why you don't get an immediate Media Error.

Sorry, I meant HQ 1080 60i

I'll hopefully be in NY Sun-Tues and will pick up a 32gb card or two at J&R. That is... if there isn't too much snow. At any rate, Sunday is my play day before I shoot Mon-Tues so hopefully can get some good snow shots of the city.

If you haven't been there lately, you'd have to go to the photography department which is a different building than the computer store. While they have Sandisk SDHC cards in other parts of the store, apparently the photog dept. is the only part that has the 32GB cards.

If you can brave the cold you can walk on the Brooklyn Bridge which is only a couple of blocks from J&R and get some great shots.

I'll hopefully be in NY Sun-Tues and will pick up a 32gb card or two at J&R. That is... if there isn't too much snow. At any rate, Sunday is my play day before I shoot Mon-Tues so hopefully can get some good snow shots of the city.

We always try to walk across the Brooklyn bridge every NY trip. I have the feeling it is going to be a bit cold and snowy this weekend, unfortunately.

Latest news:

http://podcast.televisionbroadcast.com/TMD/two-minutedrill.mp3

I think it is very good development for all of us owners of XDCAMs

I have now tried 3 different SDHC (Class 6) 16 gig brands and I only feel comfortable with one brand so far, Transcend. I first purchased 2 Transcend cards while waiting for the MxR adapters and I had immediate success when formatting the cards for the first time. Over the holidays I recorded family home movies using these Transcend cards and they worked so well I started thinking that the Class 6 was the key to purchasing more cards, no so.

I was recently in Fry's Electronics and found 16 gig Patriot SDHC class 6 cards for under $30 and I purchased 6 thinking they should work. I had found that they would NOT format on the first attempt but they would on the second attempt. I tried both A & B slots in both EX1 and EX3 cameras and found they would only format on the second attempt. I also found that after recording for more than about 30 seconds you will need to wait until the red record light stops before you can continue to record the next clip. If you don't wait for the green light then you will get an error that the media needs to restore and you must remove the card and reinsert then restore the card before you can continue. I was successful recording long clips using 1080 24p record modes. I still haven't tested with 30p or any 720 formats. I think I'm going to return these cards. Oh the Transcend cards only have about a 4 second delay for the red record light to turn green. I think this is how we can determine the card record speeds.

I had ordered 4 more PQI 16 gig (Class 6) SDHC cards online thinking it must not matter what brand but as long as it was the fastest Class rating it should work. These PQI cards would NOT format in the camera at all. I even tried formatting in Disk Utility as FAT-32 and nothing seemed to work in the camera. I will be sending them back.

I haven't need to use any of these SDHC cards for hire yet and I'm going to test more with the Transcend cards before I take that risk. I know the 32 gig Transcend Compact Flash cards work properly with the Convergent Design Flash XDR at 100 Mbps and I'm feeling like this brand is among the better brands on the market. I also found the Transcend fits into the MxR better, without such a tight fit as the Patriot and PQI brands.

Since the MxR reader was specifically designed for use with Sandisk Ultra II SDHC cards, that's the brand I'm buying. Minor price differences aside, I don't see any advantage to using a different brand. What deviate from what's proven to work?

Sandisk Ultra II certainly does work but I also tested with Transcend Class 6 16GB and, like Michael, I found that it worked too. Ross states both Sandisk and Transcend work. Apparently it works with Kingston as well.

From the front of his web page

E-Films (http://e-films.com.au/)
It has been tested to work with the 16GB Ultra II Sandisk, 8GB and 16GB Class 6 Transcend card, as well as Kingston 16GB.

It's certainly helpful to know which cards work and which do not, so I really appreciate the ongoing testing. It's not hard to imagine a situation (say, traveling overseas) when one might have to make an on-the-spot buying decision to get an extra card. It will be useful to have a list of the cards that work.

With that said, the MxR FAQ states "we highly recommend Sandisk cards with our adapter. We designed the adapter to work with this card, however it also works with Transcend, (the Transcend being a little bigger than the Sandisk), and with SOME Kingston."

Since they designed the adapter with the Sandisk in mind, that brand seems like the safest bet. I figure I'm already saving $$$ by going this route, so might as well get the most reliable card (although admittedly they do cost a few bucks more). Especially when you consider the possibility of knockoff SDHC cards, the best option seems to be Sandisk Ultra II from a reputable dealer, with the Transcend being runner up.

Managed to snag 2 32gb cards at J&R today. They are labeled Class 2, by the way.

So are mine. I've heard that was a recent change from class 4.

I can record 720p24/44 without media error. I estimate that to be about 64mbps. At 720p24/45 I get media error after 29 seconds duration on the counter which is just over 15 seconds of recording. So it seems somewhere just over 8MB/s the care will error.

Managed to snag 2 32gb cards at J&R today. They are labeled Class 2, by the way.

Managed to snag 2 32gb cards at J&R today. They are labeled Class 2, by the way.

Is the Manufacturer code of this Sandisk card SDSDH-032G-E11?

My MxR adapters arrived some time ago (thanks Ross), but I've been waiting for the 32GB cards to become available. Now the cards coded as above are available where I leave; are they safe to go with MxR?

Is the Manufacturer code of this Sandisk card SDSDH-032G-E11?
Mine are
SDSDRH-032G-A11

The "A" instead of "E" is probably the region designation (America vs Europe); I wonder about the difference in the first part of the model name.

Anyway, does it look like the one in the attached pic ?

Different. As Ned notes, they're class 2 not 4. There's a 2 where your image has a 4.

Different. As Ned notes, they're class 2 not 4. There's a 2 where your image has a 4.

Isn't Class 4 of higher minimum speed than Class 2?

Can anyone in EU direct me to the right 32GB Sandisk card?

Sorry for lame questions, I didn't follow the whole SDHC discussion too closely :)

Sandisk Ultra II Class 2

Isn't Class 4 of higher minimum speed than Class 2?

Sorry for lame questions, I didn't follow the whole SDHC discussion too closely :)

Supposedly. Oddly the product code I posted shows Class 4 designation. It seems Sandisk changed the Class designation without explanation nor changing online product photos. It's the same product code though. I've tested two cards and they both work.

looking carefully there's now an asterisk * next to the 15MB/s speed.
On the back of the package next to the asterisk *

"15MB/s Read, 9MB/s Write. Based on interneal testing with TextMetrix; performance may be lower depending on host device. 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes."

When I bought my first set of 16GB Ultra II Sandisk cards for my SDHC setup, I ended up with Class 2 cards even though the photo on the website showed Class 4. I went to the Sandisk forums and the official word on the "Class" designations, directly from Sandisk themselves, is that today it's only used for market positioning. In the early days, it actually meant something, but they moved the Ultra II 16GB card from Class 4 to Class 2 because they were creating a "higher end" card that they wanted to position above the Ultra II and designated that card as Class 4 - hence the Ultra II got re-badged as Class 2 to make room.

Same thing is at play here I suspect.

I was just about to buy two 16G SxS cards for around £800 and then read the sticky on using the card reader and flash card combo. I went ahead and ordered them for around £90 for two cards and two readers. Popped them in my EX3 and Bingo, what a saving, around £710. It makes the whole idea of using the EX3 incredibly cost effective. I ordered the Transcend 16GB SDHC Class 6 cards. OK so no overcranking, I keep two 8G SXS cards for any shots that required it. So a big thanks to the guy who came up with the idea. If you are ever in Edinburgh, I will stand you a beer, in fact several beers.

The same offer stands in Cardiff, Wales.

The same offer stands in Cardiff, Wales.

and if you're on the tour, there's one in Slough too.

BTW: Brits may be interested in this:

7dayshop.com - Online Store (http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=104379)

Transcend 16 GB Class 6 for less than a blue box 60 min DVCAM tape. I bought one, shot stuff over the weekend with nary a problem, so I've ordered a truckload along with another load of MxR adaptors.

Next week may be the first shoot job I actually hand over SD cards to the client as if they were tapes.

BTW: Brits may be interested in this:

7dayshop.com - Online Store (http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=104379)
Good find - I note they also do Transcend 8GB Class 6 cards for under £10 each if you buy two or more. Are they also proven to work in an EX?

8GB should be OK for about 25 minutes of 35Mbs recording, so for some situations may be more useful for handing straight to client.

Been there, bought the Transcend 16gb cards. Very good speedy service from 7 day shop.

I have spent a couple of months debating whether to go down this road or not and have followed this thread quite avidly - So many posts!!!

Finally yesterday afternoon I took plunge and sent for 4 off MxR Adaptors and 4 off Transcend Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card - 16GB - Class 6 (Shame I ordered just before the link to the 7dayshop as I paid £27.99 for mine, but they do come with a USB Card Reader too!).

Still I'm not moaning as the total came to £233.73! Whereas 4 off 16GB S x S Cards would have set me back £2116.00, so I've made a saving of £1882.27!!!

I opted to purchase four MxR Adaptors to save fiddling around with those small SDHC Cards in the field! I'll still have my 8GB S x S Cards for S&Q work plus the 60GB PHU-60k. More than enough for a days shoot!

Just a note to say that the guys at E-films are really on the ball.

I had a faulty reader and they replaced it in a flash - and I am in Miami.

Superb to work with and very responsive. Cheers E-film team.

Just currious, when using SDHC cards with the e-film adaptor, can you ingest the footage into a Mac/PC using a USB SD card reader?

Thierry.

Yes, just place your SD card in a reader and use ClipBrowser to transfer the files. You may have to wait a few seconds for the card to show up, sometimes I find it quicker to shut down CB 2 and start it up again. So far no lost clips, other than the ones I didn't select whilst doing a transfer - you only make this mistake once.

When you remove one card and then put the next card in, click on the clip window then hit F5 (refresh) on the keyboard. This makes the card/clip show up faster.

Paul.

Yes, I have a Mac Pro and I purchased a SDCH card reader and it works very good.

Damn, just had Delkin Efilm adapter die on me, must be the contacts.. time to do a MxR order.

My suggestion is to carry x2 more MxR, because contacts would be the weakest element of the system and failure likely to happen just because of connectivity problem.