on the 32gig sxs you will get close to 2 hours at the highest rate 35mbs
on the 64 it says you get 3 hours. shouldnt it be closer to 4 if its twice the size of the 32??

on the 32gig sxs you will get close to 2 hours at the highest rate 35mbs
on the 64 it says you get 3 hours. shouldnt it be closer to 4 if its twice the size of the 32??

Jim I think the "secret" lies in the qualifying word "close".

The figures I've seen are 100 mins for the 32Gb card and 200 mins for the 64Gb card. In advertising speak 100mins might be "close" to two hours (though mere mortals might feel it's actually closer to an hour and a half) whilst 200 mins is a country mile away from four hours.

i get 98min on my 32gb card

Jim I think the "secret" lies in the qualifying word "close".

The figures I've seen are 100 mins for the 32Gb card and 200 mins for the 64Gb card. In advertising speak 100mins might be "close" to two hours (though mere mortals might feel it's actually closer to an hour and a half) whilst 200 mins is a country mile away from four hours.

Hi Philip,

When we format an SDHC 32GB card with the MxR adpater it shows it has 113mins recording time.

When we format an SDXC 64GB card with the MxR adapter it shows it has 224 mins recording time.(3h 44mins).

I haven't tested a Sony 64GB SxS card, but would assume it can record at least the same as our MxR adapter can.

Hi Philip

Continuous record on EX1 the SxS-1 64gb card gives me 3hrs 45 mins.
Great card and great price.

At £750 (inc vat) you are right it is a great price.

BTW. what is your definition of "Great"

Its great in so much that I no longer need to be offloading clips in the field to laptops or other extortionately priced Sony gear.

I've had situations in the past when recording live stage events with three cameras,
of having only 20 mins to copy two 32g cards and two 16g cards and delete them before shooting again. Adding a 64g card to my card stock has eliminated all the pressure associated with file transfers in the field.
So for me a great card at the same price I paid for a 32g card 2 years ago.

I am aware of the benefit of having a large capacity card, but £750 for 64gb I think it is an outrageous price to pay especially when memory prices are dropping dramatically. My definition of Great in Sony's term would be, a Great profit.

Vincent, I appreciate the point you are making about the price of memory but having invested in three 64Gb cards which we used in our 3 EX1Rs for last Saturday's wedding for the first time, I would make these observations.

1 Having a single, huge (for the job) capacity is more than a convenience, it's an extra consideration off one's mind. We actually had a 32Gb card in each second slot because the wedding format (Danish) meant there were more unknowns than usual.

2 If SxS cards were used in every imaginable gadget from phones, to cameras to sat navs etc, I would expect there to be a significant reduction in price.

3 We simply added the cost of the cards to the cost of the investment and decided that that system suited us best. (I know it wasn't your suggestion that we use adapters and cheaper card formats but in my view that would be like putting cheap tyres on a new car.)

FWIW the cameras reported 233 minutes available on the cards when they were inserted.

I take your point and despite my concerns about the high price of the card I can see the benefit of using 64gb cards. Although the phrase "putting all your eggs in one basket" does spring to mind. I prefer to shoot on 16gb cards for most jobs, *I also have three 32gb ones). I haven't come across any situation whereby I have run out of time using a couple of 16gb cards, even on a wedding shoot.

Vincent, of course you're right - it's not that any one element of the wedding will over-run the 64Gb rather that a late bride and a long homily often pushed the 16gGb CF in my MRC1s close to the limit. It's the removal of that worry to which I referred.

As for the single basket, I addressed that point with a Sony engineer at BVE a couple of years ago. He pointed out that the most one could lose with a SxS card was 2 minutes whereas with a CF card it could be the whole lot.

Of course engineers designed the Titanic....

(I know it wasn't your suggestion that we use adapters and cheaper card formats but in my view that would be like putting cheap tyres on a new car.)


Oddly enough I was stuck in the dentist waiting room the other week reading a car magazine tyre test. The second cheapest tyre outperformed the premium tyres in some tests and came out second overall. They were half the price of the Dunlops that came out top.

The point of this is that if you've done your research you'll make a significant saving. This is true of car tyres, flash media, biscuits or indeed most things in life.

As for the single basket, I addressed that point with a Sony engineer at BVE a couple of years ago. He pointed out that the most one could lose with a SxS card was 2 minutes whereas with a CF card it could be the whole lot.


How did he work that out, only loosing 2 mins with an SxS card.

As for the single basket, I addressed that point with a Sony engineer at BVE a couple of years ago. He pointed out that the most one could lose with a SxS card was 2 minutes whereas with a CF card it could be the whole lot.


This may come as news to those who have lost entire SxS cards.

Two minutes or one hour, the loss could be unforgivable, especially if the two minute silence happens at the exchange of vows.

Try to find out how long a speech or action is going to last and budget your data carefully. In days of tape I would often waste 10 or 15 minutes of tape, just so I could start a new section with a fresh tape. The same holds true for memory cards, I might just slip a fresh card in before speeches or at the start of a new sequence of events.

Two minutes or one hour, the loss could be unforgivable,.

Your 100% right Vincent.

Marcus, my source was a Sony engineer - I'm not one so I can't be any more explicit. As for cheap tyres, my reference goes back to the days when people bought secondhand or re-treaded tyres, not less expensive imports.

Vincent, it's not very smart or difficult to start a new tape or card so you capture the whole of a speech or event in one take. But I'm in event recording. Just be as smart and tell me how you'd handle an over-long homily or a multiple ad-hoc speeches at the breakfast - not untypical at Russian weddings for example - when you started your fresh tape or card right at the beginning of the event and it is clearly going to over-run your media. Most speechmakers have no idea how long their speech will last and the reply of some of my ministers would be distinctly unholy if I asked how long their homily will last.

And as for the trite "two minutes could be unforgivable" - obviously you never had a drop out on tape. I envy you.

No medium is guaranteed fault-free and an experienced cameraman/producer will have taken every possible precaution against one. An extra long card is one simple way and thus a cheap investment though it's not the only one.

But be clear, this is the advice and comment of someone who earns their living making event programmes. If I made scripted, studio shot programmes or if this was my hobby or I was a part-time amateur, both perfectly respectable and legitimate uses of video, I might feel very different about cheaper recording media etc.

"Vincent, it's not very smart or difficult to start a new tape or card so you capture the whole of a speech or event in one take."

I would disagree with you on this, I always consider it to be smart to have a fresh card (or tape) for the start of an important speech.


"Just be as smart and tell me how you'd handle an over-long homily or a multiple ad-hoc speeches at the breakfast - not untypical at Russian weddings for example - when you started your fresh tape or card right at the beginning of the event and it is clearly going to over-run your media. Most speechmakers have no idea how long their speech will last and the reply of some of my ministers would be distinctly unholy if I asked how long their homily will last."

That is my point, if you have a card which only has 30 minutes left, then you have more problems, generally speeches don't tend to go on for more than one hour, if they do, then your camera will switch to card B or the next card.

"And as for the trite "two minutes could be unforgivable" - obviously you never had a drop out on tape. I envy you."

I have had my share of drop outs and snarled up tapes, that's why I switched to solid state recording at the first opportunity.

"But be clear, this is the advice and comment of someone who earns their living making event programmes. If I made scripted, studio shot programmes or if this was my hobby or I was a part-time amateur, both perfectly respectable and legitimate uses of video, I might feel very different about cheaper recording media etc."

Be clear, my advice also comes from someone who knows how to take a lens cap off.

Vincent this is going round in circles and becoming a matter of semantics; let's agree to disagree.

I agree Philip, we all have our own way of working and if it works for us then why fix it. :-)