View Full Version : New SD cards


Jeremy Doyle
January 6th, 2016, 02:13 PM
Wouldn't these SD cards be fast enough to capture XAVC-I footage?

https://blog.sony.com/press/sony-enhances-ultra-high-speed-media-offerings-with-new-xqd-sd-cards-ideal-for-high-end-dslr-cameras-and-worlds-first-xqdsd-card-reader/

It seem like the would at least be fast enough to capture continuous high frame rate footage. It would be nice if that would be added in a firmware update for the FS5

Darren Levine
January 6th, 2016, 03:43 PM
Can't see anything, seems that site is broken.

Sandisk already has the 280mbps SD cards

Ross Hunter
January 7th, 2016, 08:54 AM
The link is working just now Jan 6, 2016 10:11am Eastern US.

Jack Zhang
January 7th, 2016, 05:42 PM
Oh HEY, Sony finally makes a UHS-II card.

NO, all of your current hardware does NOT support UHS-II. They're saving it for NAB.

Brian Rhodes
January 8th, 2016, 09:41 AM
Jack I use 128 gb UHS-II SDXC cards with my FS5 and A7S II

Jack Zhang
January 8th, 2016, 08:44 PM
Yes, UHS-II is backwards compatible with UHS-I, but is it really using the extra pins? No.

You see no speed benefit unless the extra pins are present in the slot and the software can use it. The X70, FS5, and all current gen equipment only use UHS-I. You wonder why there's no XAVC-I on any of the SD card only models? Lack of TRUE UHS-II support is why.

Sony did this on purpose to not cannibalize XQD sales.

I dare you to find in the specs of current cameras and to look at the contact pins to find the extra pins required for UHS-II in current Sony cameras. You will find none.

Jeremy Doyle
January 10th, 2016, 09:08 PM
Why would Sony worry about XQD card sales? It's not a proprietary format for them.

Nikon still cameras have been using them for a while now.

Ray Lee
January 10th, 2016, 10:44 PM
Why would Sony worry about XQD card sales? It's not a proprietary format for them.

Nikon still cameras have been using them for a while now.

Nikon also needs the Sony sensors for their cameras, I figured it was a requirement from Sony they use XQD

Jack Zhang
January 11th, 2016, 12:57 AM
No other manufacturer uses XQD more than Sony. Nobody else wants to take on the format so people instead opted for CFast. Sony were initially afraid of SD cards replacing SxS, and they finally relented. UHS-II SD cards are a huge risk for XQD cause they only just launched the format and cards on the high end of the UHS-II class were getting close to the same performance.

Sony proprietary card formats have a tendency to go obsolete too fast. SxS was a rare success, but SD cards are slowly replacing SxS. Higher speed tiers is how they're trying to remain relevant.

We cannot ever forget when the PlayStation Vita was supposed to get a microSD card slot, then that completely got set aside and used account locked encrypted proprietary flash memory...

Jeroen Wolf
January 11th, 2016, 02:58 AM
And now I just buy Lexar XQD cards and Sony doesn't make a penny.

If there is no real difference between SD and XQD -as some suggested here- it shouldn't be too hard to make an SD to XQD adapter. Would seem like good business.

Jack Zhang
January 11th, 2016, 05:49 AM
Actually, the new Gold 2933x Lexar cards don't work on the FS7 for some strange reason. (Reviews suggest Sony is refusing to update firmware to support them) Stick to the Silver 1400x ones for now.

A UHS-II SD card to XQD adapter would require a USB 3.0 or PCI Express interface coming from the XQD pins designed specifically for the Sony cameras. The latter is more widely compatible (PCI Express) across the current Sony cameras. (the cards may have USB 3.0 compatibility, but are the cameras actually using it? Not likely.) The PCB for an XQD is physically the length of a standard SD card. It'll be too tight of a squeeze compared to a ExpressCard to SD card adapter. (which just uses USB 2.0 communication over ExpressCard pins)

MicroSD UHS-II isn't out of the question though, but reliability on smaller SD cards goes WAY down and the benefits of the write speed of full sized cards are entirely negated. With such limited space in an XQD card, the adapter for full sized cards is neigh impossible. Remember, you have to squeeze a high performance processor to translate the interfaces within a super tiny space and only the full sized cards have the write speeds capable of performing XAVC-I 4K 60p for instance.

A UHS-II to SxS PRO adapter is much more likely for the F5 and F55.

Jeroen Wolf
January 11th, 2016, 07:02 AM
Actually, I've been buying the 'old' 1333x cards. They are less expensive and work fine. Too bad about the adapter, Jack. But couldn't you give it a shot? ;-)

Jack Zhang
January 13th, 2016, 02:58 AM
Actually, I've been buying the 'old' 1333x cards. They are less expensive and work fine. Too bad about the adapter, Jack. But couldn't you give it a shot? ;-)

I'm not a hardware engineer. My friend "tesla500" on YouTube is.

Docea Marius
January 31st, 2016, 11:33 PM
Today i test thiis SD CARD Transcend SDXC UHS-I U3 128GB Speicherkarte (95 MB/s Lesen, 60MB/s Schreiben)..on my FS5 in 4k,work perfect..May shooting someone on this card model ?

Jack Zhang
February 1st, 2016, 08:39 PM
We're not talking about UHS-I, we're talking about UHS-II.

UHS-I is what the current hardware is guaranteed to support, but the data rates are nowhere near close enough for XAVC-I. These cards the OP has talked about are UHS-II. The issue is the FS5 and all current Sony SD card slot enabled cameras all only operate up to UHS-I.

Tom Van den Berghe
July 7th, 2022, 10:46 AM
interested in a second hand FS7 but I always shoot UHD 50P.

If I shoot this in 8 bit I have read online that you get UHD XAVC-L 50/60p 8bit 103 minutes on a 128GB card? Is that true?

UHD/4K XAVC-I 50p 10bit should be 32minutes on a 256GB card (these are ones with most capacity?)

For theatre, dance performances, 1ste communion 8bit is enough for me but now we are filming on a low budget movie so that 10bit would be useful when shoot in s-log.