Sony memory stick or SDHC

[Chris Adeyefa]

You spend over 5000$ on a professional camera and you are afraid to Turn it off? Am i missing something here!?

I for one always purchase an extended warranty, as peace of mind is Priceless in my books! Removing a card that many times a day is clearly a workflow disadvantage however you have managed to compensate by purchasing 50+ SDHC Cards! Not to mention constantly Dumping footage while shooting. For the average shooter that kind of workflow is odd to say the least.

Granted, the price of an FMU is pretty steep. I myself took advantage of the 400$ Mail in rebate when you purchase the NX5 and the FMU as a combo. So 600$ for 128gb "FLASH" Memory unit was a no brainer for me. The transfer speeds are way better and not having to remove it 10 Times a day is very nice.

I hate when people try to compare purchasing 8 16gb SDHC cards vs. 128gb FMU but the fact is they are COMPLETELY different! FMU Stands for "FLASH MEMORY UNIT" I guess some people need to do some research before putting them head to head like that. Sure you may save some money in comparison but transfer speeds and flash memory is what you are paying for with the FMU. In the professional world those 2 features are invaluable.

To each his own i guess. Some people don't mind Jumping through hoops as long as it works for them. In Daniel's case 50-75 SD Card removals per day is Acceptable. To others it may not be. The important thing is finding which workflow works best for you. Thats the great thing about this AVCHD cameras is that they give you so many different ways to accomplish the same end result. Its Great to have options!

[Daniel Paquin]

Originally Posted by Chris Adeyefa

You spend over 5000$ on a professional camera and you are afraid to Turn it off? Am i missing something here!?

The fact you spending 5000$ on a professional camera is not the issue. The camera requiring to reboot each the FMU is removed is a valid concern. If only done one or two times a day you have less of risk the camera will not reboot. Those camera's are little computers, they behave at some points like computer. Sometime computer do not reboot.The only way for me to know better is just to do it.

Originally Posted by Chris Adeyefa

For the average shooter that kind of workflow is odd to say the least.

You are right my workflow is odd compare to others. However, given the type of shooting this type of workflow is the most efficient and has proven to work OK. It took me a year of try and errors to put this workflow in place and it this reason our customers are pleased with our services.

Originally Posted by Chris Adeyefa

Sure you may save some money in comparison but transfer speeds and flash memory is what you are paying for with the FMU.

This is not the case for me, I find the transfer rate of the Transcend class10 16GB cards to be faster than the FMU.

Originally Posted by Chris Adeyefa

In Daniel's case 50-75 SD Card removals per day is Acceptable.

It's not that this is acceptable but that it is required. One the most important thing in my situation is to manage the way the camera sets the filename of video sequences. This helps me doing it.

Originally Posted by Chris Adeyefa

The important thing is finding which workflow works best for you.

You are right about this.

[Marty Jenoff]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback.

When the time comes, I'll get the 16 and 32 gig Transcend SDHC cards. I was planning on using the cards as the primary and the FMU as the back up, but now I think I'll use the FMU as the primary and cards as the back up.

[Felix van Oost]

Chris, SD cards are flash memory too, just like the FMU.

Daniel, although these cameras are indeed computers, they don't work in quite the same way. Bugs don't develop over time and they can't get viruses - they use firmware to control the chips. These are designed and made to be turned on and off thousands of times and develop no issues whatsoever - prosumer cameras don't just fail out of nowhere.