SDHC substitute for SxS cards

[John Peterson]

Originally Posted by Alex Raskin

John: in my experience, when camera recognizes IOC combo, it works just fine.

It is however unpleasant to see the camera Not recognizing the combo sometimes. It will take a couple cycles of taking adapter out of cam and re-inserting it, or powering cam down then up again; for the combo to be recognized.

I would never recommend this kind of play during the live shoot; instead, allocate 2 minutes for this before the shoot.

It's more like, set it and forget it kind of thing - if you have a long shoot like an interview or a concert, just have the cam recognize the combo, and roll. I've never seen the combo fail *after* it was recognized by the cam. (Unless you power the cam down - then you'll have to repeat the procedure, or not - it's a crap shoot.)

After an hour (for 16Gb card capacity), provide a minute or two of downtime for changing the combos, in case the cam requires re-inserting them to be recognized.

Again: this does NOT look like an acceptable procedure to me if you were planning on changing the IOCxS combos live while camera was still recording.

Kensington adapter (that I do not own yet) apparently does not give this grief, albeit at 3x the IOC Buy'com's price (if you never even count the IOC rebate.)

Thanks for the detailed reply Alex. I guess I'll keep them. All four of them only cost around $45 after the $5 rebate. It doesn't pay to return them. I'll mess with it and see how it goes. If I can get the camera to recognize two 16GB cards in both slots I should be good for most shoots. Then there is always an intermission to mess with it again if I have to. Let us know how the Transcend card works in this adapter after you get it.

Thanks,

John

[Ted OMalley]

I wonder if there isn't a difference between the EX1 USB host and the EX3 USB host. I just shot an event today and did it all at 720 30p overcranked to 52. It was over 45 minutes, I started and stopped as well as let it run. I never got an error.

[Brian Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Here's the deal: we need a concise summary of this entire thread in article format that we can add to the Articles section of the site... something we can use as a definitive reference... and then I'll add a link to that article from this forum, as a sticky.

Note -- I'm not looking for anything elsewhere on the web, but an original piece that we can host *right here* on DV Info Net, with photos, etc. If somebody is willing to take this on and put it together, I'll find a way to make it worth their time somehow. Thanks in advance,

Chris I have complied all the data in a PDF file. I want you to Proof it before I uploaded to the forum. I will send you a link so you can down load i it. I will revise the PDF when new data is available.

[Chris Hurd]

Many thanks Brian; you can either send it to me as an email attachment or just send me the link. Much appreciated,

[Paul Cook]

Wow - and here I was all set to buy a tape HDV cam set up until i stumbled across this.

And a quick check here to see the topic in full flight - so it seems the ideal set up now would be 6 or 8 16gb cards, two Kensington readers and one or two 8gig SxS cards for when you need reliable overcranking.

My only concern at this stage is the post by John Woo claiming a set up that appears to work with everyone else does not work for him...I would HATE to drop $10k on a set up only to find myself in a similar situation as John.

John you mentioned you were sending the cards back - are you planning to try this all out again?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Paul Cook

And a quick check here to see the topic in full flight - so it seems the ideal set up now would be 6 or 8 16gb cards, two Kensington readers and one or two 8gig SxS cards for when you need reliable overcranking.

Honestly, at this stage of the game, I'd wait on the 32GB cards. I just ordered 2 Kensington adapters and 1 16GB card this week. I am going to try to wait on the 32GB cards next month. If they don't show, I'll order 2 more 16GB cards and another adapter. I don't intend to swap the SDHC cards in and out. I'll just buy one adapter for every SDHC card. It's a bit more robust that way, I avoid the issues of running two adapters at the same time (which I will surely be doing), and I'll worry less.

Having 3.5 hours 1920x1080 24p of recording at my disposal for under $500 is absolutely AMAZING. That is less than 1/3 of what it cost me to do a Firestore on my DVX. This pushed my EX1 purchase from being a good thing, to the best thing since sliced bread.

[Steven Thomas]

Perrone, yes that's not a bad idea just buying a Kensington for every SDHC card.
You're right, when the Ultra II 32GB 15MB/s SDHC cards come out in a month or two, for under $200 USD you can buy the Kensigton and the 32GB SDHC card!

Unreal..

[Jay Gladwell]

Being new to all this, I'm a tad confused.

From the two post above, from Perrone and Steven, I get the impression that it isn't a good idea to have two Kensington adaptors and use multiple SDHC cards. Is that correct? If so, why is that a problem?

Thanks!

[Paul Cook]

The only thing with the 32gb cards is they are a lot more $ per gb than the 16. You always pay a premium for the top of the line capacity storage medium. Also in the event of a card failure (yes, remote as the chances are, even sandisk's can fail) you would only loose 50mins rather than 100 minutes.

Besides isnt it a continuous roll - swap one out while the other one is recording so I still think the 16gb is the way to go. But each their own.

My only other concern for not using SxS is in fragmentation. I can remember Sony saying the benefit of SxS is if you do a lot of takes - then review - then delete some - then continue with the same SxS card - the files will become fragmented and the speed of the SxS prevents write errors due to this fragmentation?

I honestly cant see myself working this way but it might be an issue if you do. Guess you just make sure you have more than enough storage so you don’t have to delete takes on location.

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Hi,

I havent read all the messages in this thread so sorry if this has been mentioned. But could someone give a link to a place to buy the Kensington adapter and 16GB cards within Europe?

Thanks!

Sami

[Steven Thomas]

Jay, if you have two Kensingtons in the EX at the same time and were to leave the Kensingtons in and only remove the SDHC cards, the EX can get confused on current memory slot assignment.

This is due to the EX is designed to have the entire expresscard (SxS) removed, not its internal memory.

BTW, you can still do this, but you need to make sure your on the correct memory slot.

Now, if you use two Kensingtons and eject the expresscard when removing (like you would with SxS) leaving the SDHC in the Kensington, they work just like the SxS cards.

The cost of the 16GB SanDisk Ultra II 15MB/s SDHC card and the Kensington 7-in-1 is little over $100 USD.
At this price you could buy TEN of these and throw them in your carry bag for the cost of ONE 16GB SxS card!

The SxS cards still have their use. You will need them for overcrank and for the times you can not have the EX1 memory door left open.
Also, the SxS cards should be fast enough for Sony's future 4:2:2 50mbps EX cameras.

[Brian Cassar]

I've followed this thread with interest especially since I've bought x1 32Gb and x2 16GB SxS cards at huge costs!

However I have one question to ask: would anyone be willing to record on these SDHC substitute cards a one off unrepeatable event such as weddings? My main line of work is weddings and I still cannot bring myself to use this substitutes in events that cannot be repeated and where the client might sue you if you fail to deliver the goods.

[Perrone Ford]

My event work is ALL non-repeatable. I ordered my SDHC and Kensingtons this week. Though I won't be sued if it fails, it's still a heavy burden. ALL of these mediums are subject to issues. Tapes were subject to issues with airport x-ray machines and magnets. We used to have to make sure our DATs never got too close to our near-field monitors which weren't shielded in the old days. Opticals get scratched. All these memory cards are subject to static discharge.

Personally, if I was betting my business on this, I'd go with something like the convergent which allows RAID or mirroring of the cards. That way you'd get real fault tolerance. But I am more than comfortable with the SDHC cards to "bet the farm" if you will on the footage being no more problematic than the SxS. This is one reason I am buying an adapter for every SDHC card and just using it like an SxS card.

[Steven Thomas]

Originally Posted by Brian Cassar

...would anyone be willing to record on these SDHC substitute cards a one off unrepeatable event such as weddings? My main line of work is weddings and I still cannot bring myself to use this substitutes in events that cannot be repeated and where the client might sue you if you fail to deliver the goods.

Brian, I understand that concern and for those who already have the needed SxS cards for their projects, I would not use the SDHC/Kensington. In this case, there would be no need to use the SDHC combo.

I've been using the EX1 everyday for over a month with the Kensington/SDHC. It has not failed once!
The Kensington/Ultra II 15MB/s SDHC card can overcrank to 40FPS without an error.
This equates to sustaining over 8.3MB/s. HQ (35mbps) modes peak at 5MB/s and normally runs around (35/8) 4.3MB/s.

At 8.3MB/s this is decent headroom and explains why this combo works so well in HQ modes.

For wedding or special event footage, I centainly understand why someone may stick with the SxS. But, for anything else, it's certainly fine.

Having said that, the Kensington and SanDisk SDHC works so good I'm starting to believe it's safe for everything. Only time will tell, but one month and not one error it sure appears to work well.

[Paul Newman]

I would agree, I'm shooting with 3 Ex1's next month with SDHC combo's in all, each camera has 2 Kensingtons and 4x 16gb cards, I'll be so happy not to have to download to my laptop during the shoot, as I used to with SxS - just because I now have more capacity than I could previously afford - I mean 12 16gb SxS cards is a lot a dough!

I may even use Transcends class 6 cards which I'm currently very happy with testing so far, and at £240 for 12 cards that I can give to the client, well it's a steal - cheaper than HDCam tape stock too!

I'm no more worried about data loss than I was with tapes and head problems/magnetic issues and physical transport problems on tape based cameras.

Paul