MxR Expresscard Reader moves from final QC to Shipping

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Ross Herewini

Now time to have to have a beer,..... finally.

Another virtual beer to you & team.

My 4x MxR cards have just arrived at my front door here in the UK, a week after getting the email confirmation of shipment. Considering it's the christmas break, that's astonishingly quick service. I wish US shipping companies would take note of sensible customs documentation, good packing and sensible insurance at a reasonable price.

Will test over weekend (though I've got your 'Ross' stickers on the back, so for 'test' read 'play') and they'll go to work next week.

Cheers!

[Mark Krichever]

Just received 2 MxR cards and tested them for a few minutes in HQ 1080/60i. Both cards with SDHC Ultra II 16 GB worked very well. No problem with cards insertion either. Great achievement Ross.

[Chris Leong]

Just received three of mine and they check out fine too. Now how are we going to label these suckers? I'm using Sharpie marker pens right now...

[Ted OMalley]

This was my suggestion:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/950754-post19.html

[Ross Herewini]

Originally Posted by Chris Leong

Just received three of mine and they check out fine too. Now how are we going to label these suckers? I'm using Sharpie marker pens right now...

Hi Chris,

When we ended our testing phase on the MxR Expresscard we realised we had nothing to put the card into to protect it, or just as importantly make it look good in front of our corporate clients.

So we're producing a case based on the existing Sony SxS case, but instead of being dull dark grey it's bright ORANGE, so you can find them in a hurry, especially in the dark.

It has it's own label you can write on, so the idea which is a carry through for us from our DVCAM days, is to number each MxR and the case and then write only on the case.

They should be available in about 2-3weeks time.


We did look at cases for holding multiple cards at a time, but we couldn't get a consensus amongst ourselves on whether a multi-card holder would be soft or hard case, or even how many it should hold.

If anyone has a preference, ie
Soft vs Hard
No of cards
Other stuff we haven't even looked at..

let us know and we'll see what we can do.

[Steven Thomas]

Ross,
I just received my cards today!

Thank you!

Steve T.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Ross Herewini

- Soft vs Hard
- No of cards
- Other stuff we haven't even looked at...

i) This is a difficult one, because if I were doing outdoor stuff in difficult conditions, a sort of Pelicase solution would be preferable because these are my rushes. It needs to float, it needs to be dust proof, it needs to be able to withstand being driven over by a car. But I am a domesticated shooter, cramming stuff into strange places, so I prefer a soft case with a zipper that looks like a mini Filofax ('no officer, that's my electronic diary. The tapes are here...')

ii) Eight MxRs. If I need more, I'll buy more.

iii) I'd really favour making it look as discrete as possible. Not looking like the crown jewels, but smart enough to pass as a diary without being desirable enough to covet (think Customs). Zip up. Room for paperwork or notepad, pencil/biro. A hang-point for lanyard or something. Don't go overboard with protection as these things are pretty tough.

iv) needs some sort of pocket inside that's closeable to hold stray SDHC cards that we HAVEN'T got MxR adaptors for.

v) if the backing for the 4 pockets on each side were white and made of some such material one could scribble on with pencil or whatever, we could make little notes as to what was on each card, how much space was on it, the name of the Producer's kids, how the data wrangler likes her coffee and so on.

vi) Generous pocket on OUTSIDE for business cards. Gotta lurve ThinkTank for that kind of thing. Great branding.

Better stop there...

[Mark Krichever]

I concur with Matt. If there would be case like this one I would feel very comfortable to carry it to the shooting fields and to use it in very organized manner. The only thing I would add is that thickness of the case should be as thin as possible. I would need it to be placed in my Sony camera metal box.

[Tito Haggardt]

Aloha Ross
Received my MxR reader QCed by you.
shot my first clip on my new EX-1 with your reader.
i will see if the SxS works later.
thanks
tito

[James Dierx]

I received 2 MxRs from ya Ross. Overall they have worked great for me. The only problem I have with them is...

On the EX3 it's a hard to get MxR out of the slot closest to the audio controls. I have to get pliers to pull it out. Maybe they are a tad too big? I don't really have a problem with it.. You're saving me thousands of dollars that I do not have. I just do not want to crush the card w/ the pliers on accident!

Is it just me? does anyone else have this issue?

[Mark Krichever]

No problem with insertion and extraction of MxR with my EX1. Working just fine.

[James Dierx]

might just be an EX3 thing then.. any EX3 users have this problem?

[Brett Wallace]

Thanks to Ross and SD cards I completed my first 2 day wedding shoot over last weekend without taking along my laptop OR downloading cards at midnight.....! THANKS FOR SAVING ME.
Its been exactly 12 months since the purchase of my EX-1 all the while shooting wedding documentary on only 3 SONY SxS 8Gb cards. I choose to spend my money on other equipment like a new car! instead of forking out $5K for enough memory from SONY to get me through a 2 day consecutive shoot.
I used 2 MxR's with a variety of SD memory sourced from a few Photographer mates , SanDisk Ultra2, Kingston SD HC 4, and Transcend class 6. All 16 Gb, the SanDisk worked flawlessly and the Transcend worked well too but had media restore after a few shots with the Kingston.
During the 2 days I decided to leave the MxR reader in my EX-1 and use my finger nail to eject the SD cards from the MxR and inserting a SD chip from a small wallet I kept in my pocket. In all I had 7 SD cards that got me through the weekend, I did not use any of my SONY SxS cards. Does anybody want to buy them! all offers considered.
I finished downloading all memory via Clip browser 2.0 on monday and loaded them up in Final Cut Pro on one time line to check for sync and quality. Its all just like the last 12 months of footage taken...
Looks like SONY will be happy as they now will surely make more sales on EX-1 EX-3 as one of my colleges purchased 2 Z7 instead of one EX-1 as he couldn't bring himself to purchasing enough memory to get through a day shoot and so opted to buy 2 Z7 for the equivalent of one EX-1 and the SONY Memory.
THANKS AGAIN ROSS AND MxR.

[Martin Sonnenberg]

The B slot on the EX3 is rather snug, compared both to Sony SxS and Kensington 7-in-1 express cards. Best to catch the lip of the card pull it out.

[Keith Moreau]

Ross, received my cards today in California, they seem to work fine. I use Transcend 16GB and Sandisk Ultra II 16GB SDHC cards. I think I'm going to standardize on the Transcend 16GB for now, $30 each is a pretty good deal.

I'm really glad I ordered your adapters, just wanted to give you some feedback to perhaps improve the product.

I ordered an AFT SDHC-Expresscard adapter back in the beginning when we were all testing this possibility of using these adapters. It was the only one that had would allow the EX the EX1 with the SDHC card inserted, and has a similar push in, click, push in, remove the card action as yours. There may be other brands, I'm not sure, that have this feature. As we all know, those adapters didn't work well with the EXs though, media errors, etc.

With your cards:

On one of the 2 adapters I got, more so than the other, the SDHC's are a bit snug going in, making the insertion stage kind of iffy, because of the tightness, the 'click' engaging on putting the cards in isn't always there, giving you a positive feedback that it is actually engaged. Then pushing the card in to remove them, the card doesn't spring out much, you kind of have to use your fingernail to pull the card out. Not a big deal, really, just thought you should know.

As I've pushed them in and out on the problem adapter, it seems like it might be loosening up a bit, I'll keep you posted. Maybe they will wear in a bit over time.

I guess there are variations and you don't want it to be too loose, that would also not be acceptable. But it's something you might want to look into, and I think I've seen somebody else mentioned the tightness.

I've done some testing, at 720 24P overcranked to 40 FPS with the Transcend cards pushing the card and adapter's bandwidth, and I'm getting performance similar or better than the Kensingtons. I put both Transcends in, with your adapters, in slot A and slot B doing one long spanning take. It got through card A fine, and got a media error on card B, but that was not unexpected. With the Kensingtons and the Transcends I only got 100% reliability at 38 FPS anyway so your performance is at least as good, and I wouldn't overcrank with the SDHC's anyway, that's what the expensive SxS's are for.

Thanks so much for producing these, I hope this is the beginning of a successful venture for you. I also appreciate that you didn't 'stick' it to the EX1 community by charging an arm and a leg. I was pleased that your prices were very competitive with the other adapters out there. I hope there is still good profit at that price point for you. You've certainly helped out the EX1 community and came through producing a simple but effective product that's going to give us a lot more freedom and leeway with what we capture on our EX1s.