SDHC Reliability

[Perrone Ford]

I am curious if any of the UK members have used the Samsung Premium Plus cards. They are a hardened card that appears to only be available in the UK.

[Bruce Rawlings]

Never seen them. Samsung is not regarded as a serious maker of cards over here.

[Alister Chapman]

Marcus, those are the environmental conditions the cards are designed to work in. They tell us nothing about how hot the die is getting. SD cards have no heat sinking and are in plastic packaging. Plastic is a good insulator. The actual chip may be running much hotter than you may think, even if it's only for fractions of a second for example when the EX tries to write both the video data, metadata and recovery package.

I've seen a SD card from an EX where the plastic has distorted due to heat. The camera had been used to shoot a play running non stop for almost 2 hours, hot swapping cards. Remarkably the data was still on the card, but it does show how hot they can get.

If you spend $1000 on 64Gb worth of SxS cards then use them for 100 projects or shooting days that's only $10 per shoot. By using SD and adapters you would save a little over $5 per shoot. Is it really worth it? For you own projects, perhaps. But for professional projects, I don't think so.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

I've seen a SD card from an EX where the plastic has distorted due to heat. The camera had been used to shoot a play running non stop for almost 2 hours, hot swapping cards. Remarkably the data was still on the card, but it does show how hot they can get.

That shows just how hardy SD cards are. There are well documented cases of people putting SD cards through washing machines, dropping them in the sea or even in one case I just found on Google reversing over their stills camera smashing it to pieces and deforming the card. All the data was recovered.

I've shot many a conference that had hot swapped cards across as much as 8 hours. No issues. If there was I wouldn't be using the cards.

The environmental conditions indicate the temperatures the cards will operate up to. I can't see any cause for concern in those figures at all considering that the SD card combos appear to be slightly more resilient to heat than a SxS card.

About a year ago I did speak to a guy who had an EX1 that did get far hotter than my own. Turned out it was one of the first EX1's when they first came to market. He'd also had a number of other issues with it.

If any of my SDHC combos suddenly decide to melt, fail, explode or chase the cat, rest assured I'll post on here straight away.

[Alister Chapman]

And while this debate continues yet another "Help I've lost my footage to an SD card" thread gets started.

They are one of the most common threads on these boards.

I don't even think about my media, I just chuck my SxS cards in the camera knowing they will work, there's enough stress in this business as there is without having even the tiniest amount of uncertainty about media to add to the mix.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

And while this debate continues yet another "Help I've lost my footage to an SD card" thread gets started.

And the media in question? A Transcend card that I and other posters have been warning people about for the past 10 months. Despite popular belief, they are trash. We know they lose footage, I've seen it myself twice. If you go back and look at the people who've had problems (removing user error which is now greatly reduced with the new firmware) the majority are people using unsupported cards or Transcend units. Remember it is perfectly possible to corrupt an SxS card with user error or because of a camera problem. A quick Google search reveals it's actually a fairly common problem.

People think SDHC solutions are an excuse to "cheap out". Cheap SD cards are a bad move and a move that will bite the user on the backside. But what about those of us who want to have a large number of cards on the go at once? Clearly having 10 SxS cards is a large outlay, but a quality SDHC card in an adaptor allows you to keep that number of cards on the go for a lower cost. And if you do it right it is reliable and works really well.

Not all SDHC cards are born equal, but the Class ratings make people believe otherwise. There's far more to a card than just the speed. And if people don't understand that, you are right, they should be using SxS.

[Jim Snow]

The two ugly words in all of this are 'third party'. If you use the latest EX1/EX3 firmware in which Sony made some significant timing changes with respect to SD card handling AND you use the Sony MEADS SD adapter AND you use a high quality CLASS 10 SD card such as Sandisc, you shouldn't have any problems. Sony specifically recommends using Class 10 cards. If you use a third party adapter along with a slower SD card such as a Class 4 or 6, good luck; you're going to need it. I and several associates use this combination with no problems.

[John Peterson]

Just tried the Class 10 Transcend 16GB cards. I got them from Newegg.

Newegg.com - Transcend 16GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model TS16GSDHC10

They worked flawlessly just like my Class 6 Red and Blue stripe Transcend cards do. I put them in the camera and let them roll until the time ran out. No errors.

I originally had ordered blue stripe Class 6 Transcend cards from the BUYDIG website, but they sent Red Stripe ones instead.
http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=TS16GSDHC6
I sent them back just in case newer Red stripe ones have been the issue here. The Class 10 cards were around the same price anyway. They worked for me in my Kensington adapters with firmware 1.11 on my EX1.

This is just to add to the record. I am not one of these people who likes to suggest that if I am not having a problem you shouldn't either.

[John Peterson]

Of course let's not forget what started all this a few years ago. It was Sony's attempt at price gouging the cost of SxS media that started the search for a more reasonable solution. If a Transcend or Sandisk 16GB card costs $40 - $80 what should a 16GB Sony SxS card cost? Twice as much? Maybe three times as much? But no, they were 20 times as much when they first came out.

I don't always believe in "You get what you pay for" as a reliable credo. It also depends upon monopolies and "whatever the market will bear". Genuine Inkjet cartridges are a classic example of this.

John

[Bruce Rawlings]

Marcus had written a superb piece that encapsulates the whole SDHC scene as of now. I am not sure how to direct anyone to it but his website will no doubt refer to his blog.

[Jim Snow]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

It was Sony's attempt at price gouging the cost of SxS media that started the search for a more reasonable solution.

Amen to that! Their pricing is over the top. The issue of using SD cards is all about margins. I'm sure there are other solutions that do the job. The Sony SD MEADS adapter coupled with SanDisk Class 10 cards along with the latest firmware is a safe solution with sufficient performance margin to perform reliably.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

Of course let's not forget what started all this a few years ago. It was Sony's attempt at price gouging the cost of SxS media that started the search for a more reasonable solution. If a Transcend or Sandisk 16GB card costs $40 - $80 what should a 16GB Sony SxS card cost? Twice as much? Maybe three times as much? But no, they were 20 times as much when they first came out.

Let's not forget that the SxS cards were 1/3 the cost of Panasonic's P2 cards when they arrived on the scene. 1hr of SxS was about $900, while 1hr's worth of P2 was ~$3k. Even comparing on a per/GB basis, SxS was cheaper.

So yes, doing SDHC was tons cheaper, and I went that way immediately, I also appreciated the fact that Sony had released a media that was so much cheaper than it's competition's, it forced Panasonic to cut their margins drastically on those cards.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Rawlings

Marcus had written a superb piece that encapsulates the whole SDHC scene as of now. I am not sure how to direct anyone to it but his website will no doubt refer to his blog.

It's abit buried away on the site. The article URL is currently - SDHC Choice for the Sony EX1 | Media2u Video Production Blog

This might have to change in the near future as I want to ditch Wordpress and have just one site (the Wordpress bit is all rather badly bolted on). If I do this I'll shout on here as it's amazing how many phonecalls and emails I get regarding the SDHC stuff, sadly usually from people who have had problems due to using the wrong media.

I have not tried the Sony adaptor as yet, but last time I looked it wasn't widely available. I will test it at somepoint.

People need to make their own decisions when it comes to shooting on SDHC or other media. All I'm trying to do is guide people through the minefield of SDHC so they don't have the same problems finding information that I did when I first got my EX1.

[Anthony McErlean]

Originally Posted by Marcus Durham

All I'm trying to do is guide people through the minefield of SDHC so they don't have the same problems finding information that I did when I first got my EX1.

With your guidance Marcus I for one went with the MxM ATP combo.

[John Peterson]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Let's not forget that the SxS cards were 1/3 the cost of Panasonic's P2 cards when they arrived on the scene. 1hr of SxS was about $900, while 1hr's worth of P2 was ~$3k. Even comparing on a per/GB basis, SxS was cheaper.

So yes, doing SDHC was tons cheaper, and I went that way immediately, I also appreciated the fact that Sony had released a media that was so much cheaper than it's competition's, it forced Panasonic to cut their margins drastically on those cards.

One could also interpret that as: "Who was the bigger thief" ?

Both ended up cutting the margins with the advent of SDHC solutions. I have no idea what the markup was / is for SxS and P2 cards. But I don't think it would be a stretch to surmise that it was outrageous and possibly still is.

John