SDHC Reliability

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I can confirm it from both my own experience, and from my consulting Marek at MxM.

The class 6 cards (in my case, ATP Pro 32GB) has been tested, and works flawlessly, with both the 1.11 and the newest 1.20 firmware.

While the class 10 works absolutely great with the 1.20 firmware, it *might* require occasional "Restore Media" with the previous firmware version.

[John Peterson]

Piotr,

How do you deal with the camera interruption when you get a "restore media" message? Happened to me only with the Transcend Class 10 cards, but it interrupted the camera with that message and when I restored media it issued it again and again within a minute of each other until I gave up. It was truly incompatible with the EX1 and firmware 1.11 in a Kensington adapter. I bought two of them a few weeks ago. Both exhibited the exact same problem. It was not occasional. It was consistent and unless I wanted not to shoot I removed them and replaced them with my other cards that never do that.

John

[John Peterson]

But I'm afraid you really need to update your firmware. Certainly if the previous post is to anything to go by, you might be expecting to fully overcrank using the old firmware which won't work.

I thanked him for testing it for us. In terms of what the new firmware does that I would be interested in it seems that increased compatibility would be the only thing. I absolutely detest the look of over and undercranking mostly because 80% of the EX1/3 videos over at Vimeo use either over or undercranking and to me it looks very uncreative. I am at the point where I can't even appreciate the majority of them anymore because I am expecting to see people and objects zipping all over the screen at high speed within a minute or less. Yuck.

John

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

increased compatibility would be the only thing

It's not just the increased compatibility, but also the fact you now can't accidentally press record again before the camera is ready (which would have caused a media restore previously). Now I had become very good at being able to wait, but I must admit it is a relief to no longer even need to think about it.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

Piotr,

How do you deal with the camera interruption when you get a "restore media" message?

John,

It only happened once to me; the camera put the message on the LCD and automatically switched slots, continuing the recording. Of course, I was lucky that other slot contained an empty card....

But to be on the safe side, I will be upgrading my firmware soon.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

While the class 10 works absolutely great with the 1.20 firmware, it *might* require occasional "Restore Media" with the previous firmware version.

The great unknown here is the Kensington adaptor. It's an older design than the current bespoke adaptors so almost certainly has a chipset that is unable to match their transfer speed. So how it reacts with faster cards I have no idea.

[Thomas Diehl]

Piotr, recording on nanoflash at the same time - and taking the ex-cards just as a "backup" seems the safest way to me. Do you use your nanoflash like that? Have you experienced any problems with that combination?

[John Peterson]

Originally Posted by Marcus Durham

It's not just the increased compatibility, but also the fact you now can't accidentally press record again before the camera is ready (which would have caused a media restore previously). Now I had become very good at being able to wait, but I must admit it is a relief to no longer even need to think about it.

See, I never experienced that problem. Again that is with the Kensington adapter, firmware 1.11, and an EX1. Tested over and over again with the Transcend Class 6 (16GB) Both Red Stripe and Blue Stripe, the Sandisk Ultra II (16GB), and now with the newer Sandisk Extreme HD Video 16GB. With all three I intentionally hit record many many times before the ready light came on and never had an error. Same with the 8GB SxS cards that came with the camera. Not even once. Of course I don't claim that others haven't had a problem doing it. It just never happened to me.

John

[John Peterson]

Originally Posted by My preliminary testing of the 16GB Class 6 SanDisk Extreme HD Video SDHC card (Model Number SDSDRX3-016G-A21) have been positive:

Purchased here:

[url

http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=SDSDRX3016GA21[/url]

1. Loaded into Kensington 7-in 1 adapter and inserted into Ex1 with firmware 1.11

2. Camera called for format. Formatted card.

3. Shot around 35 minutes with the card occasionally turning the camera off and switching the adapter from one slot to the other a few times. Turning camera on and off many times between shots varying between 10 seconds to 3 minutes or so. Recording a few times before the green "ready light" for the slot came on.

No errors.

4. Reformatted the card and repeated the process again for 40 plus minutes. No errors at all.

Will update if I run into any problems.

John

EDIT: (Note) The successful SanDisk Ultra II (class 4)16gb card is no longer made. The Ultra II designation has been changed to Ultra and the card internals have changed.

Follow-up. I am unable to edit my original post so I quoted it above. On the third shoot with the card it exhibited repeated Restore Media errors. Not only that, the card when reformatted would only show 56 minutes instead of 58 minutes no matter how many times I reformatted it. Again, that is with a Kensington adapter on an EX1 with firmware 1.11

So yet another card is now going back to the vendor.

John

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

Again, that is with a Kensington adapter on an EX1 with firmware 1.11

So yet another card is now going back to the vendor.

John

Of course, users not insisting on using out of date firmware with elderly adaptors might well find the cards are perfectly fine. There is probably nothing wrong with the card at all.

All SDHC users are advised to use firmware 1.20 and to consider purchasing the newer and faster bespoke SDHC adaptors from MxM and MxR.

[John Peterson]

All SDHC users are advised to use firmware 1.20 and to consider purchasing the newer and faster bespoke SDHC adaptors from MxM and MxR.

I am wondering if the cards I am using now (Transcend Class 6 and SanDisk Class 4) will still work if I upgrade to firmware 1.20. And weren't the MxM adapters designed shortly after the Kensington adapters became popular here? In other words they weren't intentionally designed to handle newer cards. They were designed to allow the door on the EX1 to fully close as I recall. I have six Kensington adapters and six card that work. I simply wanted to have a few extra cards, thus these experiments.

John

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

All SDHC users are advised to use firmware 1.20 and to consider purchasing the newer and faster bespoke SDHC adaptors from MxM and MxR.

I am wondering if the cards I am using now (Transcend Class 6 and SanDisk Class 4) will still work if I upgrade to firmware 1.20. And weren't the MxM adapters designed shortly after the Kensington adapters became popular here? In other words they weren't intentionally designed to handle newer cards.

They were intentionally designed to work in the EX1, and as has been previously stated have also had updated designs since their original release. This makes them quite a different proposition from the Kensington adaptors which are now 2 generations older.

Nobody has reported their Class 6 cards failing to work on the new firmware as far as I recall. Others will be able to advise but all my cards were fine.

[Zoran Vincic]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

I am wondering if the cards I am using now (Transcend Class 6 and SanDisk Class 4) will still work if I upgrade to firmware 1.20. And weren't the MxM adapters designed shortly after the Kensington adapters became popular here? In other words they weren't intentionally designed to handle newer cards. They were designed to allow the door on the EX1 to fully close as I recall. I have six Kensington adapters and six card that work. I simply wanted to have a few extra cards, thus these experiments.

I have two Transcend 16gig class 6 cards (red band) which worked with 1.13 (with an occasional media restore) and they work with 1.20 too. Since I updated the fw I haven't had any media errors, unless I provoked it by ejecting the card while the red light was still on.

I strongly suggest that you update ASAP because it does increase the reliability of the SDHC cards and it's a painless process, just follow the instructions.

[John Peterson]

Done. Updated to 1.20

John

[Patrik Vale]

I use SanDisk 32 gb class 10 SDHC with Hoodman adapter, and I got restore media errors every time before I updated to 1.2 firmware.
Now I tested a few times recording full capacity, and no problems..