B&H claims 50 MBS w/SD cards? PMW 300

[Steven Digges]

Guys,

I am researching the PMW300. Just now I was watching the B&H demo video for the camera and it threw me for a loop. Near the end of the video the female host very clearly states that SD cards can be used for 50 MBS recording via the adapter. In fact she says, “just make sure you get fast SD cards like the SanDisk Extreme that can handle 50 MBS”.

What did I miss before. Everything else I researched was very clear that the SD cards could only do the 35 MBS recording and 50 MBS reqired SxS. That made sense to me.

Will SD cards record MPG-2 HD 4:2:2 at 50 MBS? The video is very clear that she is at 50 MPS with SD cards. B&H is usually pretty good about their specs.

Sorry to plague you guys with yet another media recording question, I thought I had read most of them.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/983689-REG/sony_pmw_300_xdcam_hd_camcorder.html
The video is the item demo link.

Steve

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

What did I miss before? Everything else I researched was very clear that the SD cards could only do the 35 MBS recording...

If you look at the Secure Digital page at Wikipedia, go about a quarter of the way down to the UHS-1 spec. All SDHC UHS-1 cards can do 50Mbps. UHS-II cards can do up to 312Mbps.

[Steven Digges]

Bruce,

i understand that spec. But it is one thing to have a paper spec and real world functionality. So I guess I am asking if it is a good idea to trust a SDHC to consistently and safely write very long continuous files at 50 MBS. B&H is pitching it like they are doing you a favor and saying you don't need to buy SxS. If true that's great. But I thought SDHC were to be used as emergency back ups. I would feel better writing to SxS.

But if I am wrong I want to know it. SDHC is one hell of a lot cheaper than SxS

Steve

[Jerry Porter]

I know on the 200 it won't even let you put the camera in that mode without having a SXS installed so I would love to know as well

[Pete Bauer]

I'm guessing there's some confusion between bits and bytes. 50 M bits/sec is only 6.25 M Bytes/sec which any decent card can handle, which is in keeping with what Bruce referenced.

[Doug Jensen]

The camera is not going to let you use SD cards for HD422 shooting, no matter what B&H says.
But if you don't want to spend the $$ on SxS cards, go with XQD cards. They are half the price and nearly just as good as SxS cards.

[John Hedgecoe]

Oh please. I am using a BMPCC that captures 220 Mbps on SD cards, and raw at 60 MB/s also on SD cards.

So the SD card CAN handle the data rates, just buy the right ones.

As for whether the PMW300 can, well, that is a separate question.

[Doug Jensen]

Actually, I thought THAT was the question. The PMW-300 can't use SD cards for HD422 shooting. Period.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

Actually, I thought THAT was the question. The PMW-300 can't use SD cards for HD422 shooting. Period.

Exactly. Yes, you can get SD cards that are more than capable of handling XDCam. But the PMW-300 will detect you are trying to use an SD card instead of an SxS and will prohibit you from recording as a function of the camera.

[Steven Digges]

Yes, the question was will SD cards work in the PMW300 in MPG-2 HD 4:2:2 at 50 MBS. I believed they would not. But I don't own one yet so I was not sure. I found it interesting that B&H has it wrong in the video.

It is even more interesting that they have that information wrong, because of course they sell everything, including SxS. As I said, in the video she acts like she is doing you a favor by saying you do not need to buy SxS cards. She also implys SxS cards cost less than they really do.

To bad....I was hoping (a little bit) that I was going to get away with SDHC. Once again, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Steve

[Gary Huff]

I know the PMW-200 *will* let you shoot to SD cards, but only in XDCam EX mode, which is 35Mbps 4:2:0. Perhaps the PMW-300 does the same, or they just got their model numbers mixed up.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

The camera is not going to let you use SD cards for HD422 shooting, no matter what B&H says.

To quote myself, you can't use SD cards in HD422 mode. Period.

Yes, you can use SD cards in 35Mbps mode, but that wasn't the question that was asked. If you're only going to use 35Mbps codecs then you might as well save your money and get a good used EX1 or EX3.