SD card advice for AF100

Kenny_G said:
I ordered 4 Lexar 64gb cards from B&H. It says 133x. is that equivalent to class 10?
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The "x" numbers are meaningless as far as how the card will perform. It could say 999x and still not work. The only thing that matters is the Speed Class. The card must be a Class 4 for normal footage, and a Class 6 for variable-frame-rate footage.

The "133x" and "266x" type of numbers are just marketing and are supposed to refer to the very best-case, fastest possible performance a card can deliver. Which doesn't matter, because the only thing that matters is the absolute minimum that the card can deliver, and whether or not the minimum is "good enough". The "Class" rating is a rating of the minimum sustained write performance. It is the baseline guarantee. The "133x" is an optimistic wildest-dreams best-case-scenario ranking, which is of course largel wishful thinking and doesn't let you know whether the card will perform consistently and throughly.

So ignore the "x" rating and instead focus solely on the Class rating. That's what the camera is going to look at to determine whether it will work or not.
 
Barry_Green said:
D) When formatting the card, only ever format the card in-camera. Don't format the card on the computer; computer formatting will not be SDHC-compliant (unless you download and use the SD Card Formatter program, a free download on Panasonic's site). Always format the card in-camera. And you should definitely format the card before first use, and whenever it's been used by any other type of device.
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Barry:

Thanks for posting this key point!!! I just got a GH1 and have been getting errors. May I suggest you add to this sticky a link to the SD Associations formatting program and manual at: http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter_3/

Panasonic now points to this website for formatting. I see that Transend offers a formatting tool that they claim can help recover data.

Thanks.
 
Barry_Green said:
Thanks Bill -- I have updated the first post in this thread to point to the SD Card Association's formatting program.
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You're welcome. I couldn't figure out why every SDHC card I tried in my GH1 had write errors when recording video until I read that post. I figured if a card was FAT32 compatible you could use a computer to format it. And thanks for taking the time to respond!!
 
Yeah, it's confusing and that situation bites a lot of folks. I now put in my books about, I don't know, eight times or so -- "format the cards IN CAMERA" so hopefully folks will realize that yeah, it's an issue and you definitely don't want to go formatting them in-computer unless you have the special card-formatting software.

Sigh, tapeless was supposed to make things easier, wasn't it? :)
 
SD Formatter instead of camera formatting.

SD Formatter instead of camera formatting.

It is important to me to have a Loader (that is a person) download the SD cards and give them back to me ready to record on; I don't want to stop the shoot to format an SD card. This is, in part, because I've never had to do that in any other format that I've shot on (which is nearly all of them).

So:

Is it advisable, after downloading an SDHD or SDXC card, to format it on a computer (PC, in this case) with SD Formatter, put the card back in the camera, and start shooting?

In my test of an SDHD card, SD Formatter leaves the card empty, without a directory structure. However, the AF100 accepts the card happily and records to the card. It seems to create the necessary directory structure when it first records to it.

I haven't tried my SDXC card yet, but I expect that the same will be true.

Does anyone see any problem with this workflow?

Don Starnes
Director / Director of Photography
donstarnes.com
 
Once the card is formated in the camera you don't need to reformat it again unless you encounter a scenario like loss of power.

I copy the whole folder over to the computer just as referenced in the first post. If you don't you will lose all your metadata. I found this out the hard way because at first I just assumed it was like working with files off of my 7d.

Panasonic Gold are the best in my opinion because of the technology that's in them.


What I want is a card reader that will give me faster than 30mb/s transfer!
 
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Just a little reminder. Data-wise my Lexars are great, but physically they've taken a beating, and I don't even know how... so store them in their little protective cases (or better, I bought a little Pelican case) whenever they're not in the camera or a reader.
 
mkfotos.com said:
Just a little reminder. Data-wise my Lexars are great, but physically they've taken a beating, and I don't even know how... so store them in their little protective cases (or better, I bought a little Pelican case) whenever they're not in the camera or a reader.
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I have found my PNY card to look a little worse for wear, all my Panny gold cards look great though. I keep mine only in the camera or my pelican SD card case as well. Part of the reason I ordered more Panny cards recently when getting more cards for the AF100 No data problems on either my PNY or my Pannys after over 100 hours though.
 
I use that tough little pelican case that can hold like 16 of them. I am using all Transcends and have had NO issue at all with any footage. I also love that the SD cards have a write lock on them. I use this procedure:

1) Out of camera put lock on immediately.
2) Once I dump footage, *I* disengage the lock.

This way, if I ever have a locked card, no matter what, I dump it again just in case. :)
 
Anyone know of a method to test a SD card and verify it is o.k for use?

eg. Error Check the card and test its transfer speeds etc.

One way...I can record a heap of clips to it and do a little workflow ...but hoping there may be an application or procedure that checks SD cards / media.
 
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