2TB SD card.. with HMC support it?

I think this is a hardware limitation that can not be solved with a firmware update. A device that only supports SD/SDHC will most probably not be able to access those new cards.
 
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pailes said:
I think this is a hardware limitation that can not be solved with a firmware update. A device that only supports SD/SDHC will most probably not be able to access those new cards.
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Why is it a hardware limiation? The card itself is in the same form factor, all it introduces is additional memory.. I doubt the camera would even need to address all the memory at one time..
 
booggerg2 said:
Why is it a hardware limiation? The card itself is in the same form factor, all it introduces is additional memory.. I doubt the camera would even need to address all the memory at one time..
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It's a hardware limitation because these cards will have totally different access speeds and addressing methods- it's a lot more than just more memory it's a whole new spec. It's possible that the HMC150 could be firmware upgrade but I'd tend to doubt it. Much like SD cameras that came out long before the SDHC format was invented cannot be upgraded. But let's wait and see- that format has a while to go before it's out of the lab and on the market.

-Noah
 
The HMC-150 should be able to handle it with a firmware update. The card is physically identical but uses exFAT instead of FAT32. I think you can format a exising SDHC card to exFAT or even NTFS and they work, so it makes sense that a firmware update can work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT


That's the end of optical media.

And tape based cameras too.


I bet a 16GB SDHC card will drop down to 5 bucks. And they eventually won't even be made that small. It would be too cheap to be worth producing.

Remember the 256 & 512 MB cards?
 
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I still have a 512 mb sd card ha. But really if this works for the hmc with a firmware upgrade then there will never be a need to change cards. For a while anyway u could even use a couple of these as back ups.
 
NoahK said:
It's a hardware limitation because these cards will have totally different access speeds and addressing methods- it's a lot more than just more memory it's a whole new spec. It's possible that the HMC150 could be firmware upgrade but I'd tend to doubt it. Much like SD cameras that came out long before the SDHC format was invented cannot be upgraded. But let's wait and see- that format has a while to go before it's out of the lab and on the market.

-Noah
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Well, early Leica M8's after a firmware upgrade became SDHC capable.
 
Canon also updated firmware for my 1D mark II to support sdhc. I believe both formats use SPI for communication to the processor so it was probably relatively easy. I could be wrong as I'm not an expert on sd/sdhc. I have worked with them a little doing some PIC development.
 
It would be much easier for them to support a new version of SDHC (or a card that doesn't follow the rules) that goes up to 2TB. Since the camera currently relies on FAT32, there would be little if any modification needed to support that. I have yet to find a see a reason as to why the SDHC spec caps out at 32GB.

What is more exciting about this new format is the filesystem it supports. One of the bigger complaints we see about this camera is the splitting of large clips over 4GB files. A new filesystem would solve that issue, but I honestly wouldn't expect them to put that effort into a firmware update. Maybe the next camera.

For now, I'm just waiting for something to push the 32GB cards down near the insanely cheap range of the 16s.
 
dcloud said:
could you up the MB/s with just firmware?

sdhc: 6MB/s
sdxc: 104 MB/s
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Are you talking about the USB port transfer speed or the codec? USB is more dependent on the card's speed (and there are SDHC cards that transfer faster than 6MB/s). Since this camera is AVCHD compliant and is already using the maximum bitrate, it cannot go higher. I guess they could make it 24Mb/s CBR, but if they had any intention of doing that, it would have already been on there. The nature of VBR is likely to give the same results and save some space.
 
mcsmooth said:
Are you talking about the USB port transfer speed or the codec? USB is more dependent on the card's speed (and there are SDHC cards that transfer faster than 6MB/s). Since this camera is AVCHD compliant and is already using the maximum bitrate, it cannot go higher. I guess they could make it 24Mb/s CBR, but if they had any intention of doing that, it would have already been on there. The nature of VBR is likely to give the same results and save some space.
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now that u mention limited to 24mbps.. it, it seems plausible through firmware that the hmc can recognize a sdxc.. since ihmc does not requrie faster speed...

now i cant wait for hmc100a.. sdxc plus higher avc bitrate?
 
I only see it being plausible if sdxc supports FAT32. Firmware updates (on these cams) rarely change much with functionally, I wouldn't expect them to rewrite the software to support multiple filesystems.

Might be likely on upcoming cameras if it is indeed SDHCs official successor, but it is annoying how quickly SDHC came and went. People just replaced their old SD readers.

The faster bitrate codec is a seperate issue. HMC only needs class 4, so there was already bandwidth. They could do what Sony did with EX and offer a higher bitrate version of avchd (with a new name). I think that would be great, but don't see it happening. The DVX and now HMC line are prosumer cameras that use consumer formats/media and are marketed as such. Considering how slow software is taking to adapt to AVCHD, it wouldn't be a wise move to introduce another incompatible variation for some time. Something I would expect from a new model, not an "A" varation.

I think the codec is more than good enough until Panny gets sharper chips. A higher bitrate isn't going to do much without more information to feed it.
 
mcsmooth said:
I only see it being plausible if sdxc supports FAT32. Firmware updates (on these cams) rarely change much with functionally, I wouldn't expect them to rewrite the software to support multiple filesystems.
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SDXC is FAT64, introduced back with Vista.

SD is FAT16
SDHC is FAT32

Many devices support SD and SDHC, why not SDXC too?

You can format a SDHC card to FAT64 or FAT16 or even NTFS if you wanted to.
 
I spoke with a Panny Rep last night at our Videographer Assocaition. I asked him about the 150 and the new SDXC. He said that the 150 will be able to work with the new SDXC via firmware update as the hardware of the SD cards remains unchanged.
 
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