which SDHC cards should i buy?

Those cards look great.. until you read the reviews.

Approximately 10% of the people that have written reviews have said the card just randomly dies and can't even be re-formatted. I want to do wedding videos with 2x HMC 150s. I can't imagine trusting footage THAT important on cards that are known to randomly fail. Are all cards like this?

I realize there is a bit of operator error that can be calculated in here but with these numbers..you can't ignore it.

It almost all the cards are like that.. at least all the ones that actually have more then 9 reviews.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134617

That kingston card is the only one that looks solid and is affordable.

Only time will tell for sure.

EDIT: Amazon has the Kingston card. Out of 1,181 reviews 96 of them were rating 1 or 2. That's 8% chance of failure. Now it's probably going to be less since some people complained of other issues.

I REALLY want the HMC 150. I'm just not sure if I can take that kind of risk. I currently shoot with the A1 and I have had drop outs.. but i've never lost 90 minutes worth of footage.

I'm interested in what you guys have to say on this.
 
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^if you're really concern about the integrity of SDHC cards, why not buy the Panasonic ones? Sure, they're more expensive though.
 
I bought 4 Transcend 16g class 6 cards and 1 Patriot 32g class 4 card. They all seem to work well, no issues yet.

I'm not too concerned about the speed difference, I just come back when its done transferring. But if you are doing SDE's, that would certainly be an issue.
 
What is the transfer time on a 16gb and 32gb drive to your computer?

With an advertised 20MB/s it should only take .. 13 minutes?
 
Jordan Berry said:
What is the transfer time on a 16gb and 32gb drive to your computer?

With an advertised 20MB/s it should only take .. 13 minutes?
Click to expand...


I've never really checked. It does seem a tad faster with the card slot on my computer than it is with my external card reader. I'll check when I get the chance, although I may not be able to till tomorrow.

Maybe someone else has done this already?
 
mikeymic said:
as it stands now, here's what i have in my cart:

Kingston 32GB Class 4 SDHC Card more info
MFR #SD4/32GB • B&H #KISDHC432GB

  • Our Price:
  • $108.50
So that's a class 4 and Kingston's a name i know for memory. Is this a good buy?
Click to expand...

On the 32GB card you need to have a class 6 card. Class 4 will not work for long form. To my knowledge the only one I have heard of in the 32GB realm working flawlessly is the Panasonic. On the 16GB front, We have sold quite a few of the kingston class 6 cards without problems. I have sold a few of the transcend class 6 cards as well, but not enough to be confident to recommend it as a perfect solution.
 
Timothy Harry said:
On the 32GB card you need to have a class 6 card. Class 4 will not work for long form. To my knowledge the only one I have heard of in the 32GB realm working flawlessly is the Panasonic. On the 16GB front, We have sold quite a few of the kingston class 6 cards without problems. I have sold a few of the transcend class 6 cards as well, but not enough to be confident to recommend it as a perfect solution.
Click to expand...

I hadn't heard this. I tested the Patriot class 4 card by running off a couple of 2 hour clips at max quality to test it and it seemed to work fine. I guess I'll do some more testing before I use it for something important.

What were some of the problems?
 
DaFireMedic,

That would be awesome if you did some more tests. I would especially like to know what your results are. Record in the highest mode for as long as you can on a 16gb card (class 4) would be awesome!

Thank you!
 
I don't have a 16g class 4 card, all my 16g cards are class 6. I am currently running a long form test here at work with a 32g class 4 card (its running, pointed at a clock in the back room right now). I plan to run the clip for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours.

BTW: I did run a previous test to see how long the run time would be on a 16g card, it ran for 1 hr 47 min at max quality before it stopped recording.
 
OK, I transferred a 4g file (according to the card, 4,187,538 kb) from the 32 gb class 4 card to my laptop (5400 RPM drive). It took almost exactly 16 min.

I just transferred the same size file from the 16g Class 6 card, and it took almost exactly the same amount of time. It must be limited by my cheap card reader. Maybe I'll buy a better one and see if that's it, cuz it seems to me that the transfer should be faster.

Regarding the 32g Class 4 card's long form ability, I shot a continuous 2 hr and 45 minute shot of my watch on a nightstand and everything appears to be normal. I didn't rewatch the whole thing, but the clips merge seamlessly and I haven't found any glitches in my random checks.
 
I believe that would be 4.3Mb/s .. that's really slow

It would take 64 minutes to dump a 16gb card at that rate.

(99 minutes in 64 minutes)
 
DaFireMedic said:
I hadn't heard this. I tested the Patriot class 4 card by running off a couple of 2 hour clips at max quality to test it and it seemed to work fine. I guess I'll do some more testing before I use it for something important.

What were some of the problems?
Click to expand...

Our reports were dropped frames. and some funky pixel math. AVCHD is a GOP codec....which equals disaster in regard to dropouts. this is why we have been recommending the panasonic 32GB card....the only Panasonic SDHC card we recommend...
 
Timothy Harry said:
Our reports were dropped frames. and some funky pixel math. AVCHD is a GOP codec....which equals disaster in regard to dropouts. this is why we have been recommending the panasonic 32GB card....the only Panasonic SDHC card we recommend...
Click to expand...


Gotcha. I'm going to continue to test it, but will probably use my class 6 cards for the wedding I have coming up.

Thanks
 
Timothy Harry said:
Our reports were dropped frames. and some funky pixel math. AVCHD is a GOP codec....which equals disaster in regard to dropouts. this is why we have been recommending the panasonic 32GB card....the only Panasonic SDHC card we recommend...
Click to expand...

Well I think that you might have a vested interest in promoting the Panasonic cards.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

Don't you sell them?

How much is your margin?

Do you receive incentives from Panasonic ?
 
DaFireMedic said:
OK, I transferred a 4g file (according to the card, 4,187,538 kb) from the 32 gb class 4 card to my laptop (5400 RPM drive). It took almost exactly 16 min.

I just transferred the same size file from the 16g Class 6 card, and it took almost exactly the same amount of time. It must be limited by my cheap card reader. Maybe I'll buy a better one and see if that's it, cuz it seems to me that the transfer should be faster.

Regarding the 32g Class 4 card's long form ability, I shot a continuous 2 hr and 45 minute shot of my watch on a nightstand and everything appears to be normal. I didn't rewatch the whole thing, but the clips merge seamlessly and I haven't found any glitches in my random checks.
Click to expand...


Could be your hard drives adding to slow transfers too.
 
ESTEBEVERDE said:
Well I think that you might have a vested interest in promoting the Panasonic cards.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

Don't you sell them?

How much is your margin?

Do you receive incentives from Panasonic ?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence......

I do not have a vested interest in promoting Panasonic anything. They are just one of the hundreds of vendors my company represents. There is the same amount of margin on a panasonic card as there is on a patriot, PNY, SanDisk Transcend, you name it, the margin is almost exactly the same. I also receive no incentive from panasonic on selling their cards.
 
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