1080/60p? *** revised - fake SD card!

L

lawrenceingram

Active member
First,

Just got my camera yesterday, and I'm loving a lot of the features on it. I know I've got a lot to learn to get the best out of it, and Barry's book can't get here fast enough. But I have an idiot's question that someone might be able to answer in the meantime. I heard it mentioned earlier that there was some kind of 1080/60p that was really not 1080/60p. Is there a difference between video shot at 1080/60i, then converted to 30p, and video shot at 1080/30p besides possibly a difference in shutter speed?

I suppose I don't know enough to even ask this question properly, but maybe someone can explain the reasoning.

Thanks,

Lawrence
 
It should be noted that this is what I'm trying to test. However, all footage comes into FCP as 30fps, not 60fps. Any suggestions on this would be great!
 
The 1080/60p the camera offers is only 1080/60p on a 30p timeline, meaning it is slow motion without audio. You could however put the recorded file on a 60p timeline and speed it up by 50%...I think. As far as the 60i/30p question..I'm not totally sure what you mean. If you are planning on delivering 30p I would definitely record in 30p.
 
I found the VFM mode and managed to get it turned on and set to 60fps. However, I get a message saying "Cannot Shoot VFR to this card!" I got a level 10 Sandisk! Surely, it's not a problem with the card!
 
Andrew J. Allsbury said:
The 1080/60p the camera offers is only 1080/60p on a 30p timeline, meaning it is slow motion without audio. You could however put the recorded file on a 60p timeline and speed it up by 50%...I think. As far as the 60i/30p question..I'm not totally sure what you mean. If you are planning on delivering 30p I would definitely record in 30p.
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Thanks Andrew. I think I may have misread an earlier post when Barry was first testing the camera where he mentioned something about 1080/60p. I think I just confused myself. Yeah, I see that it is only 1080/30p and 60p for overcrank. I appreciate the response. Now, if I could just figure out why it's saying my card cannot shoot VFR!
 
do both card slots have a card in them, it might be as simple as having the wrong card selected , happened to me right after i put my class ten in along with the class four...
 
hadi-dimachkieh said:
do both card slots have a card in them, it might be as simple as having the wrong card selected , happened to me right after i put my class ten in along with the class four...
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Both slots have a freshly-formatted 32GB card. When I purchased the cards, I made sure the description said, "Class 10" and the card has "30MB/s" printed just above a "C10." Surely, I didn't get ripped off? Probably should not have purchased from Buy.com. . . but every now and then, I stray from B&H just to test the waters.

Oh, and the receipt also describes them as "Class 10" cards.
 
You very well may have been ripped off. Google for "fake sandisk" and you'll find some articles that describe how to tell whether you've got a real one or a knockoff.

Overcranking requires a Class 6 card or better. If you have a Class 4 with a fake label on it, that won't work. If it's a genuine SanDisk Class 10, it should work.

Put the camera in FILM CAM mode and 1080/24p mode and change the frame rate to 60fps. Shoot your footage. Drag and drop into your FCP 24p timeline, it'll be 2.5:1 slow-motion footage.
 
Barry_Green said:
You very well may have been ripped off. Google for "fake sandisk" and you'll find some articles that describe how to tell whether you've got a real one or a knockoff.

Overcranking requires a Class 6 card or better. If you have a Class 4 with a fake label on it, that won't work. If it's a genuine SanDisk Class 10, it should work.
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Thanks Barry. I looked at a couple of articles. It is apparently a real SanDisk card, but I suppose there's no way of knowing if they swapped the label for a class 10 or not. I'm going to go down to Best Buy to see if they have class 10 cards, and I'll see if it works. If it doesn't, then I know something's wrong with the camera. If it does, then I've got issues with Buy.com! I'll post later to let you guys know what turns up!

Lawrence
 
lawrenceingram said:
Thanks Barry. I looked at a couple of articles. It is apparently a real SanDisk card, but I suppose there's no way of knowing if they swapped the label for a class 10 or not. I'm going to go down to Best Buy to see if they have class 10 cards, and I'll see if it works. If it doesn't, then I know something's wrong with the camera. If it does, then I've got issues with Buy.com! I'll post later to let you guys know what turns up!

Lawrence
Click to expand...

Why not just pop it into a good card reader and do a speed benchmark on the card? I always do this on all my cards, fake or not to make sure I know exactly what its sequential read and write limitations are for all my recording options and for the most efficient backing up of data. If it benchmarks as >10MBps sustained write speed, then whether it is certified class 10 or not it should effectively be class 10 and have no issues recording at any bitrate the af100 can spit out. I assume you particularly just want a card that can handle at least 24Mbps*(2.5 for 60@24 overcranking)=60Mbps (aka 7.5MBps) with a little extra room since that is probably the greatest bitrate the camera will ever be trying to write to the card.

I got a fake sandisk CF card for my 5Dmk2 on ebay a couple years ago and while it didnt do the 40MBps it stated, it had no problem at all sustaining 15MBps write/30MBps read which is still 3x the write data rate I needed out of it and I've continued to use it as my backup card quite successfully for nearly two years. I even looked up the serial number and figured out which card they had falsely rebadged as sandisk ultra 4, and it was even still a good deal for that card.
 
A speed benchmark won't answer what the AF100's asking though. The AF100 queries the card for what speed class rating it is. If the card answers "I'm a class 4", then the AF100's gonna say "no VFR possible on this card." Doesn't matter what the speed benchmark comes up with. Remember, once upon a time, class 4 was the fastest rating there was, but cards could be much faster than class 4. Class 6 came along, and then class 10, but you could find instances where a class 4 card might actually be faster than a class 10!

The AF100 doesn't go doing a full speed benchmark on a card, it just asks the card what its rating is. If the AF100 is saying "no VFR on this card possible", the only way that message should come up is if the card responded that it's Class 4 or Class 2.

Some of the earlier cameras (like the HMC150) would actually tell you what the class rating of the card is; I would think that would be quite illustrative. Put that card in an HMC150 and use the "card status" function, and see what it reports.
 
Barry_Green said:
A speed benchmark won't answer what the AF100's asking though. The AF100 queries the card for what speed class rating it is. If the card answers "I'm a class 4", then the AF100's gonna say "no VFR possible on this card." Doesn't matter what the speed benchmark comes up with. Remember, once upon a time, class 4 was the fastest rating there was, but cards could be much faster than class 4. Class 6 came along, and then class 10, but you could find instances where a class 4 card might actually be faster than a class 10!

The AF100 doesn't go doing a full speed benchmark on a card, it just asks the card what its rating is. If the AF100 is saying "no VFR on this card possible", the only way that message should come up is if the card responded that it's Class 4 or Class 2.

Some of the earlier cameras (like the HMC150) would actually tell you what the class rating of the card is; I would think that would be quite illustrative. Put that card in an HMC150 and use the "card status" function, and see what it reports.
Click to expand...

Ok, I didn't see your post yet Barry. That's good to know. Just heading out the door to Best Buy now to test the theory against a known legitimate card (I'm going to go ahead and assume BB wouldn't be selling knock-offs).

Will post back soon!

Lawrence
 
Well, I can report that I have been sold fraudulent cards. Ouch! 2 x 32GB "Class 10" cards that are class 4 or less. I'm going to take this up with Buy.com, and I'll report back. But for now, I guess people should know that this card looks almost EXACTLY like the real card. None of the differences mentioned on the articles I've read. The only difference I see is that the real card has a slightly translucent section on the back, and the fake does not. Of course, it could just be a SanDisk that was swapped labels to "upgrade" it to a class 10. Hope my experience helps someone else avoid this mistake.
 
Barry_Green said:
Some of the earlier cameras (like the HMC150) would actually tell you what the class rating of the card is; I would think that would be quite illustrative. Put that card in an HMC150 and use the "card status" function, and see what it reports.
Click to expand...

I miss that on the af100.
 
lawrenceingram said:
Well, I can report that I have been sold fraudulent cards. Ouch! 2 x 32GB "Class 10" cards that are class 4 or less. I'm going to take this up with Buy.com, and I'll report back. But for now, I guess people should know that this card looks almost EXACTLY like the real card. None of the differences mentioned on the articles I've read. The only difference I see is that the real card has a slightly translucent section on the back, and the fake does not. Of course, it could just be a SanDisk that was swapped labels to "upgrade" it to a class 10. Hope my experience helps someone else avoid this mistake.
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OUCH. Sorry about that, Lawrence. And I hope that people keep this in mind when they report which cards failed on them; there are a lot of fraudulent cards out there!

Anybody know of a "card sniffer" type of utility program that will report the actual information such as the real card manufacturer, the real class rating, all that kind of stuff?
 
Update: I've looked and seen that it was a seller through Buy.com. One called "Komputerbay." Buy.com says they will contact the seller on my behalf (since they are not answering their phone when I call) and let me know within 24 hours. I suppose if there is buyer protection, I won't be too hard on Buy.com. But Komputerbay actually sell stuff on Amazon as well, so keep that in mind.
 
I finally got in touch with someone at Komputerbay. The representative told me that they were short-staffed because there was an emergency state declared in GA, so none of their employees showed up (hence the unanswered phone yesterday). He got the serial number from one of my cards, and assured me that it was a "legitimate" class 10 card, but they would issue me a refund if I just fill out the proper form and mail it back. I told him that I had tested the card, and it was NOT a class 10, but I think he just has to say that.

Just bought 2 x 32GB class 10 cards from B&H, and I think I'll stick with them for similar future purchases. Buyers beware of these fakes. Very difficult to spot. And if anyone ever comes out with a simple software tester that can ask the card for its class similar to the way the AF100 is doing it, I'd like to know!
 
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