best SDHC card for GH1???

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I have a Promaster SDHC Class 6 16GB (Code 9233) professional high speed card but when I tried to shoot in Motion Jpeg mode, camera stopped shooting after barely 2 seconds even though I followed the recommended firmware hack settings. I would like to shoot at the highest Mbit rate.

What is the best SDHC high speed card available for the GH1????
 
The best cards are probably the Panasonic and SanDisk (the one that claims 30 Mb/s) class 10 cards - they perform at nearly twice the required speed for class 10 cards. They are expensive, though. One step down are cards like the Transcend class 10 cards at half the price. With the expensive cards you can do 60,62,70 AVCHD and the cheaper class 10 cards can do AVCHD 50,52,60 reliably as long as you do not check the Native 24p/25p option (which has proven to be somewhat problematic anyway). The class 6 cards can still offer big improvements with the hack, but you have to stick with the suggested "A" or "B" settings - which are still pretty darn good.

This is all significantly subject dependent. With "normal" subjects you can often get away with shooting at higher rates most of the time. The problem is that given enough static detail in your subject, there will be occassional write errors and you'll lose the entire clip.

I've gotten pretty good at "breaking" the CODEC. With Transcend 16GB class 10 cards, I can run AVCHD 50,52,60 mode (without Native 24p checked) and I've never had a failure.

Chris
 
I run (AVCHD) 50,52,60 (C settings I believe) without Native 24p, on a Patriot LX class 10 card with no issues.

I could not get MJPEG changes to work reliably on this card though. Just going up to 1920x1080 Mjpeg would cause it to fail with errors.
 
Hi Chris, thanks very much for your help. Can you tell me where the "A" or "B" settings are. I didn't see these in the PTool v3.36 window. Can you just point me to the page in dvxuser where these might be described because I didn't find them. Thanks again very much for your help!
 
cbrandin said:
The best cards are probably the Panasonic and SanDisk (the one that claims 30 Mb/s) class 10 cards - they perform at nearly twice the required speed for class 10 cards. They are expensive, though. One step down are cards like the Transcend class 10 cards at half the price. With the expensive cards you can do 60,62,70 AVCHD and the cheaper class 10 cards can do AVCHD 50,52,60 reliably as long as you do not check the Native 24p/25p option (which has proven to be somewhat problematic anyway). The class 6 cards can still offer big improvements with the hack, but you have to stick with the suggested "A" or "B" settings - which are still pretty darn good.

This is all significantly subject dependent. With "normal" subjects you can often get away with shooting at higher rates most of the time. The problem is that given enough static detail in your subject, there will be occassional write errors and you'll lose the entire clip.

I've gotten pretty good at "breaking" the CODEC. With Transcend 16GB class 10 cards, I can run AVCHD 50,52,60 mode (without Native 24p checked) and I've never had a failure.

Chris
Click to expand...

Your info is of great use man. This should be in the sticky because that sums up all the threads discoveries on that matter to date. I'd say this is the best answer yet for it. I spent a whole day reading all the threads to get the info so it would have been great to see it in the sticky as reference. However I do think it is important people read the entire threads on the subject and take notes. Firmware isn't something you want to make a mistake on. Too many people just want the goods now instead of reading everybody's hard work unfortunately.
 
It doesn't surprise me that you are having more trouble with the MJPEG stuff - they are running a much faster bitrate (80 Mb/s, or better) than the AVCHD settings (which max out at about 45-55 Mb/s).

Chris
 
Look at this comparison chart. The best rated cards in order are
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/sdhc-memory-card-charts/Average-Write-Transfer-Rates,863.html

Sandisk Extreme
SDSDX3-016G-A31, 16GB, SDHC

Transcend Ultimate
TS16GSDHC10, 16GB, SDHC

Silicon Power SDHC Class10
SP016GBSDH010V10, 16GB, SDHC

Transcend Ultimate
TS8GSDHC10, 8GB, SDHC

Lexar Professional
8 GB, SDHC

Sandisk San Disk Extreme III
SDSDX3-004G-A31, 4 GB, SDHC


Silicon Power Power SDHC Class 6
SP032GBSDH006V10, 32 GB, SDHC

etc
 
cbrandin said:
The class 6 cards can still offer big improvements with the hack, but you have to stick with the suggested "A" or "B" settings - which are still pretty darn good.

Chris
Click to expand...

My Patriot 16GB Class 6 card has a write speed about 2MBs faster than my Adata 16GB Class 10 card.

All the class tells you (hopefully) is the minimum level of performance. I use the "c" settings with my Patriot Class 6 with no problems. Of course this is just steady state data rate. There may be burst/buffer capability differences that vary as well.

Without testing (yours or someone else's), you just don't know what the upper limits of a given card are.
 
Does anyone know if the Sandisk 16GB writes faster than the Sandisk 8GB? The test chart from the post above shows a significant difference between the 4gb and 16gb's write speeds despite both being advertised as 30mb/sec.

I just bought the 8GB Extreme but now I am wondering if I should have bought the 16GB for maximum bit rate?
 
wturber said:
My Patriot 16GB Class 6 card has a write speed about 2MBs faster than my Adata 16GB Class 10 card.

All the class tells you (hopefully) is the minimum level of performance. I use the "c" settings with my Patriot Class 6 with no problems. Of course this is just steady state data rate. There may be burst/buffer capability differences that vary as well.

Without testing (yours or someone else's), you just don't know what the upper limits of a given card are.
Click to expand...

I have the exact same card. Actually I have two Patriot 16GB C6 but I was getting too many write errors. Maybe I will have to try the other card and do some more testing. I had to revert to B settings. Interesting. But of course I was testing it by shooting high detail of the woods.
 
I bought a Sandisk Extreme Class 6...couldn't even handle stock GH1 firmware. Sent it back.

Bought a Panasonic Gold 8GB class 10...works, but not in "C" AVCHD Hack settings....only "B". I also shoot almost exclusively in 720 60P for TV news broadcast... FYI.

Thus far I have found there is no rhyme nor reason for reliable SDHC cards. I have a 256mb micro sdhc from an old cell phone, gotta be class 2, actually outperformed a Transcend Class 6!
 
zcream said:
Look at this comparison chart. The best rated cards in order are
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/sdhc-memory-card-charts/Average-Write-Transfer-Rates,863.html

Sandisk Extreme
SDSDX3-016G-A31, 16GB, SDHC

Transcend Ultimate
TS16GSDHC10, 16GB, SDHC

Silicon Power SDHC Class10
SP016GBSDH010V10, 16GB, SDHC

Transcend Ultimate
TS8GSDHC10, 8GB, SDHC

Lexar Professional
8 GB, SDHC

Sandisk San Disk Extreme III
SDSDX3-004G-A31, 4 GB, SDHC


Silicon Power Power SDHC Class 6
SP032GBSDH006V10, 32 GB, SDHC

etc
Click to expand...

about the lexar pro from this list, i must warn users that it is unreliable, mine could not sustain the 44mbps max write speed (though it was rated class10, but my sandisk extreme III class 6 was fine at this speed).
 
amanieux said:
about the lexar pro from this list, i must warn users that it is unreliable, mine could not sustain the 44mbps max write speed (though it was rated class10, but my sandisk extreme III class 6 was fine at this speed).
Click to expand...

Why is it, if YOU have ONE experience, you are posting the same message OVER AND OVER, AGAIN?

Is your card 8 GB?

Is it valid to make a statement about (a type of) a card based on ONE experience only?

I must warn users that amanieux is unreliable, because first he says the 40 Mbps Reliability patch does not work and then he starts a rant against Lexar because he had a bad experience with that.

You can't even claim that Sandisk is reliable, because one day you may have a failure as well...
 
Do the new SDHC-UHS-I cards work with either the GH-1 or GH-2 cameras ?

I know these cards have a maximum 90 MB/sec transfer speed, and are supposed to work with gear that takes standard SDHC cards.

I will have to find a cheap one to try it out.
 
Fool4UAnyway said:
Why is it, if YOU have ONE experience, you are posting the same message OVER AND OVER, AGAIN?

Is your card 8 GB?

Is it valid to make a statement about (a type of) a card based on ONE experience only?

I must warn users that amanieux is unreliable, because first he says the 40 Mbps Reliability patch does not work and then he starts a rant against Lexar because he had a bad experience with that.

You can't even claim that Sandisk is reliable, because one day you may have a failure as well...
Click to expand...

fyi user experience is by definition a ONE experience, if we don't share our "ONE" experiences, how do you want it to work ?

and if i post this "OVER AND OVER" outside of the sd card related posts it is to make clear that it was a sd card problem and not a 40mbps patch related problem as i mistakenly suggested it could be. again i apologize for making user loose their time, it was my mistake i did not do enough cross tetstings before posting about my specific "ONE" problem.
 
Last edited:
Hey this is another possible conclusion: time to jump again already

Hey this is another possible conclusion: time to jump again already

amanieux said:
fyi user experience is by definition a ONE experience, if we don't share our "ONE" experiences, how do you want it to work ?

and if i post this "OVER AND OVER" outside of the sd card related posts it is to make clear that it was a sd card problem and not a 40mbps patch related problem as i mistakenly suggested it could be. again i apologize for making user loose their time, it was my mistake i did not do enough cross tetstings before posting about my specific "ONE" problem.
Click to expand...

I think you still don't get it and it seems you won't, no matter how many times I or someone else will tell you and try to make you understand.

If you only had posted ONE message based on experience with FOUR Lexar cards, that sure would have made a world of differences from repeating the same message over and over again as soon as you have one experience that suddenly changes your attitude towards the patch, then Lexar... What's next? Sandisk, if you will have only one failure?

I have a Sandisk Extreme 30 MB/s card and when I recorded on a location one day I consistently got write speed failures when doing the same shot over and over, trying small variations to avoid it. It never crossed my mind to blame the card for this. It might as well have been another patch than I thought was on the camera. It's just the tools and equipment you have, what you use them for, and probably most what you expect them to do, that determines how big your disappointment will be when your plan fails. It may be not just one piece of them all that causes the failure. Well, it may have been a card failure (bad card) for the single card you used.

It's just the same as other crying the hack doesn't work, because they just don't install it correctly, don't read well enough etc. etc. I haven't seen other people posting in every thread dealing with the subject on those occasions.
 
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