FAST SDHC Memory for the EX1

Hello everyone, I've been lurking for the past few months from time to time since I bought my EX1 earlier this year, but thought it was time to finally join up.

I've been following this thread with great interest, and recently purchased the Kensington reader along with a 16 gb Ultra II and I'm happy to report that after extensive testing, I've found the combination to be as reliable and error free as everyone else.

One thing that I was curious of, and there's no real reason to even test the combo, but has anyone tried memory sticks? More out of curiosity really.

Anyway, thanks to all who have tested this, it's nice to have a cost effective solution for recording long performances and not having to swap cards, especially once the 32 gb cards become available.

Cheers.

Jason
 
Paul, that's interesting that the 8GB version has a slower write speed than the 16GB.
Are they the same exact version and CLASS?
 
I'd never heard the part about the card being able to not lose any footage (other than the final 4 seconds) of a clip being shot when the power runs out or the plug is pulled. Anybody know what voodoo is involved in making this possible? It must have something to do with the file structure and how it closes the file.
 
Last edited:
thxdave said:
I'd never heard the part about the card being able to not lose any footage (other than the final 4 seconds) of a clip being shot when the power runs out or the plug is pulled. Anybody know what voodoo is involved in making this possible? It must have something to do with the file structure and how it closes the file.
Click to expand...

The camera probably has a circuit to detect low power, and closes the file before everything dies. The 4 seconds is probably how much data the camera buffers, so it was not written to the SxS card yet.
 
They are all the same serial numbered packaged and supplied thru the same source, but behave differently, I'd ordered the 16gb some time ago and it took a while for them to arrive here. I expected them to work poorly, like the 8gb cards but in fact they are almost as fast as the Ultra II's in terms of overcrank.

I've got 12 16gb cards and 6 kensingtons for 3 EX1's for my next live shoot - £300 - perfect, and still cheaper than 1 PHU 60 or one 16GbSxS !!

Paul :thumbup:
 
When the EX series write the files they don't just write a single contineous file which can become corrputed. The system uses some form of intelligence when creating the clips so that only the last few seconds at most can be lost. This is also part of the 'recover media' process.

Its not hard to test, film a stop watch and disconnect the battery at a specific point. Fire the camera back up, it will automatically tell you you need to restore the media it was writing too. Do this, it will close the file at the last known valid frame (using the XML file information it saves along the way), then play the file back and see how much you lost...

There is nothing about this process that has anything to do with SxS as far as I know, it is all to do with the robust file writing and recovery system. It could be used for KxS, SD or CF just as well.

After watching that IBC video I am going to run a little test with SxS vs KxS and clip recovery to see if there is any difference. I am thinking that there may be a few frames or even a second difference but not much more.
 
Last edited:
PaulTV said:
They are all the same serial numbered packaged and supplied thru the same source, but behave differently, I'd ordered the 16gb some time ago and it took a while for them to arrive here. I expected them to work poorly, like the 8gb cards but in fact they are almost as fast as the Ultra II's in terms of overcrank.

I've got 12 16gb cards and 6 kensingtons for 3 EX1's for my next live shoot - £300 - perfect, and still cheaper than 1 PHU 60 or one 16GbSxS !!

Paul :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Paul, that's awesome man!

TWELVE 16GB SDHC cards and SIX Kensingtons for the cost of ONE 16GB SxS !!!!!
 
:beer: Hey PaulTV: have you had any start-up problems with the kingsingtons and the Transcend 16Gig. with the camera. I find that the i<dot>18x1express card sometimes has to be reinstalled at start-up, thanks! -- Carl
 
Yep, I had to format each card first in the camera, but as long as you extract the card and adapter together, then I have no problems, you just have to watch it when using two combo's in a camera - I'll need to "educate" my other camera operators in London next month with using this system, but it's pretty simple really.
 
Formatting the SDHC card for first use is normal.

Carl's problem with the i-dot expresscard is that when he's powering up the EX, sometimes it will not recognize the card unless he removes and reinserts the i-dot expresscard.

The Kensington does not have this issue.
 
PaulTV said:
Yep, I had to format each card first in the camera, but as long as you extract the card and adapter together, then I have no problems, you just have to watch it when using two combo's in a camera - I'll need to "educate" my other camera operators in London next month with using this system, but it's pretty simple really.
Click to expand...

What happens when you use 2 KxS in one camera?
 
Sumfun said:
What happens when you use 2 KxS in one camera?
Click to expand...

Identical as SxS.

You need to be aware that you should not try to remove only the SD card when you have 2 KxS modules installed though. If you do this the camera gets very confused (see info in web site below). If you eject the KxS combo as you do with SxS it works the same as SxS.

With only a single KxS module installed you can get away with swapping SD cards only but I would recommend getting in the habit of ejecting the whole module to swap cards as a matter of saftey.
 
I want to thank EVERYONE associated with the grunt work of figuring out the best combo of adapter and cards. This is one of the few times I've completely stood on the sidelines and just profited from the efforts of others.

My 7 in 1 and SanDisk 16gig SD combos work as advertised, and this is a complete game-changer for my working methods. I have a long format documentary starting up next week, and now I don't need to bring my laptop and drives for off-loading on the one day plane flights. It's cheap enough to simply record to SD and worry about archiving and data management at a later date. On other projects, I can just hand the client the SD cards and a cheap SD USB reader and walk away without handholding and file conversions. At 58min per card per $60 US, it's only slightly more expensive than HDCAM tape at this point, and getting cheaper.

Thanks again!

Jim Arthurs
 
Jim Arthurs said:
...and getting cheaper...
Click to expand...

And thats key too isn't it Jim, these SDHC cards drop in price along with commodity flash prices. SxS and P2 are dropping slowely, but they follow Sony and Panasonic pricing decisions and arn't really related to actual flash pricing.

Given we see about a 50% drop in price every 12 months, we should see 32GB Ultra IIs for about US$60 this time next year... When 32GB cards finally hit around $30 I think most (even budget producers) will start to use it more as a shoot and store media. At $15 per 32GB it would be a no brainer and only about 2x the price of decent quality DV tape (and only slightly more expensive than the likes of JVC's ProHD tapes).
 
I have only read the first few pages of this thread, but sounds like the holy grail for ex shooters. definitely a bit jealous of this one. :)

Later,
Jason
 
Jim Arthurs said:
I want to thank EVERYONE associated with the grunt work of figuring out the best combo of adapter and cards. This is one of the few times I've completely stood on the sidelines and just profited from the efforts of others.
Jim Arthurs
Click to expand...

Jim, you've been a great resource of information. You really cleared up the whole EX1 SDI 10 bit 4:2:2 questions!

I might look into having some sort of cover designed for when the KxS is inserted and the memory door is left opened.

Well, at the same time, in the near future I would not be surprised if an expresscard adapter comes along that allows the EX1 door to close.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top