Panasonic SD Cards are unreliable

sagedrummer

sagedrummer

Active member
Just wanted to let everyone know that my SECOND Panasonic card failed on me. This is the second time I have lost precious footage and both were Panasonic cards. I have 5 Transcend cards and have never had a problem.
Just want to put this out there as I would hate for this to happen to other people. Losing a clients footage is unacceptable and costly and it is not worth it. I have no clue what makes these Panasonic cards so unreliable?
Good Night and Good Luck.
 
That does suck. I had one fail on me, though I didn't lose footage. I sent it to Panasonic and they replaced it. Before they mailed the new card, they inspected it. It has not given me any problems. I have 5 Transcend cards and a Delkin and they have worked flawlessly.

I have a clause in my contract now that states I'm not responsible for defective memory cards. With tape you could argue that we were responsible for making sure the heads were cleaned and maintained, so we were responsible. But with memory cards there is just no way to be absolutely sure.
 
it's a shame that such a reputable company would have this issue. unfortunetely SD cards are still consumer grade memory, and quality control over it is a lot tougher. there was no professional grand scheme design to bullet proof like they did with p2. if there is an error on the card in a p2 it even knows to block off any bad sector that occurs so that it never tries to write there again. SD has it's limitations like that, and a bad sector here and there will just grow and eat away at it. SSD's primary downfall is manufacturing defect, and probably will always be its major flaws.

even transcends have failed, but so much is pumped out quality control gets difficult.
 
JBH said:
I have a clause in my contract now that states I'm not responsible for defective memory cards. With tape you could argue that we were responsible for making sure the heads were cleaned and maintained, so we were responsible. But with memory cards there is just no way to be absolutely sure.
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How do the clients feel about this ? Could they ask you to use a tape camera?
You would think an SDHC maker would see potential in this market and offer a Pro Video grade card, with some kinda claim of 100% quality. Charge double for it, then show your clients you use the best card money can buy. ??

I've not had a card fail on me..yet... but I also shoot shorter bursts, nothing more than a few minutes at a time. Hopefully any error is just a single file issue.
 
How are the cards failing you? Just curious. I generally use 16GB Class 6 "Patriot" brand that I pick up at Fry's. I do however, have 1 16 GB Panasonic Class 10 card. Just shot with it yesteday for the first time, so far so good....but that is onmly one shoot.
It would be interesting to know the nature of your card failures.
 
WpgCameraMan said:
You would think an SDHC maker would see potential in this market and offer a Pro Video grade card, with some kinda claim of 100% quality. Charge double for it, then show your clients you use the best card money can buy. ??
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I thought that this was what Panasonic was doing, their cards are certainly more expensive than the Patriot cards I use.
 
if i wanted to pay any amount of money for a card that is absolutely rock solid what would it be?

Money no object.
 
I also have several Transcend cards and one Panasonic card. The Transcends are all 8 and the Panasonic is 16 GB. Files have not failed on the Panasonic; however, on a few occasions, I've had to remove the card and reinsert it several times before the cam verified it was in and ready. Never a glitch with the Transcend cards.

Panasonic: this is unacceptable.
 
All flash memory will fail after you use it so many so that's something to be ready for but in many cases it's just a crap shoot and you get a “new” card that has bad sectors or a bad controller.


So far I have not had any card failures with SanDisk, Kingston, Panasonic or Lexar.


Please Panasonic gives us dual card slots......
 
Don't know if you guys see a pattern here? Exactly, what pattern? I kind of think there are some problems with the combination of technologies here. I haven't heard about this many problems with the P2 cameras. After my experiences and seeing the number of other people who have had problems, I should have spend an extra 2 G's and bought the HPX170.

Waiting for Scarlet...
 
Honestly, I don't regret my HMC150 purchase one bit, and much prefer it to the idea of going the P2/HPX route... BUT... P2 costs an arm and a leg for a reason. Fortunately none of my 8 Transcends have had any issues. But I also am getting in the habit of recording on new cards 'til it's full once or twice to check for defects before putting it into service.
 
Mike Harvey said:
It's called "P2" :)
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p2 is hardly double the price close to 20x the price. If your budget alowes for a little more peace of mind you always have that option. Otherwise I have not had any issue with (2) Panny, (3) Transcend, (2) Patriot and (1) Delkin ePro when it comes to the HMC150...

(I did have 1 transcend 8gb corrupt itself between my computer and T1i somehow)

Take out the raid config and hard case of a P2 and you get a SDHC.

trevorward said:
Don't know if you guys see a pattern here? Exactly, what pattern? I should have spend an extra 2 G's and bought the HPX170.
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You can always sell it to me and get your HPX...
 
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WpgCameraMan said:
How do the clients feel about this ? Could they ask you to use a tape camera?
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Nobody's raised the issue yet, as I've never lost footage because of a failure. The only HD cams I own are strictly memory card-based, so they would have to go back to standard def if they wanted tape.
 
sewolla said:
How are the cards failing you? Just curious.

It would be interesting to know the nature of your card failures.
Click to expand...

My failure happened on a new 16GB Class 6 Panasonic card. I got the dreaded 'check card' warning in the camcorder, and it wouldn't mount on my Macs. After fiddling with the erase-lock switch on the side a few times it worked again, but after a couple of months it stopped working again.
 
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